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April 21, 2009

You Want The Sellwood Bridge Fixed? Well, Do You Feel Lucky, Punk? Do Ya?

You can put a fork in the Sam Adams Administration. It's done.

You thought that losing Thomas Lauderdale's support was bad, well, bunky, it gets worse.

As reported by Willy Week, Mayor Adams has ransomed City support for the rebuilding of the just-a-minor-earthquake-away-from-failure Sellwood Bridge.

The price?

Support for that zombie of local government, the headquarters hotel at the convention center.

County Chair Ted Wheeler was told just today, after waiting some time for the response, whether or not the City would support the County in getting funds from the Feds to replace the bridge.

The answer was yes ... as long as the County went to bat for the City over the hotel that apparently without which the all the wheels in the city's economic wagon will violently fly off.

Oh, and after keeping you on hold six weeks, here's the figures, and take your time deciding on yes or no.

You have until Thursday. No, this Thursday.

No pressure now.

It's been a short, strange trip with Sam. From Beau Breedlove through the bizarre stadium deal and now this. I'd go so far as to say more than one City Council member needs reminding why they were elected (yes, I'm looking at you, Randy), but right now Sam Adams has pretty much burnished the City of Portland's reputation as the big kid in the room who's going to have what he wants, damn the cost.

And I'm no naive kitten here. I know you wheel and deal in local governments to get things done sometimes. But this just seems out of bounds somehow. To hold the only road link across the Willamette River between the Ross Island Bridge and Oregon City (that's a loooong way, folks) hostage to a hotel that the city government just won't quit wanting despite its worth being dubious as best (and based on what I've seen recently, probably just another trick to get millions of City dollars into some developer's pocket) is just. simply. wrong.

I'm off the Sam Adams bus too. If a successful recall campaign is staged, I'll be voting him out.

(Note: The illustration was based on a picture I ripped off from WW's Flickr stream and another picture with a gun in a hand in it. No guns were actually used and no bridges were actually drawn down on to create this picture. Owner carries no guns (or cash))

Posted by The Chinuk at April 21, 2009 10:58 PM