Milwaukie rethinks light rail


Milwaukie voters chose two councilmembers who support a public vote on whether to contribute $5 million to a new light rail line.

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Milwaukie voters chose two councilmembers who support a public vote on the city’s $5 million pledge to TriMet for a new light rail line.

Dave Hedges and Mike Miller say the city can’t afford it, and now need only one more agreeable member of council to force a vote.

“Provided we are not under a binding legal obligation to pay the money, and the majority of the citizens say we shouldn’t pay it, I won’t put the citizens under that obligation,” Hedges said. “If the people of Milwaukie voted down the pledge, we would go back to TriMet and ask them what we would lose.”

Currently a member of the city’s budget committee, Miller expected that the budget for the next year would require even more cuts than last year. He didn’t want the city’s approximately $50 million budget to suffer from light rail when it was already suffering from a downturn in property values.

“We certainly don’t have the money in the budget to provide that $5 million right now,” he said.

Read more at the Clackamas Review.

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