Terry-

To be fair, I think one needs to admit that paying for development today with that development's future taxes cannot be construed as "siphoning off public funds" - for the simple reason that those funds wouldn't even exist in the future if they weren't put towards the economic development/urban renewal goals you criticize.

While the City of Portland will be waiting a bit longer to collect those taxes, we are growing the tax base and will reap new revenue that would not have existed otherwise. It is fair to question the length of time we defer collecting those taxes, but to say that we are taking money away from vital public services is a stretch.

And yes - we do have a lot of needs today that need to be attended to. But the reality is that the SoWa development is not exacerbating the problem since, again, those are tax dollars that aren't in city coffers right now (so they aren't being "diverted").

And at risk of sounding like a broken record, LID funds are contributions agreed to by property owners in particular neighborhoods for specific infrastructure projects; by law and design, they cannot go to schools, police or other social services.