Outflows

The people running the City of Portland water and sewer bureaus are both leaving their jobs. They say they're "retiring," but it's interesting that they're both doing so at the same time. Neither one has had the top spot in their bureau for very long.

The city's talking about merging the two functions to some extent, which could mean that the two head honcho gigs will be combined into one. But come on, this is Portland. I'm sure the city will hire three or four people to replace the two who are departing.

Back when the City Council members were running day-to-day operations, the two functions, sewer and water, were split. This gave two different council members pork and patronage to spread around. Now that the City Council has been relegated to a less hands-on role, power has shifted to the bureaucrats. In this case, that's Michael "Air" Jordan, the city "administrator," and Priya Dhanapal, a water engineer who's Jordan's deputy for public works.

They've inherited a real can of worms, going back several decades. In Portland's current "doom loop," water and sewer costs are a serious problem. When property owners get their water and sewer bills, they have to be sitting down to open them, because if they faint, they know you can't always get an ambulance in Multnomah County. A lot of the obscene fees for water and sewer are then passed on to tenants in the form of higher rents. Which leads to the politicians' usual blather about the "housing crisis."

Meanwhile, construction of the city's obscenely wasteful $2 billion water filtration plant at the Bull Run reservoir has been put on "pause," because the city got busted for short-cutting through land use rules meant to protect the environment. Dhanapal is whining about how the delay will drive up the cost of the plant even further. (The original liars' budget was a half-billion.) And of course, she is quick to add the often-repeated point that the federal government is requiring the project. Other cities have gotten waivers, but somehow Portland, with one of the most senior members in the United States Senate, couldn't get one. I believe Steve Novick was in charge of that matter in his first stint on the City Council. He's a genius, you know. He got a Ph.D. from Harvard, and was piloting passenger jets, when he was nine years old. 

Anyway, there could be cheaper alternatives to what Portland's doing, but there's no sense talking about them; they've been rejected out of hand. That filtration plant will be built at any and all costs, just like the underground water tanks and all the other extravagant projects that the water and sewer types have undertaken in Portland over the years. The cozy construction contractors will get the mortgages paid on their suburban palaces, and their kids' college tuitions will be covered. If Grandma's water gets shut off in Rose City because she can't pay another bill with a comma in the number, that's too bad for her.

Amidst all this goodness, Air Jordan is getting another raise. Yep, $290,700 a year plus that sweet, sweet PERS wasn't enough. Let's jack it up to $312,500. Everything's going so well. And besides, it's only money.