In June of 2001, without fanfare or serious public discussion, the Portland City Council, without identifying the funding sources, committed $20 million of scarce public resources to a highly controversial project in social engineering at Columbia Villa. Two years latter we can identify the sources:

$7 million Portland Development Commission tax increment dollars taken from the Interstate Light Rail Urban Renewal District .

$5 million Community Development Block Grant money from the federal Housing and Urban Development department.

$5.6 million from rate payers of the Water and Environmental Services bureaus.

$3 million in uncollected revenue from waived System Development Charges

$ unknown millions from state gas tax revenues.

The total is more than twenty-one million dollars and that does not include a commitment made by Commissioner Saltzman for $2 million, also made in June of 2001, for methane conversion hardware. This brings the total to more than twenty-three million dollars.

The boundaries for the Interstate Light Rail Urban Renewal District were extended almost three miles west of Interstate Avenue under pressure from HAP with the understanding that the clearly gerrymandered district would be used only for leverage to secure a grant from HUD and not to access urban renewal dollars. Columbia Villa has nothing whatsoever to do with the support for economic development along the Interstate light rail corridor. Whatever credibility PDC claimed with the public is seriously diminished by this shameful and deceitful behavior

I do not recall a questionnaire in my water and sewer bill or a public hearing asking me and every other rate payer if we would like to pay what amounts to an additional tax to subsidize a housing development in North Portland. The city has already forced rate payers to pay for its massive multimillion dollar blunder in the Water bureau. Most rate payers will be in shock for years to come as the increases required by the billion dollar Combined Sewer Overflow project costs begin to appear on their bills. Now it wants these same fee for service rate payers to unknowingly pay extra to subsidize a project most have never heard about nor would they support if they did.

I don’t recall Portland taxpayers being asked or agreeing to make up the financial shortfall and let HAP slide on three million dollars in System Development Charges. Another hidden tax.

And while the City Council wasn’t asking its rate payers and taxpayers for their opinions on how to spend their money it was also not asking HAP these fundamental accounting questions:

1. How many clients does HAP serve and where are they located by neighborhood?
2. Will the Portsmouth neighborhood still have the highest number of low-income HAP qualified clients in the City of Portland, Multnomah County and the state of Oregon after the proposed Villa remodel?
3. What is the difference in cost to house similar clients in HAP owned housing versus section 8 vouchers?
4. What is the true market value of the property and the land HAP plans to demolish and sell at Columbia Villa?
5. Does everyone agree that HAP's plan to sell public land below market rate is a good idea?

The Portland City Council has failed in its obligations to provide oversight of the HAP board which is shielded from accountability to taxpayers by mayoral appointment rather than election.

The Portland City Council failed two years ago to budget for or engage in a public conversation related to the matter of what makes good public housing policy which should have preceded any funding commitment.

Of necessity, no government or school budget line item has been safe from cuts throughout Oregon and yet inexplicably this budget item has taken on the status of a scared cow. The majority of the $20 million funding to the Villa remodel has been made under false pretenses and deceptive budgeting practices and should be withdrawn.