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City Commissioner Nick Fish has a lot of questions about the Portland street fee.
He tried to raise those questions at last night's public hearing, but was rebuffed by Mayor Charlie Hales and Commissioner Steve Novick. Today, he sent them by email to all City Council offices.
The fee, which would eventually charge most households $144 a year, is being pushed to rapid approval by Hales and Novick, who want to make sure a potential voter referral is on the November ballot—when a more liberal electorate turns out.
Those two officials grew openly irritated Thursday night when Fish—who has said for weeks he would vote against any proposal that wasn't sent to the ballot—tried to slow the fee's approval.
"I have five pages of unanswered questions," said Fish. He wondered when the council would talk about them, since the last chance to offer amendments to the residential fee was yesterday.
"We've been talking about this for 14 years," replied Hales.
Novick added that Fish could have attended the Transportation Bureau's eight town halls discussing the fee. "This might be the first hearing in this room, but it's not the first hearing," Novick said. (WW examined the case being made for the fee at those hearings in a May 7 story.)
Fish argued that, after nearly six hours of public testimony, it was insulting to not consider changes to address people's objections.
"I want to honor the fact," Fish said, "that for 5 1/2 hours we've listened to people offer concerns on this."
He didn't get his wish—the council moved the proposal to a second reading without hearing his questions.
Today, Fish sent an email to his four colleagues in City Hall. It's not five pages—it's not even close—but he offers 11 unresolved questions he says were raised by public testimony.
Here they are.
WWeek 2015