Isaac Laquedem

Another way for Home Forward (Housing Authority of Portland) to save $1 million

Pleased as I am that Home Forward (the new name of Housing Authority of Portland, though the name actually belongs to a Portland law firm) has cut the cost of replacing Hillsdale Terrace to just $337,000 per unit (which is about the median price of houses on the west side and noticeably higher than the median price of houses citywide), it could save even more.  One way HF could save even more would be to send its agents to this upcoming auction of brand-new condominiums on Hayden Island.  The units seem at least as attractive as what HF would like to build in Hillsdale.  The location has bus service to Portland and is only a short walk to the employment opportunities in downtown Vancouver.  The units are larger than the Hillsdale Terrace units -- each has 1900 or more square feet.  Bidding starts at only $130,000.  I'd be surprised if HF couldn't pick up 8 or 10 of the units for $200,000 or so each, for a savings of $1 million or more over the cost of building new at Hillsdale Terrace.

Whimsical as the idea might be of a government agency saving money by buying the mistakes of private developers instead of making its own, it does strike me as odd that HAP (or HF) doesn't think there's anything strange in building publicly-assisted housing that's more costly than the unsubsidized private homes that surround it.

 

BPA's personnel office tries to dam an electronic torpedo

Technology has, speaking metaphorically, made the bag an ineffective and obsolete device in which to capture an escaped cat.  A senior manager at Bonneville Power Administration's Portland office learned this lesson this week after an anonymous employee sent an e-mail to her on Monday, with copies to dozens of managers and other employees at BPA.  The e-mail, which the sender claimed to be sending on behalf of a group, "The Anonymous of HCM," complained that a particular manager was harassing and abusive toward other employees, and gave some examples.

The e-mail may have struck a nerve, because later that evening BPA went around to the computers of the people who had received it and deleted the e-mail -- not, however, before some of the recipients had passed the e-mail along to the outside world.  Tuesday morning the manager to whom the e-mail was addressed sent out an e-mail response, quite professional and well-reasoned, giving other ways in which employees could bring personnel problems such as harassment and abusive conduct to the attention of BPA management, and asking the recipients to delete their copies of the original message.

Therein lies the problem: once the electronic cat is out of the bag, it can never again be corralled, and efforts to recapture the cat and give it the Schrodinger treatment only draw more attention (such as mine) to the escaped cat.

In Multnomah County, "promptly" means 4 weeks, or 7 weeks if you ask for a recount

ORS 254.483, that inconvenient bit of Oregon law that requires county elections officials to destroy unused ballots promptly after 8:00 p.m. on election day, isn't going away.  I had written about it in January, when it came to light that Multnomah County's elections department knows the law and chooses not to obey it.

Since then, I've learned an additional bit of information about the county's elections practices.  The county shreds the unused ballots a few weeks after the election: not promptly, but not in the vague future either.  It shredded the November 2009 ballots on January 26, 2010 and the May 2010 ballots on June 25, 2010.  It had scheduled the shredding service that it uses to come to the county to shred the November ballots on December 3, 2010.  The shredding people showed up on December 3 with their machines, and were told to go away and come back later ("later" turned out to be December 27).  The reason?  A recount had just been ordered, and the county didn't want to shred the unused ballots until the recount was complete.

The whole point of the statute is that unused ballots should be destroyed the moment that voting closes, so that they can't be fraudulently voted and added to the legitimate cast ballots.  A recount being ordered is even more of a reason to destroy the unused ballots, or at least to mark them indelibly so that they can be readily distinguished from the valid and voted ballots.  Until the law is changed, the county ought to follow it.

Isaac's alternate redistricting plan for the coast

One of Oregon's standards for redistricting is that communities of interest not be split.  Another is that they share transportation links.  A third is that existing political boundaries, such as county lines, should be followed where practicable.  With that in mind, it occurred to me to wonder if it's possible to make a Highway 101 district: that is, a district that includes the entire Oregon coast.

Here's how the state can be divided into five congressional districts, none of which vary by more than 900 from the population target.  (The actual population range is only 1387 from highest to lowest.)  All of the coast is in a single district, and only three counties (Josephine, Clackamas, and Multnomah) are split by district lines.  This should make the county clerks happy.

Grants Pass, in Josephine County, has to be added to the 2d district (green) to bring it up to quota, Multnomah County is divided between the 1st district on the west side and the 3d district on the east side, with neither district crossing the river, and Clackamas County is used to balance the 1st, 3d, and 5th districts.

This is getting to be fun!  Does any other government want some help redistricting?

Why the Sellwood Bridge levy failed: an unorthodox explanation

BlueOregon has a lively discussion (here) about why Clackamas County voters soundly defeated the proposal to levy a $5/year fee on Clackamas County cars to help pay to replace the Sellwood Bridge in Multnomah County.  Explanations ranged from "the voters don't want to pay more taxes" past "Multnomah County doesn't pay for Clackamas County's bridges" to points even further afield.

One possible reason occurred to me, not yet mentioned in the comments over there.  The Sellwood Bridge used to connect to four lanes of SE Tacoma Street; now, thanks to Portland's transportation planning, it connects to only two lanes of SE Tacoma Street.  (The two deceased lanes have provided room for bike lanes and a median that sometimes doubles as a left-turn refuge.)  Portland's transportation planners have made it clear to everyone in the area, including the Clackamas County residents and workers who use the Sellwood Bridge, that they don't want people to get to the bridge, but to go to either the Ross Island or the Oregon City freeway bridge instead.  Portland's planners have also limited any replacement bridge to two lanes despite the need for four.  (The original bridge was built with two lanes not because the county thought that two lanes were enough, but simply to save money.)

Clackamas County voters might reasonably have concluded that it didn't make sense for them to give money to Multnomah County to build a bridge within the City of Portland that the City wants to discourage them from using.

Good news! The cost of affordable housing is down to $337,000/unit

The Housing Authority of Portland (now called Home Forward) proudly announced that it's been awarded $18.5 million toward demolishing Hillsdale Terrace, a dilapidated housing project near SW Capitol Highway and Vermont Street, and replacing it with 129 new units and a 6,000 square foot early education center (childcare facility).  The Tribune article notes that the project is receiving $28.8 million of other money, making the total cost $46.5 million.  This does not include the land value, which Home Forward already owns.

The cost to demolish the existing buildings shouldn't be more than $2 million.  If the childcare facility costs $300/square foot to build and furnish, that's another $1.8 million.  That leaves $43.5 million as the cost of the new units.  That's $337,000/unit, well down from the $400,000/unit that the project was supposed to cost only a few months ago.  Part of the decrease -- most of it, actually -- is because Home Forward is putting in 129 units instead of only 100.

To pay $337,000 per unit for new apartment construction seems high, particularly when the median price of houses in west Portland and eastern Washington County is only $340,000. 

Let's check out the competition: here's a 35-year-old condominium for sale for $350,000 -- about the same price as the cost of the new units proposed by Home Forward -- with 2 bedrooms, a deck, and 1170 square feet.  The picture at left shows the neighborhood, which looks at least as desirable as Hillsdale.  And it's going to have great public transit: if you look closely, you'll see the track for the Portland-Lake Oswego streetcar.

Isaac's redistricting plan for the state house

Redistricting the Oregon house turned out to be much more challenging than doing the congressional seats, not only because there are 12 times as many districts to deal with, but because of the other constraints, most notably the shapes of the census tracts from which the districts have to be formed.  County lines also become more troublesome to follow at this scale, and here and there as I was designing the districts I painted myself into a corner.  Eventually I solved everything, and came up with this plan.  The house districts pair off into senate seats as is traditional: house districts 1 and 2 make senate district 1; house districts 3 and 4 make senate district 2, and so on.  I've color-coded this map to make it a little easier to visualize the senate districts, which aren't labeled; a light red house district combines with the adjoining dark red house district to form a senate district, a light green district joins with a dark green district to form a senate district, and so on.  Each district is entirely within one congressional district, county lines are respected as much as possible, and communities of interest are mostly kept together. 

Here's a detail view of the Portland metro area.  (The software I'm using is for congressional districts, which is why the districts are labeled "CD" instead of "HD".)  There's doubtless still some room for improvement, but I immodestly think it's rather better than the plans that the two parties have proposed.

Isaac's final redistricting plan for Congress

After a few further tweaks to reduce the number of split counties, I think I've finished the Laquedem congressional and state plans.  Here is my final congressional plan, still leaving the 3d District unchanged. (Click it to enlarge.)  I un-split Marion and Linn Counties and straightened a line or two.  I modestly think it's not bad, but I suspect the redistricting committee will have some other idea in mind that involves messing with the 3d District.

Isaac redistricts the Portland-area state house seats

Here is my rendition of the Portland-area house seats.  I used the existing boundary of Congressional district 3 (Earl Blumenauer's district) as a constraint: no state house district in the Isaac Plan is split between two U.S. House seats.  As much as possible I strove to have the east side house districts be rectangles.  The St. Johns seat includes part of the west side Forest Heights neighborhood, and a district between Lake Oswego and Oregon City includes both sides of the Willamette.  This layout respects county lines; no districts are split between Multnomah and Washington Counties, and only two districts are meaningfully split between Multnomah and Clackamas Counties.  (A third Clackamas County district includes one Multnomah County census tract.)  This map doesn't show them, but Salem and Keizer have separate districts, Springfield has a district with no Eugene voters, and the coast is covered by just six districts.

If I can find the data on where the incumbents live, in the next day or two I'll see how many legislators I've placed into the same district.

Isaac redistricts our congressmen

Here's how my congressional redistricting came out.  I made a few small tweaks to my previous attempt, and ended up with the largest district having only 523 more people than the smallest.  District 3 retains its current shape.  District 1 (David Wu's district) loses the south end of Yamhill County, District 2 picks up a few sparsely-populated sections of Marion County, and District 3 stays exactly the same.  District 4 picks up some voters near Corvallis.  I couldn't avoid splitting Corvallis and Grants Pass, unfortunately.  Otherwise I'm rather pleased with it.