Perhaps a better idea would be for the City of Portland to unify all the school districts operating within its boundaries, and force equity in the distribution of the public economic investment all of our children are entitled to.

The board of PPS continues to prove it has no interest in changing the way it blatantly favors our wealthiest neighborhoods with its public investment.

With a unified district, under the watch of an interested city council, we could share the wealth with the east side. We could also break the hold west-side elites have on our public schools, which has led to the increasingly segregated, two-tiered system we've been stuck with since Measure 5.

Who was the "upper middle class blogger" hyperventilating about it?

As another "upper middle class blogger" who has sometimes taken umbrage at Councilman Leonard's populism (the "no tape" nonsense, for example), this is one issue that I completely agree with him about.

There is a place where all the poorer people who are "gentrified" out of innter Portland are going - they just don't disappear into thin air. And an awful lot of them are moving to the David Douglas School District. Using redevelopment money to help that district build a needed school sounds A-OK with me.

Using redevelopment money may be A-OK, but it is important to ensure that we're not just reallocating funding that was meant for other equally important projects in outer-east Portland. Commissioner Saltzman's proposal to simply sluff the controversy off and have the Lents Urban Renewal area foot the bill instead is doing exactly that. Even if more acreage is added to generate additional funding, the process would still siphon staff time and attention toward building a school, rather than doing the real economic development that could do more to solve school funding problems in the long run. Not to mention adding funding means adding yet another 30% for housing, and up to 20% to cover the cost of staff time, if that is indeed bugeted. 19 million suddenly turns into 28.5 million of projects that were never called for in the Urban Renewal Plan, created by the residents of Lents and Powellhurst Gilbert.

New schools are nice, but not when they come in the form of a trade off. Most neighborhoods are never put in the position of choosing between a new school or more jobs and a grocery store. It's unfortunate that the discussion has even turned to dipping into resources, including staff time, meant for the Lents Town Center. Even though Commissioner Saltzman's proposal solves a problem of geography, the reallocation of funding is even more egregious when applied to Lents rather than the River District.

Let's just poll the blogosphere to decide whether or not this is a good idea. Better yet, let's just poll lefty blogs and ask them if more "free money" for schools is a good idea.

Never mind the fact the City Attorney opined that it's not legal. Together with a who's-who of PDC experts. Why let that stand in the way of populism?

L'etat, c'est Randy!

Thanks for this post, Randy. I agree with you 100% and I hope you'll continue to find ways to bring better services and more responsive government to the disadvantaged areas of the eastside.

I also hope you'll oppose the idea mentioned in the Oregonian of redrawing the Lents URA and funding the school project from those funds.

The Lents URA has yet to experience the benefits of the URA program. There's a citywide consensus, I think, that the Lents area needs more support and more time to work. The current Lents expansion plan is great and should go through, but taking these additional funds from Lents would mean (yet again) shafting the needs of Lents and the Foster corridor.

There's not a single good reason why, after all these decades of urban renewal, the City can't move funds from areas that are exceeding expectations to those that aren't. I'm glad you're fighting for this and I hope you'll get the community's support.

John

OK< so does this mean you are against urban renewal districts? Because SoWa is gonna take a lot more money to fix that it will generate in 20 years.

How about scrapping the whole idea and merely spending money where it is needed - INstead of playing big guys with taxpayre money while you tweak SIM CITY?

It's confusing how the expenditure of funds intended for the revitalization of one city district could find a justification for use in another, entirely different district on the other side of the city.

Urban Planning Overlord says:

"There is a place where all the poorer people who are "gentrified" out of innter Portland are going - they just don't disappear into thin air.".

How exactly will the money be coming from "...the Pearl District;" , as Leanord says? Will these funds just be a diversion of leftover urban renewal funds from that district, or something else?

I wonder why people have to be gentrified out of places like the Pearl in the first place. In that district, they knocked down older, lower level buildings and built new, taller buildings. Why couldn't they just have built the new buildings a little taller and provided some floors with replacement low income housing in them? This would have avoided displacing people and allowed a far more efficient concentration of amenities and services needed by a diverse, growing population.

I think the goal of helping David Douglas SD is worthy. But there are significant legal issues involved, and there is a strong possibility that the move will be legally challenged and overturned. The memo shows that the City Attorney said it might be legal, but she raised a number of serious concerns.

On a larger level, why extend the River District urban renewal at all? If it has been wildly successful (and it has), why not let it expire so that the taxes start going into the general fund? Once there, the City would have much more flexibility to use them on an array of different projects. There is still the complicated issue of whether the city can spend its money on building schools, but I'd have to think that's an easier legal argument to make.

So why extend the URA at all, Randy?

I will be one hell of a lot more convinced of the sincerity of Randy Leonard's "whole city" approach, or whatever you want to call it, if he ever manages to divorce himself from Sam Adams' schemes and boondoggles, the Sauvie Island Bridge relocation proposal being only the most recent, obvious one. As things stand, the proposal to use the urban-renewal moneys to build a school in outer SE Portland just feels to me like a sop--a bone thrown to progressives and Leonard's alleged constituency in outer SE Portland--and a nice way to divert attention from the fact that Leonard has shed his workingman's persona in favor of playing with the big-money developers and schemers. And judging by some of the comments in this thread, Mr. Leonard has done a very nice job of suckering progressives.

From my reading of Linda Meng's February letter to Mayor Potter (as linked by Jack Bog above) it appears that there are two potential pitfalls awaiting an attempt to funnel some of the URA funding to David Douglas:

First, the requirement that URA funds be applied to a "blighted" region. It could be difficult to justify development of a site already owned by the district which suffers no major issues (other than the lack of a school building already there, of course) as addressing "blight."

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, the funding could be challenged on a Constitutional basis under Measure 5. The risk Meng describes in such a scenario is that it could force the rest of PPS to lower their tax revenue in order to keep the entire region under Measure 5 limits.

In general, I love the idea of being able to apply urban renewal funds to areas that are truly in need, as opposed to those who have already reaped the benefits of extensive public and private investment. If a legal n00b like me can grok this many potential attacks against the proposal, though, I'm not sure how likely it is to survive a serious court challenge.

Linda Meng's opinion states:

However, if the intention is to add only the proposed school site, I have not been able to find anything in the definition of blight that would encompass a piece of bare land that is suitable for development except for the financial condition of its owner. {Meng's opinion later observes} Although there is no question the City can fund construction of parks and recreation facilities and community centers, there remains a question whether or not it can fund construction of school classrooms.

It is absurd for Commissioner Leonard to suggest this concept "did not violate any local or state laws" as Linda Meng's opinion (as well as the opinion of outside "Legislative Counsel" hired for this purpose) identified several possible violations of law.

Why would Commissioner Leonard choose to mislead the public on this topic? Why not acknowledge the proposal is fraught with legal risks, and then outline a strategy to remedy or mitigate the risks?

One possible explanation is that Commissioner Leonard knows the proposal is likely to fail, and will use this "defeat" as reason to seek a quid pro quo whereby the David Douglas School District would sell property to the City of Portland at an above market price (the proceeds from which would help fund the new construction).

Which begs the question: what does David Douglas School District own that Commissioner Leonard wants?

"Why would Commissioner Leonard choose to mislead the public on this topic?"

He's Randy Leonard and his ways are not the ways of mere mortals - or haven't you heard. His entire career has been huffing and puffing quite hard on behalf of the union so why should something like the law stop him - he's Randy!

I too grew up in Portland and attended two out of three of the now closed lower grade schools in my neighborhood in NE Portland. The two primary grade schools were built in the mid-50’s. One is being used as offices and the other I believe a pre-school program. The heritage center piece school was built in several stages starting in 1911 and under went major renovations inside a few years back. I attended Madison High School which at that time had 2400 students, second in Portland only to Grant with 2800 students. Throughout my school years in Portland, class sizes averaged 35 students, some I have been told from a former school district employee were as high as 40. Back then the teachers were not the chronic complainers they are to day. They did their best, some better than others, to give us an education.

I bring this all up because Portland Public Schools has been has been giving teachers a social break by lowering class sizes including luxury mini-classes instead keeping up with the maintenance of buildings thereby letting many of schools decay to the point of needing major renovations. Many of these buildings however are structurally sound, icons of neighborhoods and need to be preserved. That is where the rip comes in. The money for this proposed satellite district is coming from tax increment property taxes located within the Portland Public School District (PPS). The need for dollars in PPS for school infrastructure is just as great, if not greater than in David Douglas. Additionally, the property tax increment dollars the Portland Development Commission receives from urban renewal districts deprives PPS (if spent wisely) of much needed funding. Therefore, if a circle can be drawn on a map to fund a new school in the David Douglas in an non-blighted area, then circles on a map must also be drawn around all the schools in PPS needing repairs (blighted) or renovation (even more blighted). This is only fair to the taxpayers of PPS. Property owners within the PPS district should not have to pay extra taxes through a special levy to fix and repair schools while David Douglas receives a free new school with PPS deprived dollars. Moreover, maybe if David Douglas needs more space, they could use some of the now empty PPS buildings that aren’t yet falling apart.

"Now that it's garbage time in your campaign, you can throw around another meaningless Pearl-bash here, but there are other people all over the city who see how all wet this is. Including the county and the Portland Public Schools."

<h2>Sorry to be late to the party with this post but actually, Jack, the county capitulated to this plan amendment. Read the fine print - there is $25 million allocated to Multnomah County for capital projects within the district.</h2>