American Dream

Ten years ago, Metro -- Portland's regional planning dictator -- convinced voters to spend $136 million out of property taxes to buy more than 8,000 acres of "parks and greenspaces." Some of the voters felt cheated when they found out that 80 to 90 percent of the money went to buy wildlife habitat outside of the urban-growth boundary and very little went to increase park lands in or near existing neighborhoods. The wildlife habitat for the most part is not open to the public and its real goal is to act as a greenbelt to prevent urban sprawl.

Now Metro wants to do it again, only this time it wants $220 million to buy just 5,000 acres. Again, most of the acres will be outside the urban-growth boundary. If the growth boundary prevents those acres from being developed, why buy them? Possibly because the boundary will eventually be expanded to include these lands. But from the landowners' view, the action is a cheat as well. By leaving these lands outside the boundary, Metro has greatly devalued them. Now it wants to buy them at the devalued price. Sounds like extortion to me.

I moved out of Portland so I would not have to pay higher taxes for stupid ideas like these. But I hope Portland-area voters have learned their lesson this time.