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UPDATE, 11: 30 am: Mayor Charlie Hales and Commissioner Steve Novick this morning debuted a $46 million annual "Portland street fund" proposal anchored by an income tax, heavily weighted toward making rich people pay for street paving.
Perhaps the most interesting new revelation about the city's proposal: The fee is deductible from state and federal income taxes.
"No
one likes taxes," Hales said at a City Hall press conference. "No one
is going to love what we're putting on the table today. But we think
more people will be willing to go along with what we have today."
Hales
and Novick's previous plan was slammed as a tax on the poor. This one
moves sharply in the other direction: A singly-filing taxpayer making
more than $333,000 would pay $900 a year under the new residential fee proposal, while no one making less than $25,000 would pay at all.
Meanwhile, the business side of the fee—which received backlash in May by taxing churches and small businesses—now starts at $36 a year for the smallest shops, and tops out at $1,728 a year for hospitals and hotels.
Hales and Novick say 56 percent of the money collected
will go to paving and maintenance projects, while 44 percent will go to
safety projects like sidewalks and crosswalks. That's a crucial
concession to the Portland Business Alliance, which has demanded most of the money go to paving.
Speaking to media in City Hall, Hales reiterated his opposition to sending the street fund to voters.
"I have yet to hear anyone volunteer to lead a political campaign for passing this as a ballot measure," Hales said. "So I think this is a time when the government has to do its job—and this is our job."
ORIGINAL POST, 8:26 am: Today begins the end game for the Portland street fee.
Mayor Charlie Hales and City Commissioner Steve Novick will this morning unveil their final version of a tax they have long sought to fund road repair and safety projects.
The announcement will start the clock toward a Dec. 3 vote—where City Council will have to decide on the fee, and if they'll send it to voters.
The Portland Bureau of Transportation announced last night that the latest version of the fee will collect $46 million a year. It also gave the tax a new name: the "Portland Street Fund."
Public backlash to an earlier version of the fee caused Hales and Novick to delay a June vote. They spent much of the summer refining the plan through two citizen advisory groups.
But as late as last week, the structure of the fee remained uncertain—with two crucial blocs warring over who should be taxed, and where the money should go.
The Portland Business Alliance has lobbied City Hall to pass a flat fee on residents with a cap of $20 a month—and to spend most of the money on road maintenance.
Meanwhile, a coalition of 14 left-leaning policy groups—including environmental advocates 1000 Friends of Oregon—has asked Hales and Novick to pass an income tax with the largest burden on the rich. This coalition wants City Hall to spend a larger portion of the money on safety projects, including new sidewalks.
Who won that tug-of-war should be revealed this morning. What's still up in the air: Whether City Council will refer the fee to a public vote.
Hales and Novick have said they don't want to send the fee to voters. Commissioners Nick Fish and Dan Saltzman say they want a public vote. And the fee's historic opponents—including the petroleum lobby—pledged in the spring that if City Hall didn't refer it, someone would.
Hales spent much of the summer wooing business interests, and those groups haven't said if they still plan to collect signatures for a public vote.
WW news intern Gabriella Dunn contributed to this report.
WWeek 2015