6 • The Southwest Portland Post
School Construction Bond
(Continued from Page 1)
to fix and where, a citizen-led,
long-range facilities plan advisory
committee recommended the school
board prioritize criteria.
Those criteria included year of
construction, accessibility, seismic
ratings and a “Facilities Condi-
tion Index,” which entails using a
benchmark to determine the relative
condition of facilities, Barnett said.
The board, with public input,
chose to focus first on rebuild-
ing high schools and to prioritize
rebuilding schools with capital
partners.
Franklin, Grant and Roosevelt
high schools will be rebuilt, and the
planning work for reconstructing
the remaining six high schools will
be included in the bond. Faubion
PreK-8 School also will be replaced
through a capital partnership with
Concordia University, a Christian
university.
“I’m a big proponent of public
schools and the separation of church
and state,” said Hillsdale resident
Arnie Panitch, during the Hillsdale
Neighborhood Association meeting
on September 5. “I’m very nervous
about this partnership at Faubion.”
“My question to you is: Will there
be any change in ownership? …
I’ve seen other situations where the
census falls off and (a public school
turns) right into a parochial school,”
said Panitch.
Barnett said Portland Public
Schools is partnering with Concor-
dia, not relinquishing control of the
school. Faubion gets a new building
and Concordia, which is next to the
school, will have an opportunity to
provide its students with real world
NEWS
experience as student teachers.
“The school board is not in any
way throwing land to them (Con-
cordia),” Adkins said.
Some of the vacant schools will
be used as temporary space for
students while other schools are
rebuilt, Adkins said.
Adkins and Barnett also visited
the Hillsdale Neighborhood Asso-
ciation in May. Since voters rejected
a $548 million bond to upgrade
Portland school buildings in May
2011, school district officials have
been reaching out to the community
to find out why the bond failed and
what the community wants.
Adkins said public approval of
the school district’s major facilities
overhaul isn’t a given.
“This is our dream, our hope,
and it’s something that we have to
earn.”
Voters did approve a local option
levy that also was on the May 2011
ballot, which pays for teachers and
operational support, but the con-
struction bond’s failure halted the
school district’s plans to improve
and rebuild schools.
The school district will involve
the school community in the design
of schools that are slated to be re-
built, Barnett added in an email on
September 19. Community access
would be a priority with schools
potentially sharing meeting space,
gyms and stages with the public.
At the Hillsdale meeting, Adkins
said she would love to see hous-
ing become a part of future school
plans. If this bond is successful, she
added, others might be put before
the public in the future.
For more information, visit www.
pps.net/about-us/Bond.htm.
October 2012
Street Paving Srategies
(Continued from Page 5)
hardship.”
Justin Wood of Fish Construction
tended to agree with Adams. “For us,
we’d much rather develop the block
as a whole, and pay our share of it,”
Wood said.
“To build streets parcel by parcel
costs ten times as much, and it’s hard
to sell a house with mud in front of
it.”
On the other hand, Wood said, “It’s
not always easy to get the neighbors
to agree. It’s better to develop to a
lower standard.”
This brought up another issue: how
the streets are paid for. Normally,
owners representing a majority of the
street frontage ownership must agree
to a street’s development through a
Local Improvement District.
However, in the past, people were
allowed by the City to build on un-
improved streets by signing a waiver
stating that when someone proposed
to build a street, at any time in the
future, they would “waive” their
right to oppose it.
Second, third and fourth genera-
tions of property owners have found
these waivers of remonstrance bur-
ied, to their dismay, in their deeds.
Leon said there were 12,000 such
outstanding waivers in the City.
Leon said that the lowest cost pav-
ing options, done citywide, would
run $91 to $96 million. PBOT has
looked at a variety of options to pay
for this.
One, PBOT’s Jennifer Cooperman
said, was to spread the cost of street
improvements over a wider area.
This brought a groan from southwest
residents, who tried this approach
two years ago with the so-called
Halo LID with disastrous results.
Asked to testify by Adams, South-
west Neighborhoods Inc. board pres-
ident Marianne Fitzgerald told the
City Council, “There were arterials
where we really wanted sidewalks.
We tried to create LIDs covering a
quarter-mile to bring the cost down.”
“Within a block people were okay
with it, but the further away they
were, the less accepting people were.
It was still expensive; the storm
water costs were killing us,” said
Fitzgerald.
Indeed, Leon said, storm water in-
troduces a new element to paving in
southwest. It is best to treat runoff on
site, she said, but because southwest
clay absorbs water so poorly, it is
necessary to convey it off-site.
Cooperman said PBOT has looked
at several formulas to help pay
for paving. One, a new gas tax, is
deficient for the same reason the
statewide tax is: as more people do
less driving in more fuel-efficient
vehicles, the amount of revenue
steadily decreases.
A sales tax, in addition to encoun-
tering Oregon’s traditional hostility
to this approach, would not generate
enough money, Cooperman said.
Other options are some sort of user
fee and general obligation bond.
Council praised PBOT’s efforts to
look at new paving options. Commis-
sioner Amanda Fritz said, “I’m really
pleased to see this coming forward,
and the new design options. We need
to look at who pays, who benefits,
and is it fair.”
Fish said he appreciated that Leon
had presented “a menu” of options
rather than advocating for one ap-
proach. “I find this range of options
incredibly helpful,” he said.
PoSt a to Z BuSineSS CaRd diReCtoRy 503-244-6933