At the first—and likely only—public hearing on Metro’s “supportive housing” tax measure, one resident asked a question on everyone’s mind: “Our money isn’t being spent the way it should be now, so what assurances do we have that this will be any different?” The question highlights the fact that trust in local government is at […]
You may not be able to tax carbon out of existence, but you can tax agriculture out of business. That’s the refrain of Timber Unity, the coalition which sees the resurrection of last year’s cap-and-trade bill as a threat to businesses which have called Oregon “home” for decades. One woman at the Timber Unity protest […]
After eight years of bragging that the proposed light rail line to Tigard would result in average daily ridership of 43,000, TriMet has quietly dropped the estimate to 37,500. This “bait-and-switch” was totally predictable. At the start of every rail planning process, TriMet creates a high ridership estimate to get local politicians excited. Once the […]
The Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT), the agency charged with building and maintaining the city’s transportation system, is shifting the responsibility of improving traffic congestion away from itself and onto individual residents. This was made apparent in a recently released 2018 report provided by Bloom Communications that surveyed Portland residents’ attitudes and perceptions of the […]
When Kendra Espinoza’s husband suddenly left their small family, her two daughters’ lives were thrown into chaos. Separation is never easy on kids. But on top of all the normal anxieties of the situation, Naomi and Sarah went from homeschooling with a stay-at-home mom to enrollment in the local public school while their mom worked. […]
Virginia Walden Ford is a Washington, D.C. mom whose extraordinary sacrifice and determination changed not just her own child’s life, but the lives of thousands of low-income and minority students. Her story is now told through the new movie Miss Virginia, starring Orange Is the New Black’s Uzo Aduba. Virginia’s experience as an African American […]
January 26-February 1 is National School Choice Week, the world’s largest celebration of parental choice and effective education options for all children. Since 2011, more than 180,000 independent NSCW events and activities have been planned in local communities across the country. The landscape of options to meet the learning needs of today’s students is more […]
Oregon state officials recently celebrated helping the state reach 25,000 registered electric vehicles (EVs) through local incentives and the Clean Vehicle Rebate Program. This celebration, however, is a punch in the gut to the state’s low-income and rural residents whose taxes fund the rebates and incentives used to purchase the EVs by predominantly wealthy and […]
Oregon’s Corporate Activities Tax went into effect New Year’s Day. Nine times, Oregon voters have rejected a state sales tax. But this year we ended up with something much worse than a sales tax, and voters had no voice in the matter. While it’s called a “corporate” tax, the name is misleading. The steep new […]
In 1926, an Oregon school controversy made it all the way to the nation’s Supreme Court. But the issue on the table wasn’t teacher pay, proper curriculum, or student safety. Oregon had outlawed private schools in a discriminatory effort to remove Catholic education. But in the landmark ruling Pierce v. Society of Sisters, the Court […]