Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Hey, you want a smooth road or cheap ruts?

My prediction about gas taxes was wrong -- sort of.

I was convinced that all three would go down in defeat by a huge margin, and I was right about two of them.

Redmond: 73.8% No. That's about as big as a margin gets.

Madras: 67.6% No. Not as large, but a landslide by most measures.

What happened in Sisters? Well, a grand total of 316 people voted Yes, but that was enough to pass. I figure some major networking went on among the supporters, and it overcame the ennui of the rest of the voters....

Still, if Bend was thinking about doing the same thing, I think the message is pretty clear.

Don't know how I'd vote. I'm still perturbed by the money wasted on Juniper Ridge. BAT was mishandled. Regardless of the merits, I'm thinking there needs to be some accountability.

On the other hand, I think that waste and inefficiency are built into any bureaucracy, and it's the LAST to get cut, and it's like trying to get at the fat by cutting all the muscle first. So I often vote for tax measures despite my doubts. I don't want Bend to turn into a California suburb.

But I think in this case, it would be just be a waste of everyone's time and energy to even put it on the ballot.

My guess is, the results would more nearly approach the 73.8% fail in Redmond than the 107 vote margin in Sisters....


As far as the jobless rate is concerned -- I think that only the comparison with the same month last year is really valid. And it's worse.

Enough said.

2 comments:

Bewert said...

NOTICE OF SPECIAL MEETING OF THE BEND CITY COUNCIL

The Bend City Council will hold a special meeting on Monday, March 29th at noon in the Board Room at Bend City Hall, 710 NW Wall. The purpose of the meeting is to consider a Resolution on an Enterprise Zone. This meeting is open to the public.

For additional information, please contact: Patty Stell, 388-5517, City of Bend, 710 NW Wall St., Bend, Oregon 97701

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No agenda up yet. Wonder if it has to do with that airport/LaPine thing back when I was there.

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Have an actual paid journalist gig covering the City of Cottonwood Heights now. Tiny local paper, one of several put out by Valley Journals. Editor saw my blogs from Bend and recruited me. Much more boring here. Big news last night: CHPD had an average 3-minute response time on Tier 1 calls.

That's three minutes from when the central county dispatch center has an address to when a cop pulls up to said address.

Think they have enough cops?

Bewert said...

"TARP Panel: Small Banks Are Facing Loan Woes"

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703455804575057851154035196.html

Commercial loans coming home to roost.