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Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler last week released his proposed $8.2 billion budget for the next fiscal year.
In it, Wheeler proposed that the Kerby Garage, the weathered North Portland garage where 40 city mechanics and welders repair 2,400 of the city’s largest vehicles, receive $1.1 million in excess Portland Clean Energy Funds to pay for a relocation lease at a Swan Island facility.
Kerby Garage and the mechanics who work on the underbelly of massive vehicles were the subject of a WW April cover story. The garage, which has been the city’s primary facility for fleet maintenance since 1972, is falling apart: Its roof is failing and its floors are violently sloped. There’s no modern fire suppression system and no air conditioning. The space is so small that vehicles are carefully crammed in every day like a jumbo game of Tetris.
And yet, seven times over the past 50 years, efforts to build a new Kerby or find a new Kerby have failed within City Hall.
Wheeler’s proposed budget—which recommends that excess Portland Clean Energy Fund revenues pay the first year lease cost of a Kerby relocation to a Swan Island facility—shows that this time around, there’s some political will behind replacing the Kerby. (Excess PCEF funds are slated to fill a number of budget gaps faced by city bureaus this upcoming year.)
Still, Wheeler’s recommendation is just the first step of the Kerby actually relocating. What’s more important: The city bureaus that pay the Kerby to repair their vehicles—the Portland Bureau of Transportation, the Portland Water Bureau, the Portland Police Bureau and the Bureau of Environmental Services, among others—must agree this fiscal year to a 20-year loan repayment plan in order for the Kerby to relocate. That’s because preparing the Swan Island facility to be the city’s fleet garage requires $53 million in upfront improvements and infrastructure. Kerby’s customer bureaus would have to agree to fund those repairs through a 20-year debt repayment plan.
In other big news from the mayor’s proposed budget: He’s recommended that Portland Street Response be fully funded and that Portland Fire and Rescue be fully funded. Portland Street Response was put on the table for potential cuts by City Commissioner Rene Gonzalez earlier this year, a proposal met with strong feelings from those that support non-police responses to those suffering from mental illness on the streets.
The City Council will vote on the mayor’s proposed budget next week.