Cost of Renaming City Street for Trail Blazers' Jack Ramsay: $2,640

Jack Ramsay

City Commissioner Steve Novick is not much accustomed to the slings and arrows of a skeptical public or press.

He's taken heat from both for the proposed new transportation funding measure he and Mayor Charlie Hales have pursued this year.

But this week, Novick will finalize a council that promises to be far less controversial: renaming North Winning Way, a small street adjacent to the Moda Center. He'd like to rename it North Ramsay Way, in honor of the late Jack Ramsay, the coach who led the Portland Trail Blazers to their only NBA championship, way back in 1977.

It's the kind of political theater that will bring good feelings to City Hall, earn the Blazers some pre-pre-season press and cost the relatively modest sum of $2,640—which the Blazers, according to the resolution council will consider on Wednesday at 10 am—have agreed to donate. 

Now all Novick has to do is find taxpayers who feel as postively about paying his $50 million street fee as Portlanders feel about the Blazers and Jack Ramsay.

WWeek 2015

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