Held to answer

Gone are the days when Portland City Commissioner Steve Novick could create a sensation simply by opening a bottle of beer.

Back in 2008, when he was running for U.S. Senate, one of his ads showed him on a bar stool talking politics to a guy who was having trouble getting the cap off his beer.

Novick reached over with his artificial left hand – equipped with a hook – and yanked off the cap.

“We can’t afford politics as usual,” Novick says in the ad. “It’s going to take a whole new level.”

Novick narrowly lost that Senate race but captured the public’s interest.

Besides his left hook, he stood only 4-foot-9, had a Harvard degree and always had a one-liner. By the time he easily won a city council seat in 2012, he was being treated like a lovable Portland mascot.

This week at a Town Hall meeting in North Portland, Novick looked like just another politician.

He and Mayor Charlie Hales sat before a feisty crowd of about 150 people, many of whom denounced a proposal by Novick and Hales to tax residents and businesses for street maintenance. Novick, Hales and their city staff call it a street fee. The people who will have to pay it consider it a tax.

For residents, the rates could reach $72 the first year, $108 the second year and $144 the third year. (Business owners would pay a range of higher rates.)

It isn’t that the residents don’t want potholes and sidewalks repaired. They are upset that the streets have been deteriorating for decades, while the city has spent billions of tax dollars on street cars, light rail and bicycle lanes (consider the no-car Tillicum Bridge opening next year). On top of that, they feel insulted that their mode of transportation – automobiles – is portrayed as plebeian and hopelessly 20th Century.

At least 45 persons stood and spoke. Many of them crammed financial snapshots of their lives into the two minutes they were each allowed to speak.

By the end of the evening, the Town Hall resembled an Occupy protest, with the audience of citizens, mostly middle-aged and older, representing the 99 percent. Hales, Novick and city staff represented the 1 percent.

Here’s what some of Portland’s 99 percent had to say:

“I have friends and family who can’t meet necessities” – Hans Michael. 

“We used to take family vacations … can’t afford those anymore. … I don’t understand where you think we are going to come up with these extra dollars” – Gary Knox.

“I’m on a fixed income. I work part-time and own a small business. … Every time I look up, you guys are charging something. I used to make pretty good money … ” – Gwen Stokes.

“I’m very upset at all these taxes. I’m on a fixed income, I used to make good money … I’m an artist. Where is that (Arts Tax) money being all divvied up? … My property taxes are going up” – Shirley Nanette, jazz singer.

“We are overtaxed. I live on Social Security … raising six of my grandchildren … I’m not going to pay. I’m not going to do it. I can’t afford it. … Only time you come to the neighborhoods is when you’re running for office … Nobody’s at my door saying, ‘How are you doing with these six kids?’” – a North Portland woman.

The mostly white audience fell into a natural call-and-response when Woody Broadnax, a black speaker, called out “We hired them to fix the problem, not to come to us.” (“Yeah, yeah.”)

“We have to be smart about this and follow the money trail… .” (“Right. Yes, yes.”)

“We want truth and accountability… .” (“Oh, yeah.”)

King Jay, who said he represented the Oregon Black Museum, thanked all the people who looked like him for coming out and thanked all those who didn’t look like him for coming out.

“This money is taking food out of children’s mouths,” he said.

Jay turned to Hales and Novick: “I voted for both of you … I had some confidence in you when I voted for you, so I’m not here to beat you up.”

Then he held up an envelope – a dunning notice from the City of Portland ordering him to pay last year’s and this year’s Arts Tax.

“I don’t know if ‘extortion’ is the proper word,” Jay said.

This is not a slice of Portland that will be featured in Sunset magazine or the travel section of the New York Times. These folks will not work their way through The Oregonian’s Top 40 Restaurants.

Some of them probably did vote for the Arts Tax two years ago – $35 a head unless you can prove you’re too poor. It could be that the Arts Tax approval by voters in the 2012 General Election gave Hales and Novick the idea that they could pull off a street fee/tax.

But the Arts Tax later came under fire after voters realized what they had approved. (The voter turnout was higher than usual; it was a presidential race, and Portland is heavily Democratic.)

Even Novick scored some applause when he told the Town Hall audience that he voted no on the Arts Tax because he thought it was unfair. Yet here he was pushing a street tax.

“That’s out of desperation. … You cannot be a functioning city without a functioning transportation system,” he said.

A functioning transportation system in Portland in the 21st Century has to include cars. Unfortunately, in the late 20th Century, Portland’s elected leaders and city bureaucrats planned for a car-free future that has yet to arrive and is not likely to arrive anytime soon (absent something like World War III).

Just how out of touch are the visionaries at Portland City Hall?

Leah Treat, who earns $174,000 as Portland’s transportation director, declared earlier this year at a City Club forum that most people in their 20s “don’t want to own cars.”

She loves her bikes so much, she has named them (one of them was stolen while it was parked overnight at City Hall, which begs the question of how she got home if her bike was left at work overnight).

Treat thinks it’s “really cool” that the Tillicum Bridge won’t be open to cars.

“To our knowledge it’s the first bridge in North America that’s built to handle car capacity and won’t handle cars. That’s insane. That’s really, really cool,” she said in an interview with The Oregonian.

At a community forum in April to promote the future of more light rail and more bicycles, this time in Southwest Portland, Novick reminisced about living in Washington D.C. where he lost weight because the transit was so good, and he didn’t need a car.

True, the subway system in the D.C. is good. When a company I once worked for sent me to D.C. for four months, I didn’t take my car. I rode the subway and used taxis. But my company also set me up in a nice apartment in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood within easy walking distance of a Metro stop.

We don’t all live the same lifestyle. And Leah Treat’s 20-something’s who don’t want to own cars are not going to stay 20-something.

The woman who complained that the only time politicians pretend to listen is when they are running for office was right. And the only time that public officials like Treat pretend to listen is when they are trying to sway the uninformed masses.

At public forums, these public employees play the public servant. They are solicitous. They furrow their brows with calculated concern. They are quick with apologies. But they are convinced their expertise means they know better. They press on with what they want to do.

The Charlie Haleses and the Steve Novicks and the Leah Treats spend most of their time talking and listening to each other.

With Hales and Treat it’s not surprising. But Novick was supposed to be different. He isn’t.

At the Town Hall as one speaker after another hurried through their allotted time, Novick’s eyes moved slowly back and forth, as if he were planning an escape, as if he’d heard enough and was ready to bolt.

That’s what he did when the Town Hall ended.

He dashed out of the room as fast as his legs could carry him.

Too bad. It could have been interesting to have a beer with Steve Novick.

Instead, a friend and I headed over to the White Eagle Saloon on North Russell Street. From the front windows you can look out and still see signs of North Portland’s industrial district. Across the way is an apartment house that probably once provided affordable housing for people who worked in the neighborhood.

When a young woman came to take our order, we told her we had been to the Town Hall meeting on the street tax. Had she heard about the street tax?

Yes, she had, but she didn’t have a strong opinion on it.

“I live out in Gresham,” she told us. “I can’t afford to live in Portland.”

– Pamela Fitzsimmons