The City Council hearing was yet another obvious stacked deck railroad job orchestrated by Commissioner Adams. The “public” hearing was scheduled to take place at 2:00 pm. After a half an hour or so of city staffers describing the program and then another hour and forty five minutes of speakers that Sam invited who had been a part of the decision making process and were paraded in front of the council, at a bout 4:15 pm subsequent to a number of people who wanted to testify leaving council chambers, the public finally had their window of opportunity to give input; but only after the mayor reduced the amount of time per person from the usual three minutes to a two minute sound bite.

Clearly the democratic process is broken here because those opposed to the proposals or portions of the proposals were not given “equal” time to present their case. Although I was able to give my written testimony to council members which they may or not read, I was unable to present the entire amount of verbal testimony I took time to prepare. For that reason I am posting that testimony here as follows:

The proposal before you today is deceptive because it seems PDOT has plenty of money to build a proliferation of curb extensions costing 20 to 50 thousand dollars a piece, and then not enough funding to repave streets.

The proposal is further deceptive because there is an illogical backwards priority to create more stop and go fuel consuming traffic congestion by making it difficult for trucks to maneuver, and giving rise to busses obstructing other traffic when stopping in travel lanes to board passengers, then spend more money to time signals as an attempt to remedy the congestion the curb extensions create.

The name Street Maintenance Fee is also deceptive because NOT all the money will be used for street maintenance, On his website, Commissioner Adams lists using the funds for “a significant investment in the bicycle network” as the first key component while “repairing all the arterials in poor and very poor condition” as the last one. The proposal is again further deceptive because it appears some basic decisions were made as pre-conceived special interest back room deals with the BTA and other lobbyists to fund bicycle infrastructure on the backs of taxpayers giving bicyclists a yet another preferential treatment freebee pass.

The proposal is both bias and deceptive because a bicycle tax was stifled out of the public conversation and kept off the table at the highly touted and tightly orchestrated town hall meetings. Providing bicycle infrastructure is NOT a right and needs to be paid for by the users. ..

The proposal is both manipulated and deceptive because the usual suspect bicycle and transit special interest advocates on the frequently referred to and stacked deck stakeholder committee out number representatives for taxpaying motorists and motor freight carriers by three to one. The word stakeholder on the committee can only be defined as those who receive politically motivated perks and free rides, not those who must pay for them.

In a city that prides itself for its non-discrimination policies, this proposal is none the less tax discrimination because of the huge chunk of money that is poised to pay for bicycle infrastructure, and because TriMet’s two axle busses do the heaviest damage to streets and roads; yet bicyclists and transit riders are in line to receive fee discounts on their residential utility bill tax. Further adding to the discrimination is households living in single family homes that are expected to pay more than households living in multi-unit housing.

Sharing the road must also mean sharing the financial responsibility!!!

Not only do bicyclists NOT pay their own way for the specialized infrastructure they use, they continually blame others never accepting responsibility for their own safety failures and mishaps. The majority of bicyclists, including many city employees, arrogantly ignore traffic control devices including not stopping at stop signs and blowing through red lights. This demonstrates a pattern of total lack of accountability and irresponsibility on the part of the bicycling community.

How can any of you annually increase sewer rates, horrendously increase garbage and recycle rates, support adding this deceptive and discriminatory tax to utility bills, and then sit around a table with a straight face and discuss how to achieve affordable housing. Utility bills are part of housing costs.

Several mandates need to take place here for this tax to become equitable: It is time the freeloading pedal pushers pay their own way with a bicycle tax instead of being subsidized by with housing costs. All households must be charged an equal rate. All immunities and discounts (except for low income) must be eliminated. And finally, all the money raised must go only for street repair and maintenance, not for special privilege sugar daddy bicycle and transit subsidies. This is a user tax, not a socialistic means to dictate how people travel or what type of housing they live in. Anything less than these equity mandates requires this tax as is must either be rejected, otherwise be challenged in court, go to a vote of the people or both.

And one additional note that was not part of my testimony, but assists in making the case to eliminate some of the residential discounts is that each TriMet bus chews up the roads equal to 22,000 cars (information directly from Sam’s office).
The figure was new to me but only supports my testimony.