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Candidate Conversation: Metro President
It was only five months ago that we explored the race for Metro Council President on Think Out Loud. That was before the primary election. Now just the top two candidates are left to run for this non-partisan regional leadership position. And although the list of groups backing the candidates might suggest it's a race pitting development interests against environmentalists, both candidates say it's not so simple.
Tom Hughes is the former mayor of Hillsboro. He was born and raised there, and taught government and history at nearby Aloha High School for almost thirty years. During that time he also held various elected positions. Hughes is supported by people including Oregon's Speaker of the House, Dave Hunt, and Oregon Labor Commissioner, Brad Avakian. Organizations such as the Oregon Business Association and the Northwest Oregon Labor Council of the AFL-CIO also back him. In the primary he won the most votes in Clackamas and Washington counties.
Bob Stacey is an attorney and the former head 1000 Friends of Oregon. He worked briefly as the chief of staff for Congressman Earl Bluemenauer and as a senior policy advisor for former Oregon Governor Barbara Roberts. He is supported by organizations including the Oregon League of Conservation Voters and the Sierra Club and by people including Portland Mayor Sam Adams. In the primary he won Multnomah County.
Metro encompasses 25 cities and three counties, many with very diverse interests. Some say the main job of Metro's leader is to build relationships to help bridge regional divides. Who is best suited for that role? Who should be the region's next leader?
What questions do you have — about land use, waste management, transportation, job creation, the environment, or the general health of the region — for these candidates?
GUESTS:
Tagged as: 2010 election · metro
Photo credit: A Hockley / Creative Commons
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Both candidates have touted experience in creating jobs. I'd like to hear an explanation as to how Metro is a job creation engine. Beyond jobs at Metro run agencies such as the zoo and recycling depots. What specific types of jobs can Metro be apart of creating?
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In our efforts to create jobs, why is it important to refrain from expanding the urban growth boundary?
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For Tom Hughes: Why did you move the Hillsboro Main Library to an aoto-oriented, office park location on NE Brookwood Parkway rather than site it downtown in 2005 while you were Mayor? Is this an example of the kind of development Metro would promote under your leadership?
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Curious thing about Magnet Schools:
If you do Race Based School Integration Busing, no parent wants to participate, but call it a Magnet School for Advance and Gifted Students that is incidentally integrated with busing diverse children of various incomes, and enrollment will skyrocket. This despite NOT having additional advanced resources, better qualified teachers and an advanced cirriculum.
Attitudes depend on how we name an object or process. No one wants to eat a Dogfish but they will bite an Orinoco Cape Shark.
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For both candidates: The worst unemployment rate in the region is amongst those of us in the built environment professions--not just constrction workers, but planners, urban designers, architects, etc. Sole proprietor Women and Minority Business Enterprises in those professions are probably faring worst of all. As President of Metro Council, would you pledge for Metro to make it easier for Women and Minority Business Enterprises to have a larger share of Metro contracts--including brain, not just braun?
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But make it real this time.
In the past he white men who owned companies just made up a company in the name of their wives and basically ran the business out of their own headquarters.
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In all these years since the creation of Metro, I have never seen a valid reason made for three overlaying bodies of governance. Choose metro, or eliminate it. If you want Metro then merge the three PDX counties in to one and eliminate the County and City governments. Really there is no separation between towns any longer; from out here looking at PDX it just looks like a singular contiguous chunk of somewhere else.
Will ether of these candidates address this fundamental waste of resources? -
If you think the housing bubble had anything to do with our current economic mess, do you believe the real estate industry can police itself, or should there be some checks and balances?
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For both candidates:
What will you do to stop unincorporated areas from:
a) Being a dumping ground for density within the UGB without cities doing their part, and
b) Stopping the inequity of existing residents with larger, more expensive properties with higher taxes subsidizing services for new, denser construction with lower property value per resident?
An example to clarify the latter point is that a three-bedroom home at 1900 square feet on a 1/4 acre lot pays far more in school property taxes and other fees than a new three-bedroom row house at 1500 square feet on a lot barely larger than the home itself. Yet both houses have the same number of children using local schools, and place similar burdens on emergency services, traffic, and water.
If the candidates can add answers in writing to our posts, that will help others who can't hear the broadcast with their voting decision. Thanks!
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To each candidate: Who are your donors, and what is their agenda in supporting you?
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Mike5252, we just discussed this a little bit on the show, but if you'd like more information check out Orestar. Here's the information for Tom Hughes (http://is.gd/fxUcL) and Bob Stacey (http://is.gd/fxUnE).
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We are lucky to have two excellent candidates for Metro leadership. However, I am concerned that too often region-wide land-use decisions are made or intitiated by Metro without taking into consideration local neighborhood/community input. Specifically, as a member of the Bethany/Northwest community, I was discouraged by Bob Stacey's role as the head of 1,000 friends of Oregon in signing off on the large expansion of the UGB in the Bethany area as part of deal to protect other areas--with no input or conversation from the local community. The result was a large loss of quality rural land and farming, unecessarily. Can Bob please comment on is role in this land use process and why the community was not consulted by 1,000 Friends or Metro? And how he might do things differently as the Metro President?
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What experience can you point to as a candidate with regards to COST CONTROL within an organization. Please cite specific examples.
As every part of our society (public, private, individual) lives far beyond its means and takes no responsibility whatsoever to balance its budget, how will you ENSURE that METRO will live within its means?
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The Sellwood Bridge has been considered by Sam Adams as the most important transportation project that is facing Portland. Multnomah County owns the span of the bridge and is managing the $330m reconstruction project. The span itself if going to cost not more than $170m. The state owned west side of the bridge, OR Rt 43, is looking to cost $130m and includes a rock cut of 80 feet and a huge footprint that includes space for the future expansion of Rt 43 into four lanes of thru-traffic at some undetermined time. The east side of the bridge, SE Tacoma St, is city owned and no money is being spent to integrate transportation traffic east of SE 6th Ave. Safety is an issue on SE Tacoma, having 4 pedestrians struck by vehicles over a recent 18 month period, including a 4 yr old boy.
Aside from the political turf battle between Cogan and Adams regarding financing for the project, what is each candidate's perspective on the project's overall priorities in terms of the price tag for these 3 elements: span, west side interchange, and east side neighborhood?
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How about large manufacturing campuses with worker dormitories?
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So now you are advocating for the Chinese Communist ways of treating workers.
That's interesting, coming from such a Conservative paranoid who sees Communists under every bed.
By the way, what do you think of Macy's doing business under the Red Star of the former USSR government department store which I think was named something like G.U.M.?
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Komrade Tom,
I did vote for AL Gore, John Kerry and Obama in the recent elections, so I guess that makes me a Conservative.
But more important, I am a PRAGMATIST. ANd if workers need housing and do not want a 90 minute one way commute to the suburbs, what is wrong with cheap on-site housing? Army barracks for low wage workers just starting out. Save money from not having a car, shrinking their carbon footprint, and being able to move out of a parent's home.
Perhaps if the Chinese know how to do something more efficiently, we can learn. But worker dormitories were used in England, New York, New England and even Berlin when they were heavily industrial.
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