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During the campaign I spoke to Commissioner Adams about improving the transportation options we, the public, have, and recently I mailed to all the City Council members and others a letter on transportation in which I pointed out some areas that lack adequate service. I guess the Post Office swallowed it because I have heard so much as a peep from anyone.
I don't mean to be rude and I hope that this is not taken that way, but I am sometimes a bit too blunt.
Many people in Portland and its environs do not have access to adequate transportation services and thus are unable, through no fault of their own, to fully partcipate in the local economy. They lack access to jobs, education, healthcare, etc. simply because they do not have their own vehicle and at the same time there is limited service from Trimet. Low income people pay a huge percentage of their income for transportation. I suggested in the past and I will suggest now that there needs to be some concern for improving transit options. And I will strongly suggest that we need to consider opening the market to other providers, be they Mom and Pop operations, single part-timers, or corporations. Jitneys, ride sharing cabs, etc. all need to be part of the equation. There is no reason for Trimet to have a monopoly, nor is there any reason for the taxi cartel we now have. The rules have to change if we expect to improve the economic situation for many in our area.
And from a personal point, this lack of options has a large imapct on my family. And if anyone is so inclined to think I wish to get in the business and that is why I am suggesting this, let me assure them that is not the case.
Thank you,
Michael

Hi Warren and Sam,

One of the best ways of improving the economic health of women and their families is to help women plan for and space their children. Lowering the rate of unintended pregnancy by improving access to family planning services is one of the ways to do this, and it's measurable. We already know the current rate, and we also know the number of women who don't have access to comprehensive health services -- including family planning. I suggest adding an indicator and working collectively to help women and their families by increasing access.

Thank you,

David

Making every effort to assure that businesses of all sizes and types in the Portland area succeed is vital to the economic health of our region. The City of Portland government and other regional political bodies can help achieve this in two ways:

1. By providing easy to access and easy to understand
business regulatory informatio for those contemplating
entrepreneur ship as well as those already in business.

2. By making sure that business liscensing, taxing and fee
schedules, ordinances and other regulations foster
rather than hinder business growth ... this probably can
best be accomplished by forming a business advisory
forum made up of a wide variety of business types and
sizes for the purpose of advising the city and other
regional government bodies on such just such issues.

I want to make sure that Portland works on the problems it can directly impact and solve. We have worked very hard over the last 15 years to create a lousy, underperforming local economy in Portland. Much of our core problems are hidden by looking at our economy on a regional basis. Jobs and high incomce earners are fleeing the represive taxes of Portland and Multnomah county. It does not show up regionally as many of the jobs and employers are just jumping county lines. But it does hurt Portland as those high wage earners start supporting their new local communities and drop support for Portland. Portland needs to focus on Portland based solutions. The problems are well known...Portland has paid for 11 different studies over the last 15 years on its local busieness climate and has failed to adopt real change to reverse the job loss. Jobs and company profits provide a community to provide the service its members needa and want. No jobs and profits mean a failing community. The time to act is now.

Hi Sam,

I think that the most important measures would be those that measure quality of life. As a lifelong Oregonian, I have watched the state change, with more "high income earners" and more income stratification, and more "economic development". Portland is a great city and you don't have to earn a high income to have a good life here. I think that is what we need to protect.

I am also a small business person. Oregon is a small business state. Small and locally owned businesses give our metro area much, much more resiliency in varying economic times, and they give our community more character (Look around at all of the most interesting businesses in town -- the ones that make Portland what Portland is.) I don't know that we need to support growth of large businesses, but I think we definitely should foster growth of new businesses and policies that are fair for and inclusive of small business.

What's wrong with the benchmarks???

Sorry I can't take your survey. The problem with "bad" cookies has made us increase security. Perhaps another format would allow secure sites to participate.

when wanting to describe a location in more meaningful ways than the current metrics, combining them to provide indices is the common approach. For instance median home cost divided by median income.

I agree with Carl VanderZanden'sa comments, above. Also, we need to regulate the growth of housing units. We can sell this city to the highest bidder, internationally, anytime, and make zillions of high rises. But it has ruined our employment market. (Now acknowledged by the Oregon Employment Department). We already have a creative class, we don't need to import one. Slow, creative growth in both city and country is the only way to grow. We need more "job units", not "housing units".

As a downtown resident, two things stick out as to whether I can afford to stay here:
1. When a large corporation receives a tax break from the city, county, or state, the most community minded contribution they can make is to pay a livable wage, not $7.25. Many of the hundreds of service industry jobs in this town are paying enough for a person, no less a family, to eek a living pay day to pay day.
2. At this point, beware over overtaxing, similar to what I characterize as those scene in the "Popeye" movie with Robin Williams. Little things like the current interest in cell phone tax and the Multnomah County Tax, push a lot of downtown residents to the point of barely getting by. It takes people of all classes to make a city happen, not just those who buy $500,000 condos.

your highlighted web page link does not take me to the online survey.

Boy, not an easy question and one that deserves more than an e-mail might provide and no one likes e-mail treatises....:
a. Don't reinvent the dashboard. Look at the Benchmarks and ask what do I want to know that this is not telling me? Quality of life issues, affordable and multiple transportation options etc.
b. Business success: well there's a whole industry that claims devotion to metrics on this one, (change in sales, assets, jobs created & retained (whatever retained might mean), but they need to be matched to business size, owner goals, growth potential. Many of the metrics should be owner quality of life measures for small business owners (minimum of regulatory headaches, security, quality of dialogue with neighborhoon associations and residents, etc.)

I would keep the eco-devo metrics and try to figure out how to measure what else is important.

What do I think is important? Allow for different growth and prosperity assumptions without discounting others' assumptions. (That doesn't mean don't question them.) Compare them, compare the future's they imply. Then try to get people to decide what's more important.

Sam, Thanks for asking the right question. Here's my priority. Every great city - the places where people generally want to be, whether to live or to vacation - are on the water. Portland is blessed with the Willamette and - we sometimes seem to forget - the Columbia Rivers. Let's make them more the focus of our sustainability, commerce, quality of life, invigorating & efficient transportation (starting with the Willamette Ferry), and nature close to home - all catalytic to a growing economy. (This is something we can do that Hillsboro and Beaverton cannot!) Among other things this means we'll need a no wake zone on the river downtown and the freeway must eventually move or go !

I also asked my son, Patrick, your question; he'll be 18 in a few days, is a senior at Grant, and has been working for One Economy Inc. for over two years. His answers were: small and locally owned businesses are the best thing about Portland, keep Portland low cost (v. imp. to young people), add affordable housing for these young (and older) entrepeneurs to get a start, schools have got to be better or no one will have successful businesses here, and focus even harder on sustainability so we can thrive during the upcoming (and probably long) energy crisis.

Good thoughts from one of the next leaders. Good luck to you!

R. Peter Wilcox, President
Renewal Associates, LLC & RiversWest

Hi Sam,

When we were doing the Hillsboro comprehensive land use plan back in '75 we asked citizens to name three cities they'd like to live in, and why, and three cities they wouldn't like to live in, and why. Virtualy all of the cities folks cited as 'like to live in" had two things in common, a large accesible river running through it (or a harbor) and strongly identified neighborhoods, i.e. London.

As far as measuring livibility I'd suggest tieing into the Oregon benchmarks with some specific additions, for example, relating to affordable housing. Actually you'd be doing affordable housing advocates a favor because its almost impossible to gather meaningful affordable housing data annually.

From my understanding one of the the most important parts of a healthy economy is the strength of the small business. And last time I checked small business pays the largest amount collectively of tax. It would be nice to have tax incentive programs that would give breaks to small businesses that had a percentage of growth, that was in the best interest of the city or state. Tracking info has shown that buying local keeps 70 percent of the money in the local economy. And buying from larger national companies you keep 30 percent spent in circulation. I wish there was a way of helping people understand on how there money works once it leaves their hands. The more Education on this subject would work wonders

Who bombed City Hall in 1970?

Regarding public investmet to spark the economy, what public investments produce the largetst ROI of private resources? This is an essential question to answer in the different sectors. Transportation, for example, can spark the economy. Does adding a freeway lane improve the economy more than buidling a Street Car line? How do these investments help Portland compared to our regional partners?

Answering these questions can help bring data to leverage state and federal funding to improve the economy.

Portland should never invite commerce and industry into our aria to "make jobs". When we make jobs, a person from out of the aria will take the job and his/her spouce will cvompete for one of our jobs. It will also drive housing prices up and increase housing density. If you improve livability, the economy will take care of it'self

Thanks for asking. I hope you are in close contact with the Oregon Center for Public Policy to determine what economic measures reflect needs of typical people, not the fat cats. As I'm sure you are aware, the OCPP is a great resource for understanding the meaning behind the numbers. Side note: How many people are willing to risk losing their good insurance at their "real jobs" to start new businesses? A strong social safety net supports local economic growth. (My answers to the survey wouldn't be yes/no type answers, so I didn't fill it out.)

STOP THE TAXES
Live with what we have in the tax pool. Stop the spending like we have an endless supply of funds.
The planning department together with the rest of the bureaus have driven me out of the portland market.
The land theft desguised as wild life habitat and the attacks on private property rights finished the job. I have moved Millions out of this area and even though we are life long residents of Portland we will also likely move out of the area before someone comes up with another scheme to steal more of our hard earned assets.
Soulution:
Stop the private property theft. If the public needs land pay for it.
Become more respondsive to small business with out each and every department wanting an dump truck full of money just to set up and do business in the Portland area.
Despite the rosey paint some try to use business people are FEED UP with Portland,Metro and Mutl. Politics!!!!

The only thing that sticks out in my mind when I started a small business serval years ago was a particular city fee. The business was required to put in a 225 foot sidewalk on the backside of the building, no enttrances loacted there. Seemed resonable to extend foot traffic in the neighborhood (Gateway District). When I applied for the required for the city permit I found that the permit cost more than the sidewalk. I completed the project in order to get the "Occupancy Permit" but I felt it exemplified the concept of the right hand not knowing what the left hand was doing in government.

Thanks for asking Sam, I hope my views and experiences are helpful in your attempt to "fine tune" this great city.
It's a fact that small business promotes economic health.
Approximately 85% of business' in the U.S.A. employ 25 people or less. With that said, I feel these are a few issues that need to be addressed to re-build economic growth in Portland. Funding is almost non-existant for small business growth within the first 5 years. The City of Portland offers no incentives for small business to purchase industrial property while giving big corporations a great deal to employ minimum wage workers who along with small business owners pay their taxes. If small business' were afforded the same tax breaks and financial assistance to purchase new or restore older industrial property they would become vested in their city as well as inspiring their community. Compounding the problem is the fact that The City of Portland is making it increasingly difficult to cut through the quagmire of petty "compliance" red tape it generates for small business. Small business needs to generate business not waste valuable time wallowing in red tape. A grassroots organization called "Think local first" stated: approximatly 70% of the money generated by local small business stays within the community, while only 10% of the revenue generated by large corporations stays in Oregon. Local entrepreneurs offer great value to our economic growth. We live, work, and entertain locally. We inspire and offer insight to other local entrepreneurs to help them acheive success. We give back because it's the right thing to do. Because a home is made by the people who live there. My home is here in Portland.
Richard Kiely

In this survey, I was disappointed to find that you focus on the question of how to measure whether efforts have been successful ("business profitability," "percentage growth"). I think the focus should be on identifying the things we need to do.

Of course I realize that you need to determine the goal in order to determine the steps to be taken, but you know the goal: business success. Into how many pieces does that goal need to be divided?

Moreover, statistical comparisons to the national average are not as meaningful as statistics measuring whether or not we are improving.

Chris Minor

Portland must be competitive in relationship to the "cost of doing business" to the rest of the United States. Most people think that taxes or the lack of them because of special incentives will help create more JOB's. Oregon and Portland are competitive to the rest of the U.S. We do not have to give major breaks and force the rest of the public and other businesses to pick up the tab. The real problem to keeping existing businesses and bringing in new business and good family wage JOB's is the cost of utilities, fuel, wages, and the killer and that is transportation. The transportation issue can be spelled out in the total lack of freight mobility in our region. We have spent to much time, energy and money on Light Rail without taking care of our vital ability to move freight and stay competitive. without the ability to move freight and commerce we will price ourselves out the U.S. and world markets. An example is I-5 through Portland. A decision was made a long time ago that the I-5 corridor was adequate. We have a wonderful industrial location called Rivergate with only limited access. When P.C. transportation planners get there hands on it they propose a MAX line out to the EXPO Center. It does not solve any freight mobility problem. The solution is bypassing I-5 with a new corridor dedicated to freight and JOB's. The Bi-State Industrial Corridor proposal running next to the BNSF RR line and Portland Street connecting Vancouver Washington with a new crossing of the Columbia River going all the way to HWY 30 is the solution. This eliminate all industrial traffic off the historic St Johns bridge. This eliminate 70% of the freight traffic off of I-5. It increases tax base and pays for its self.

Paul

The prosperity of the region should be measured, not only by the establishment of new small businesses and their rates of growth, but also the diversity people that own them. Does the Portland small business entrepreneurial climate reflect the cultural fabric from which our city is woven? Urban renewal projects such as I-5, the Coliseum complex, and Emmanual Hospital drastically reduced the numbers of minority-owned businesses in those areas, but replacement business incubators in the adjacent neighborhoods have been decades in the making. Encouragement and incentives should be given to well capitalized non-minority investors to partner with promising minority start-up firms and mentor their development. The programs of local micro-enterprise lenders should be widely promoted. This is fertile ground for an innovative think-tank to take up the task.

Greg

Improving the % of $ that stays in the metro region would be a good indication of an improving economy.
We need 1) more discussion of the benefits of spending at locally-based shops, (eg, they, in turn, buy from local retail & professionals, they pay better wages & give more to local causes;) & 2) legal regulations to reduce the loss of $ out of the region to chains' HQs, especially those of "killer" big boxes, the retailers that cause net loss of jobs as they put local shops out of business & require local housing, food & health support for their underpaid employees.
They cause a loss of community, too, the sense of place, uniqueness & cohesion as all shops look the same from coast to coast, but I'm not sure how you measure that beyond such impacts as those above.

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