But You Promised!

You know, like when President Bush droned on Tuesday night during the State of the Union and you flashed back to 2003 when he swore WMDs were just around the corner in Iraq?

Or like when O.J. Simpson vowed to find the real killers?

We know those promises were broken. But what about locally? What pledges have been made that were not kept? What oaths have not been honored by local politicians, authors, boosters, businesses, basketball fans and, yes, even WW?

Aren't you dying to know?

This will be a good read...we promise.

^The Political Promises

"Temporary" insanity

The promise makers: Multnomah County Chair Diane Linn, former Portland Mayor Vera Katz, and a multitude of civic groups and government officials

The promise: In 2003, they successfully pitched a three-year, 1.25 percent local income tax—the first of its kind in Oregon—to Multnomah County voters. They promised it would be a "temporary" measure to keep classrooms functioning smoothly while giving the Legislature time to come up with a long-term fix.

What they actually said: "It gives us time to find a statewide solution without destroying our local schools," said Sharon Meigh-Chang of the Portland Council of PTAs in the 2003 Multnomah County Voters Pamphlet.

So what happened? This May, Portland city voters will be asked again to pass another "temporary" tax for schools. While the rest of Multnomah County will escape, Portlanders will be asked to do what they were promised they wouldn't have to.

What they say now: "I don't see it as a broken promise," says Ann Nice, president of the Portland Association of Teachers. "We did what we said we'd do." The volunteer group Help Out Public Education put it this way on a recent flier: "The clear message Portland Public Schools got from the last Legislature was, 'Save yourself—don't look to the state.'"

Cutting through it all: To honor their promise, local school advocates would have had to persuade the state Legislature to increase school funding by more than $1 billion above the $5.2 billion lawmakers approved last year for all of Oregon or find another way to cover the $93 million per year for county schools raised by the local income tax.

They didn't. So the new four-year, city-only tax plan unveiled last week by Portland Mayor Tom Potter would allow for two legislative sessions to push for statewide reforms.

So how pissed should voters be? This time, if and when you hear the word "temporary," know that it's unlikely given the track record. —Ian Demsky

Does this train seem empty to you?

The promise maker: TriMet

The promise: The new 5.8-mile Interstate MAX Yellow Line from downtown to the Expo Center in North Portland will draw 13,900 riders every weekday.

What they actually said: The final environmental-impact statement in 1999 for the line included that ridership projection. And just after the line opened, TriMet operations director Bob Nelson was quoted in the May 13, 2004, Oregonian as saying, "We'll surely hit or exceed that [goal]."

So what happened? Current weekday ridership averages 11,800, or 15 percent below projections.

What they say now: TriMet spokesman Bruce Solberg said that after those ridership projections were made in 1999, "9/11 occurred and the Portland metro area has faced one of the highest unemployment levels in the country. Fewer jobs appear to be a big factor in the current ridership numbers."

Cutting through it all: Certainly, Portland's economy was more robust in 1999. But TriMet reiterated its ridership promise in 2004. And while TriMet's older Blue and Red Lines have topped predictions, the only happy face the agency can put on its website about the Interstate Line is that it "has exceeded ridership on the former bus line serving Interstate Avenue"—a small boast for a $350 million project. —Craig Mosbaek

^The Entertainment Promises

Where is the (follow-up to Geek) Love? The author has come un-Dunn.

The promise maker: Portland-based author Katherine Dunn

The promise: Former WW columnist Dunn, one of Portland's finest writers and the author of National Book Award finalist Geek Love, pledged 17 years ago to write another novel .

What she actually said: Dunn told London's The Guardian newspaper in an Aug. 19, 1989, interview that she was busy on her fourth novel, then titled The Cut Man, which was already under contract with Knopf (the publisher of Geek Love). "'The cut man in boxing is the person who stops the bleeding in a boxing match. The new novel is about boxing and serial killers," Dunn said.

So what happened? No Cut Man, but lots of great journalism—Dunn remains one of the better boxing writers in the United States and contributed to the award-winning School of Hard Knocks: The Struggle for Survival in America's Toughest Boxing Gyms. While that all may ultimately add great detail to Cut Man, fans of Dunn's vivid, warped imagination want fiction, not recaps of boxing matches.

What she says now: Dunn politely refused WW's interview request. Her agent, Richard Pine, told The New York Times in 2004, "Katherine once told me that writers are like faucets ... Some drip and some are on free flow. She drips, and she's happy dripping." In a more recent email interview, Pine told WW, "I don't know when Katherine will deliver Cut Man, but I do know that she's working on it and, like her many fans, I look forward to reading it soon after she's typed 'The End.'"

Cutting through it all: Knopf is currently scheduling Cut Man for a September 2008 release. —Karla Starr

We promised you a (full) Rose Garden

The promise makers: Portland Trail Blazers fans

The promise: Disgruntled Blazer believers burned their season tickets but vowed to return to the Rose Garden as soon as the hoops team axed its most notorious bad characters, even if it meant the Blazers started losing.

^The Offbeat Promise

Stitchin' and bitchin'

The promise maker: Jocelyn O'Shea, a 23-year-old fiber and textile artist and student living in North Portland.

The promise: In an effort to both motivate herself as an artist and to ensure her work doesn't collect dust in the closet, O'Shea made a New Year's resolution to wear the dress she knit out of old bed sheets —a 200-hour endeavor she completed in December—every single day . That is, until she creates a new one.

What she actually said: On Dec. 31, O'Shea wore the halter-top dress for the first time. She resolved to continue donning the outfit for a significant portion of every day. "I have to wear it," she says, "so I can live inside of the pieces I make. To make a sculpture and put it on a hanger is useless."

So what happened? It took O'Shea a minute or two to confess, but she finally came out with it: "There was one day I stayed at home all day and"—her tone is so sheepish you'd think she accidentally tossed a recyclable in the wrong bin—"I didn't put the dress on."

What she says now: "It's been a good project for me, as an artist. It's kept me really motivated." She sees the effort as a sort of anti-fashion statement: "You're supposed to change your clothing," she explains.

Cutting through it all: There have been worse resolutions broken, that's for sure. Quitting smoking often lasts only a few hours. Self-enforced diet restrictions last a month, max, unless you stumble across an all-too-irresistible chocolate delicacy on Jan. 2. O'Shea has put on her dress—a stunning dress at that—every single day minus one. Such a sin can be forgiven, we think.—Laura Parisi

^The Media Promises

Uh, still waiting

The promise maker: Portland Mercury managing editor Phil Busse

The promise: Sensing a coverup behind the coverup, Busse pledged to ask tough questions about WW reporter Nigel Jaquiss' Pulitzer Prize-winning work on ex-Gov. Neil Goldschmidt's sexual abuse of a 14-year-old girl.

What he actually said: Busse wrote in the April 7, 2005, Mercury that he had many "unanswered questions." Among them: how "one of the original founders of Willamette Week, Robert Burthchaell [close, Phil—it's Burtchaell], was actively involved in 'handling' (more precisely, 'silencing') Goldschmidt's victim" and how "Burthchaell's alleged involvement in the coverup...should reflect on WW." (Busse got the lead about Burtchaell's role from WW, which published the story May 12, 2004.)

Busse wrote: "The Mercury is currently pursuing those leads."

So what happened? Since Busse launched his query-a-thon, the Merc hasn't published a peep about Goldschmidt. Is this like O.J. saying he will look for the killer?

What he says now: Busse, who still writes for the paper but left his editor's post, says he left any story notes in a file cabinet.

Cutting through it all: Our money's on O.J. —Adrian Chen

Now, gazing reproachfully at our own navel lint

The promise maker: WW

The promise: Independent, thought-provoking and in-depth coverage .

What we say each week: Look in WW's masthead and you'll see this: Our mission: Provide our audiences with an independent and irreverent understanding of how their worlds work so they can make a difference.

So what happened? Despite our high ideals and mission to push the proverbial envelope, we've sometimes pushed so far as to leave substance and relevance behind.

A few examples: In December 2004, we published "The Butt Brush Factor," 700 words of in-depth coverage of marketing in malls. Last August, "What Not to Hair" rated the hairstyles of local TV anchors. And last October, "Mary Carey's (DD) Bust in the Burbs," about a porn star's appearance at Fantasyland in Clackamas. And then.... Well, you get the idea.

What we say this week: Cornered at his desk, WW editor Mark Zusman soberly stated, "A part of our mission is to right wrongs, to afflict the comfortable and to comfort the afflicted, and to, in our own small way, address man's inhumanity toward man. You don't think these stories qualify? And by the way...didn't you write the Mary Carey piece?"

Cutting through it all: Yeah, but you published it. —Toby Van Fleet

^Promises we're eyeing for the next time we do this

Willamette Week's alchemists, brilliant but inclined to drink too much, have stirred up a frothy potion that redlines tough promises to keep.

Just for fun, we poured our sauce over Mayor Tom Potter's Jan. 20 State of the City speech.

Potter mostly yammered in generalities—tossing in a strange analogy about Alice in Wonderland—but the text glowed bright red under our magic decoder in several key areas.

*Potter promises to listen to 100,000 people in a Bill Clinton-esque "visioning" process.

Setting aside the merits of using vision as a verb or what that process will generate...100,000 people?? That would fill the Rose Garden five times over. Good luck.

*Potter promised to work with Commissioner Erik Sten and the Portland Development Commission on a campaign to "end this disparity" in home ownership rates between minorities and whites.

Only a third of Portland minorities own their own homes, compared with six in 10 whites, the mayor said. To eliminate that 27 percent gap would be extraordinary, given that the national disparity—which widened in the 1990s—is 25 percent.

*Potter promised as part of a community-policing pledge to get "officers to fully engage the community." However he'll measure this, rank-and-file officers say they're tied to their cars and monitored with statistics. Not exactly a recipe for Officer Friendly.—Angela Valdez

^WEB-ONLY BROKEN PROMISES

There is no sure bet

The promise maker: Gov. Ted Kulongoski

The promise: No addition of line games like video slots to the state lottery.

What he said: In an April 2002 debate among Democratic gubernatorial candidates, Kulongoski pledged not to add line games to the lottery. In fact, Kulongoski had a long history before that of opposing new gambling to generate state revenue.

In a 1996 New York Times editorial Kulongoski penned as Oregon attorney general, he blasted gambling advocates' argument that schools, the environment and the economy benefit from gambling revenues. "(P)erhaps other states can learn from our mistakes," he wrote about the 1984 implementation of the lottery. Kulongoski warned, "The truth is, any state that depends heavily on gambling for revenue will find itself under pressure to increase gambling."

So what happened: Even in September 2003 when Kulongoski faced a $67 million hole in revenue budgeted for the lottery, he maintained, "I'm not a proponent of line games. I still think we can reach the $67 million by other means."

The governor added, "Today, I have no intention to propose line games." In December 2004, Kulongoski did just that, encouraging the Oregon Lottery Commission to add line games to fund Oregon State Police patrols.

What he says now: Kulongoski spokeswoman Anna Richter Taylor says Oregon faced a billion-dollar hole when Kulongoski took office that required tough policy decisions like adding video slots. "I don't know how he could've foreseen that," she says.

Cutting through it all: While Kulongoski has told The Oregonian that endorsing line games was "one of the most difficult policy decisions" he's made, funding shortfalls were predictable when Kulongoski promised voters no video slots.

Also predictable: that politicians turn to the cash cow of gambling to raise money instead of anything that smacked of an honest solution: new taxes.—Shannon Green

Better late than never?

The promise maker: The city's 1972 Downtown Plan

The promise: Reawaken the city's West End (that sleepy zone between Southwest 10th Avenue and the I-405 canyon) into glorious urban life with tons of housing and 24-hour street life (but, um, not that kind).

What they said then: "This is an ideal location for downtown housing," the 1972 plan intoned.

So what happened?: Three decades later, the city's planning/development power axis was still politicking over how to get it done.

Finally, a detailed West End plan landed in 2002. That plan found the district about 5,000 housing units short of where planners thought it should be to fulfill its potential. A big reason for that? One-fifth of the area's land is occupied by parking lots, many controlled by the politically powerful Goodman family.

Despite official policy calling for the redevelopment of the lots, decades of concerted lobbying by the parking barons helped keep the sky cranes at bay.

What they say now: Today, you wouldn't mistake the West End for the Pearl District—there are still too many worn-out buildings and howling parking wastelands for that.

But unmistakable signs are surfacing that the neighborhood is starting to pop. At its northern edge, some of the frenzied foot traffic from the Brewery Blocks slops over to feed shiny new ventures like American Apparel's underwear boutique and a little clutch of fancy restaurants.

Elsewhere, hard hats are going to work.

For example, the Goodmans are teaming with Gerding/Edlen Developers, the firm that built the Brewery Blocks, on a 325-foot hotel/apartment/retail complex on Southwest Washington between 12th and 13th Avenues in the West End. The same developer's Civic condominiums, just beyond I-405 near PGE Park, are 60 percent sold 18 months before completion.

"That area was dormant for a long time," says Gerding/Edlen's Mark Edlen. "But the groundwork is there and there are several little sparks happening. In the next five to 10 years, there will be a lot of change."

Cutting through it all: To paraphrase some old-time country wisdom, you can plan in one hand and spit in the other and see which one fills up first. Now, though, it seems ye olde market forces (with their customary assist from the City of Portland's policies) may finally be transforming the West End. —Zach Dundas

The fine print behind a Blockbuster deal

The promise-maker: Blockbuster Videos

The promise: No more late fees

What they actually said: Blockbuster announced in a Dec. 14, 2004 press release "...as of Jan. 1, 2005, there will be no more late fees charged on any movie or game rental."

So what happened: That press release had a catch that never made the advertising blitz to tout the new policy. Turned out Blockbuster still had due dates, and would give customers a one-week grace period after the due date at no additional charge.

But if customers wanted to keep the rental longer, Blockbuster would automatically sell them the product, less the rental fee. If customers decided they didn't want to own the movie or game, "they simply return the product within 30 days for a full credit...less a minimal restocking fee."

Not surprisingly, the catch was absent from the ad campaign.

Facing allegations from 47 states including Oregon for misleading advertising, Blockbuster settled for $630,000 last March; the settlement was brokered by Oregon Attorney General Hardy Myers. The money was divided among the states.

What they say now: When asked about the "late fees" policy, employee Dawson Barrett at the Blockbuster store on Southeast Powell Boulevard said, "We don't have late fees," but was quick to disclose all the details of how the plan worked, including the $1.25 restocking fee.

Cutting through it all: If a deal sounds too good to be true, it probably is. No mega-chain is going to act out of kind-heartedness. It's no shock that Blockbuster wants to make money from people who don't read the fine print. —Joanna Cantor