PGE, HAP And Katz Spurn Greening Of Columbia Villa 5-3-04
The question is not what WAS built at Columbia Villa but rather what COULD have and SHOULD have been built.
In the not too distant future local physicians will be treating scads of HAP commissioners, elected officials from throughout Multnomah county, builders, non-profit do gooders and others for sore arms caused by excessive self-congratulatory pats on the back for doing such a good job spending the people's money on the Columbia Villa remodel. But when the doctors ask their patients how much time, money and energy they spent making sure that the buildings in the Columbia Villa remodel were certified as having been built to the highest green standards available at the time of construction all they will hear is an "ouch" and then silence.
As of today, not a single one of the more than 350 structures to be built at Columbia Villa will be certified by either the United States Green Building Council, Portland General Electric or any other qualified third party. This is not just an embarrassment, it's a disgrace. For all the fuss made about Multnomah County and Portland voters as Oregon's "tree hugger" constituency there is no evidence that this enclave of "owl protectors" gives a hoot about the greening of public housing in their own backyard.
Try to remember any so-called environmentally oriented organization that has spoken up for the rights of low-income public housing clients to have certifiably green buildings at Columbia Villa. Try to raise a memory of any public official from Multnomah County or any member of the Oregon legislature, with or without a high green vote rating, who has stepped forward to demand certified green buildings at Columbia Villa. Try to find any reporter, columnist or editorial writer in the entire Oregon press corps who has ever mentioned the idea of certified green public housing at Columbia Villa. Your searches will all be in vain.
When asked to identify which of the 350 plus buildings soon to be constructed at Columbia Villa were eligible for PGE, ( http://www.earthadvantage.com ), or USGBC ( http://www.usgbc.org , http://www.usgbc.org/chapters/cascadia/default.asp ) certification and the costs, PGE Manager, Sustainable Building, Jay Coalson ( jay_coalson@pgn.com , http://www.greenbuildingservices.com/contact.asp , (503) 603-1691 ) refused to supply the answer. Jay's take home pay is obviously not commission based otherwise he would not have so cavalierly dismissed the prospect of hundreds of contracts for PGE certification. During the schmooze night opening ceremonies for the recent Coalition For A Livable Future conference, Jay was quite willing to assault the Energy Trust of Oregon, ( http://www.energytrust.org ), as a taxpayer/ratepayer rip off yet he didn't seem at all interested in going out of his way to make a legitimate buck for the company or the ratepayers that were paying his salary. Keeping in mind that PGE is still owned and operated by Texas based Enron, George W. Bush and his buddy, former Enron CEO "Kenny Boy" Ken Lay would be proud of Jay Coalson. It is not clear whether Neil Goldschmidt or his Texas based corporate potential buyer of PGE would keep Jay Coalson on as their green suited pitch man.
Should you be required by job or motivated by conscience to actually do something about the greening of taxpayer supported buildings at Columbia Villa you need to act now. Time is of the essence. If you only have time for one email or phone call make it to Portland's mayor ( mayorkatz@ci.portland.or.us , (503) 823-4122 . A copy to Jim Francesconi would be a smart forward thinking move, jfrancesconi@ci.portland.or.us . And it couldn't hurt to include Dan "green jeans" Saltzman, dsaltzman@ci.portland.or.us .). Vera Katz has always, and still does, hold all the cards in this game. The HAP board serves at her pleasure. She can deal them in or make them leave the table at will. Her Honor, Mayor Vera Katz, is ultimately responsible for HAP's refusal to account for its practice of concentrating public housing clients into a few select neighborhoods and for refusing to have all of the buildings at Columbia Villa certified as green. Even though she is a lame duck and very unlikely to open Pandora's Green Box, if you care, you should get on the record now so that you'll have the right to publicly complain when she's gone.
If the environmentally sensitive citizens, public officials and the press (?) of Multnomah County can't get their governments to build green with our public tax money then they will have little credibility when they complain about Vice President Dick Cheney's secret deals to let the big oil, gas, nuclear and coal corporations dictate public energy policy.