Murmurs: Dave’s Killer Tax Bill

DAVE’S KILLER TAX BILL: One of the state’s most prominent food entrepreneurs is fighting the tax man. Although the residential housing market in Portland and surrounding cities remains strong, Dave Dahl, who made his fortune founding Dave’s Killer Bread, is finding that such strength does not extend to the tip-top of the market, specifically the 27th-floor condo he owns at the Benson Tower in Southwest Portland. Records show Dahl paid $3.065 million for the 2,920-square-foot penthouse in December 2017. He challenged the Multnomah County tax assessor’s valuation of $2.55 million for 2023-24 but lost at the county’s Board of Property Tax Appeals. Dahl appealed that decision April 15 in Oregon Tax Court. “The court should find that the total real market value of the subject property as of Jan. 1, 2023, is no more than $1.8 million,” says the complaint, filed by Dahl’s attorney Alex Robinson. Dahl’s tax bill for the year: $46,854. A current listing shows he’s asking $2.2 million for the penthouse.

JAIL NURSES DEMAND LEADERSHIP CHANGE: The union representing corrections health nurses says its members are demanding a leadership shake-up at Multnomah County’s Corrections Health division. The division, part of the county’s health department, is led by a former nurse, Myque Obiero, who has failed to win over his rank and file. In February, the union asked nurses to vote whether they had confidence in leadership. The results were unambiguous: 97% gave a vote of no confidence. The jails are in the midst of a yearslong staffing crisis that nurses say leadership has failed to fix. The result is rampant mandatory overtime that is burning out nurses and making the short-staffing even worse. The county says it’s made a variety of efforts to address the problem, including budgeting for more positions, hiring a dedicated recruiter, and bringing on dozens of contract nurses through staffing agencies. But it’s not moving the needle, says Kevin Mealy, a spokesman for the Oregon Nursing Association. “We haven’t seen positive changes for providers or the people they serve. If anything, things have stagnated and gotten worse.” The union has asked the county to negotiate higher wages, but so far, Mealy says, it has declined. The county declined to comment on the nurses’ vote.

LABOR UNIONS SPAR WITH CITY OFFICIALS: The Portland City Council finds itself in a headlock with labor unions over health insurance benefits for city employees. At issue: The city’s two health insurance plans available to employees will cost the city $16.3 million more this year than they did last year, should the city maintain all existing benefits and leave the plans unchanged. But the Portland City Council is now mulling a controversial plan: trimming benefits in the two plans so that the council only has to eat an 8% cost increase over last year, rather than 11.9% to keep all current benefits. The unions that represent most of the city’s 7,500 employees are fuming over that possibility because it would reduce benefits, in part by increasing out-of-pocket costs. “What this would do is effectively give all city employees a pay cut without their ability to negotiate,” says Isaac McLennan, president of the Portland Fire Fighters’ Association. “In general, you negotiate your benefit plan. This is circumventing that system.”

KOTEK ISSUES NO VETOES: After releasing a list of eight possible line-item vetoes totaling $16 million on April 8, Gov. Tina Kotek announced April 17 that she would allow all of the expenditures to move forward after all. Seven of the expenditures relate to Kotek’s priority housing bill, Senate Bill 1570, and will pay for various housing-related infrastructure projects around the state. The eighth, and only one in Portland, is $2 million in seed money for an athletic shoe manufacturing project in Old Town, and was part of the omnibus spending package in Senate Bill 5701. Kotek, whose administration recently suffered the loss of three stop staffers over conflict between them and first lady Aimee Kotek Wilson, is not in a position to alienate supporters right now. The governor explained her decision to greenlight all the expenditures by saying she’d received sufficient explanations after issuing the notice of potential vetoes. “I received adequate information to have confidence in signing Senate Bill 1530 and Senate Bill 5701 in full,” Kotek said. “Additionally, I am sharing several signing letters with legislators and the public that raise specific concerns and affirm my values as we move forward on implementation.”