🚀 go-pugleaf

Let's look at measure 2-68 closely for a second, ok? 

It authorizes $9.5 MILLION dollars in obligation bonds to re-re-build
Riverfront Park and to stop the Willamette from eroding.

But $9.5 MILLION is not the whole cost. Along with that, there will be
another $3.6 MILLION dollars from "grants and other funds". The
explanatory statement makes it a little clearer without shedding much
light: "other City monies, grants, and assessments." "Other City
monies" is one way of saying "current tax revenue" without using the
word "tax". "Assesments" accomplishes the same goal.

So, what is $13.1 MILLION in terms we can consider easily? Let's do
some back-of-the-envelope calculations. The city limits sign as you
enter Corvallis from Albany on Hwy. 20 says that the population of
Corvallis is about 50 thousand. OSU has released its enrollment
numbers, which are about 14 thousand. Let's assume that two thirds of
those students live in off-campus housing so they pay property taxes
through their rent. In a few short years they will be gone and 
no longer responsible for the cost of the measure, however.

That means there are about 45 thousand residents. That's not property
owners or renters, that everyone. That's almost $300 for every man,
woman, and child in Corvallis. But children don't own property. And
the numbers I've used are very generous. That means it is more.

The "explanatory statement" tells us that this will result in a 31.5 mil
(cents per thousand dollars) charge on our property tax bills. They say
it will result in just $14 on a $150,000 house in twenty years. 

Lest we forget, the 3% yearly increase currently allowed will result in
more than an 180% increase in taxes in 20 years. If your house is
$150,000 now, by then it will be valued at $270,000. Woops, there goes
the pretend decrease in actual taxes. And that's only if you assume
that there are no changes to the measure 50 limits. How likely does
anyone think that is going to be? And only if the value of your house
does not increase on its own.

The cost per year goes down only if the whole cost of the operation is
just $13.1 MILLION, and if we haven't decided that it was all a waste
and has to be done again in 5 or ten years. We could be stuck in the
position of doing the same thing over and over again every 5 years,
just like we are already going to be re-rebuilding Riverfront Park.

We will be paying for improvements for years after they have been
washed into the river. Ask people who live by the ocean how well humans
do at stopping the forces of nature. We put riprap on the beach to
protect houses only to cause worse erosion at the neighbor's house. We
build jetties to protect harbours, which interrupts the natural flow of
sand and causes erosion AND deposition problems (on opposite sides of
the jetties). (If you want to learn more, there is an excellent book
on Oregon coast history, written by a local OSU professor, Paul Komar.)

We build dams to control flooding, and flooding still happens. The
problem just moves from one place to another. We spend $13 MILLION now,
then find out we need to spend another $13 MILLION to protect the south
side of the city from erosion caused by this $13 MILLION project. 

And now we pretend we can make the Willamette River do what we want,
for twenty years no less, with a one-time adjustment to one part of
its banks. How ludicrous.

Join me in voting no on 2-68.