Want to Build a Police Training Center ... and Build a Relationship with Sen. Betsy Johnson?

Here's your opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a potential $120 million project in Scappoose, and build a relationship at the same time with both the Portland Police Bureau and powerful state Sen. Betsy Johnson (D-Scappoose).

In the waning days of Portland's annual budget process, funding to begin preliminary work on a proposed police training center got cut from about $2 million to about $250,000. Nonetheless, Mayor Tom Potter and Police Chief Rosie Sizer remain big fans of the idea.

The land the police would like help developing—located near the Scappoose Airport—has long been a source of controversy in Columbia County. For more than a decade, Johnson, a pilot and airport booster, fought to keep the land from being turned into a gravel pit.

Johnson, a member of the Legislature's budget-writing Ways and Means Committee, succeeded in that effort.

But it remains to be seen whether the Portland City Council has an appetite to turn the land into a facility for Portland and other regional jurisdictions to train police officers.

The RFP for project development closes Aug. 8.