WINNERS
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad surely breathed a deep sigh of relief last week as the Portland City Council voted 4-0 to support diplomatic relations with his nation. With the support of Portland's Iranian community and its allies, the city proved it will—say it fast—oil-wells love Iran.
Oregon's rural counties have a crack habit known in polite circles as a "dependence" on federal forest fees, and they've been in withdrawal since their D.C. dealers tried to cut off their supply, er, funding. Enter Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who last week negotiated a deal to send those counties to a methadone-treatment facility of sorts, fully funding their timber payments program in 2007 and then gradually reducing payments.
Maybe Multnomah County Sheriff Bernie Giusto can shed his claim as the best example of all that's wrong in the county. After a withering piece in Sunday's Oregonian about county Commissioner Lonnie Roberts appearing to need a daily wake-up call from his chief of staff, it's safe to conclude that Roberts is a worthy competitor to Giusto for county dishonors.
LOSERS
OK, so, Zach Randolph ditches the Trail Blazers to attend a funeral in his Indiana hometown, and the Blazers win all three games without him. Then Randolph returns, and the team loses its next two. Randolph's side trip to a strip club during his "bereavement leave" suddenly seems to be the least of his problems.
Only one of the two contested races for Portland Public Schools' Board of Education looks close. But Stand for Children, the influential school-reform advocacy group, is acting like its name is Cover our Asses. Last week, the Portland group gave dual endorsements in the board's hotly contested race to incumbent Doug Morgan and his challenger Ruth Adkins. Way to take a stand, folks.
As the Portland Tribune reported last week, a pungent odor is following Deborah Saweuyer-Parks, who earned $468,000 two years ago for her work as the CEO of Homestead Capital, a local provider of affordable-housing funding. But it might not be her pay that stinks the most. That honor should probably go to her husband's $9,000-a-month consultant contract with Homestead.
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Here is a quote from the Homestead Capital home page:
Our projects ... provide housing ... for income-qualified [Means Test] people. In return, our investors receive tax credits [Government Subsidy] and other benefits.
http://www.homesteadcap.com/
The following projects listed on the Homestead Capital website are all RENTAL properties in Multnomah county:
Helen Swindells
Cedar Meadows
Los Jardines de la Paz
McCoy Village Apartments
Patton Home
Sequoia Square
Sitka Apartments
Trillium
Twelfth Avenue Terrace
Villas de Mariposas
Public Housing = Means Test + Government Subsidy + Rental Agreement
All of these projects qualify for inclusion in PDC commissioner Sal Kadri's tasking of PDC staff to gather information by neighborhood on the location of all public housing clients that are subsidized and administered by any government agency within PDC's area of influence. The tax credits involved are either state or federal or both making someone serving in the Kulongoski administration responsible for monitoring the use of these credits. The recent notoriety regarding the Rose City Village housing project appears very similar to these Homestead Capital projects.
It is also worthy of note that Homestead Capital, as did the Portland Development Commission in its recent Resolution on TIF set asides, incorrectly and misleadingly used the term "affordable" when in fact what they were referring to was "PUBLIC" housing. I urge you to make clear to your readers the difference between these designations in future articles involving this subject.
Richard Ellmyer
Community leader coordinating a local effort to bring the Oregon National Guard to the Sharff Army Reserve Center
Community activist leading the campaign to Stop The Portland Hope Meadows Corporation From Adding To The Overload Of Public Housing Clients In The Portsmouth Neighborhood And North Portland
3-6-9 Resolution author and project champion
Writer/Publisher - HAP Watcher commentary - Published on the Internet and distributed to 13,000 readers interested in public housing policy in Multnomah County.
http://www.goodgrowthnw.org
President, MacSolutions Inc. - A Macintosh computer consulting business providing web hosting for artists and very small businesses. Located in Portsmouth, the neighborhood with the second highest concentration of public housing clients, 18% and rising, within HAP's Multnomah county jurisdiction of 117 neighborhoods.