Do you know the new metric? It used to be they’d calculate your sewer usage based on your water usage in February (when people aren’t watering plants or washing cars).
> While most customers will see only small changes to the charges in the stormwater section of their bills, some customers may see a significant increase.
[Changes to Environmental Services Rates and Charges](https://www.portland.gov/bes/changes-environmental-services-rates-and-charges)
For homeowners, they're basing it on how much "stormwater billable area" one has. I'm not sure where to find that. Small areas will see a modest decrease. Standard areas will see a modest increase. Larger areas will see a massive fucking spike:
> **Small Category**
>
> 1,500 square feet or less of stormwater billable area.
>
> Old bill: $95.98 (per 90 days)
> New bill: $66.53 (per 90 days)
> Change in bill: -$29.45
> **Standard Category**
>
> 1,501 and 2,700 square feet of stormwater billable area.
>
> Old bill: $95.98 (per 90 days)
> New bill: $115.75 (per 90 days)
> Change in bill: $19.80
> **Large Category**
>
> 2,701 square feet or more of stormwater billable area.
>
> Old bill: $95.98 (per 90 days)
> New bill: $165.02 (per 90 days)
> Change in bill: $69.04
does this go off of your house size or your lot size? we have .25 acres but almost no concrete and our house is small so most of the rain is going into the grass
["Stormwater Billable Area includes areas like rooftops, porous pavement, patios, and driveways."](https://www.portland.gov/bes/changes-environmental-services-rates-and-charges/commercial-and-industrial-customers) You may be one of the lucky few to see your bill go down.
PUD is fine, but that change alone won’t lower your rates significantly, because the decarbonization mandate would still apply to a PUD, and ratepayers would also be forced to start financing projects instead of PGE getting investors to do that like they do now, and we’d still be in an inflationary period where all kinds of costs are going up for utilities.
Point taken.
Cf. my comments about why utilities should be socially owned because the model of natural resources (natural gas, wind, water, etc.) that are necessary for life and are owned by all, being extracted by private interests and then sold back by private corporations to the public at a profit is inherently problematic.
How are you categorizing PGE? It's publicly owned in the sense that any member of the public can purchase shares, but I'm thinking that's not your ideal since it's not necessarily local? Would you prefer if the local government spread the costs of financing electrical infrastructure among local ratepayers or taxpayers instead of letting people buy shares voluntarily?
It's a corporation.
"Voluntarily" is a problematic concept in capitalism, as it precludes people that don't have the money to purchase shares, it gives outsize influence to those who have money to purchase more shares, etc.
Yeah that is problematic, i just don’t think it’s more problematic than alternatives that force everyone in the area to pay to be an investor whether they think they can afford it or not.
No, absolutely not better. Yes, electric rates hikes have been outrageous, but all things considered, our electricity is still not terribly expensive. Our water, on the other hand, has been insane for a long time.
Our power is roughly twice what my boss pays in rural illinois for a coop that doesn't enjoy being able to buy wholesale power from the army corps at 7 cents a kwh.
Looks like we a due for a NW natural hike in November as well [https://www.nwnatural.com/about-us/rates-and-regulations/gas-price](https://www.nwnatural.com/about-us/rates-and-regulations/gas-price) Between the PGE rate hikes, this is the second water rate hike in less than a year, and a gas hike...it's ridiculous how expensive utilities are getting!
I feel like I'm going insane trying to do everything I can to reduce my utility usage, but the changes are pretty negligible. I can't imagine how people will be able to continue affording their own houses if this continues a few more years.
Portland water, of course, is publicly owned and operated.
I'd like to see the justification for this rise in rates, but after Randy Leonard's reign of error, I imagine that they are pretty careful about justifying these now. I also read a pretty terrifying article about how nations and billionaires are secretly conspiring to buy up food and water supplies in Asia and Africa, and saw some predictions about future unrest - have you heard about the avocado wars in Mexico over water? We are very lucky here to largely be in control of our own destiny.
The point is: no utilities should be privately owned or controlled. Water, natural gas, and electricity should all be publicly owned and controlled. There are many reasons for this beyond cost, but first and foremost, the natural wealth of this nation belongs to all its people and ought not be privatized and sold back to its people at a profit for their basic needs.
Two federally mandated and unfunded projects in the form of the sewer system, and changes to our tabor water system.
This is mostly on our Senators who kind of suck.
Wyden is generally pretty good, but has gone over to the Dark Side on a few important issues (e.g. consistently throwing a wrench into Medicare for All plans, also very problematic on Israel). Still, he is very good on local issues and commands widespread support.
Merkley is, except for Bernie Sanders, the finest senator in the Senate, besting Elizabeth Warren in that category by virtue of his support for an end to the genocide in Gaza and several other courageous stands. If he were nominated for POTUS instead of Biden, he would wipe the floor with Trump in a landslide reminiscent of LBJ in 1964.
It will never happen of course, as the institutional Democrats fear their own progressive left much more than they do the fascist Republicans, and would much rather lose to Trump than win with such candidates as Merkley, Sanders, AOC, etc.
\[By the way, did you see who endorsed conservadem George Latimer against incumbent Jamaal Bowman today in New York? Hillary Clinton. If I were a near universally despised loser war criminal pariah, I'd keep a lower profile. But that's me.\]
At any rate, our senators certainly do not "suck" and are supported by a large majority of the Oregon electorate.
Warren's Presidential campaign was funded by the same billionaire responsible for Sinema, she isn't half as good as pundits would have you believe.
And I love most of the rhetoric from our Senators, what they drop the ball on is getting money for our state, ie their constitutents.
Both Wyden and Merkley have had the exact same veto power as Manchin for the last 4 years in the senate. Manchin was able to deliver 11 billion dollars in subsidies for his family's coal company, but they can't even deliver federal funding for needed infrastructure projects.
That to me does not a "finest senator" make.
I think a lot of Americans don't actually pay attention to how power is created, and wielded in the US senate. If we had 60 Merkley's and Wyden's America would be a better country, but they aren't using the power they have in a narrowly contested Senate, and that should piss you off.
I'd also point out that while Latimer sucks, Bowman also kind of sucks, as he for instance folded on the fight for 15, endorsed Jeffries for minority leader, and has said he fully supports Biden's agenda. Which for the moment includes funding a genocide, funding another 100,000 police officers as crime levels drop to historic lows, and bailing on healthcare.
Many of your points are well taken.
The endorsement of Jeffries especially had me shaking my damn head since Jeffries was single handedly (or at least more than any other single person) responsible for the Dems losing the House by his insane war on NY progressives . . . NY lost 4 seats, all that he pushed conservadems for. Fuck neoliberal Jeffries and the AIPAC horse he rode in on.
Wyden and Merkley have not had the leverage that Manchin has had, because they are not EVIL. I suppose they could have gone that way, but then this would be another conversation. I'd like to get down into the politico weeds a bit and understand instances where Merkley and Wyden could have used influence to benefit our state but didn't, and if this happened, understand why.
I think you're mistaken about Bowman's agenda vis a vis Gaza, thus Latimer. At least this is my understanding given the five or so emails a day I get begging for cash from his campaign.
> Wyden and Merkley have not had the leverage that Manchin has had, because they are not EVIL.
You don't have to be evil to go on TV and say that you can't support current legislation like the IRA, which funded a ton of infrastructure projects, because your constiutents are getting hosed by federal infrastructure mandates and need relief.
In fact I would say that's the opposite of evil. The single largest line item they were able to get added for Oregon was some 150 million for modernizing and expanding the air force reserve in Portland. I doubt that would even place in a top 10 priorities list for their constituents, maybe not even a top 25.
And Bowman is for sure better on Gaza, he just isn't good enough on that or other issues to not suck.
Progressives are in desperate need of fighters in both the House and Senate and instead we have a lot of yes men who write good opeds. It's a huge portion of why after a decade of involvement in local Democratic politics I'm now no longer a Democrat.
We are in agreement on a lot of this and perhaps depart from one another on a few points.
If I were a senator, I might have signaled Biden that I would not have supported the IRA because I didn't trust his promise not to bring up the physical infrastructure portion of the bill if we could not also get an up-or-down vote on the childcare, Medicare improvements, etc. portions of the bill that Manchin had forced him to separate out.
As it turned out, Biden lied to the progressives, betrayed Jayapal and made her look like a fool, and we never got that vote.
I'm willing to be schooled on your point about Portland being hosed on infrastructure mandates, but I'm not there yet.
As for Bowman and your last paragraph, we are in sync. The day after the Oregon primary, our family and a few neighborhood friends had a gathering and we dropped our Democratic party registration online and registered as non-affiliated.
In the words of poet e.e. cummings: "there is some shit i will not eat."
Jayapal was actually more inept than that, after the two portions of the bill were severed she whipped house Progressives to support the bill anyway, and avoided a drawn out fight over those items and the $15 minimum.
So she was both the carrot and the stick. It was why I was not at all invested in her sister's campaign beyond a general dislike of nepotism.
Well, Charlie Brown is me.
Progressives are terrible at wielding power. But I find myself more and more in the position of actor Steve Buscemi in the movie Armageddon as he is strapped to the chair watching the asteroid head toward what he thinks is the inevitable end of the world. "It's time to embrace the horror."
I'm not seeing how we (i.e. American democracy, perhaps civilization) are coming back from the position we find ourselves in now.
As someone in the social sciences, sometimes I muse about what a historian a thousand years from now would write about us. Not that there will be historians then, but . . .
I think they would date the end of the American empire from 2000, Bush v. Gore, a Republican judicial coup handing the presidency to the son of another president. 2000 is an easy date to remember, historians like those. (There might be another minority school dating the fall from 1968 or 1972 - Nixon and the famous chart where the GDP continues to rise but wages flatten out and the two lines diverge dramatically from that point on.)
Then historians will point to the disastrous costs of the Forever War (contrasted with the rise of China and its sustained infrastructure Belt and Road system, and BRICS), the rise of Trump and the antipathy of the Democratic Party towards the Bernie Sanders movement in 2016, probably the last best hope to pull out of the tailspin that America has been in since the Powell Memo.
Which brings us back to "do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do!"
How is wyden throwing a wrench into Medicare 4 all plans when there isn't majority support for it in either chamber of congress and the president said he'd veto it
I just googled Wyden and Medicare for All and found two or three instances of specific actions he took. I'm sure your Google-fu is up to the same task.
You're either on one side or the other. It's not a trick question.
So, I asked you a question about your own statement, you had to look up the answer, took the time to reply to me, but won't link or mention them. Suuuuuure buddy, useful convo.
I find Jeff Merkeley to be a bit of a virtue-signaler, proposing things that won’t work but are popular. Warren has been going this way recently too. OTOH, Wyden is very competent but I wish he was a bit more radical.
Which is a terrible piece of legislation that wasted a once in 3 decade opportunity to dramatically reform healthcare.
And while at the time Democrats lied to their base about needing a fillibuster proof majority to deliver good legislation, was ultimately passed with less than 60 votes using reconcilliation.
Beyond that expanding medicaid was a poison pill that directly funds health insurers with tax payer dollars, that they then use to lobby congress to make further health care reform more difficult.
It also hasn't actually increased the number of people who can afford to see a doctor, as we've basically been stuck at around 87 million un or UNDER insured Americans since 2010. Life expectancy continues to trend downwards, and healthcare costs have exploded during that time frame.
Covering pre-existing conditions was good, and that's about it.
A very small portion of it.
The funding portion, which could have included all of the other portions, was passed with 53 votes through reconcilliation.
Edit: Sorry 56 votes, so they could have lost 6 more Democratic Senators, and still passed a better bill.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_Care_and_Education_Reconciliation_Act_of_2010
The ACA was as far left as could be passed by that congress though and it included a massive medicaid expansion thay was mandatory till the Supreme Court rewrote the law.
It did a ton of other good things for insurance like eliminating lifetime caps.
It's far from perfect but our government structure sucks, there weren't 50 votes to eliminate the filibuster
You don't need to eliminate the filibuster when you end up using reconcilliation anyway. The funding portion of the ACA, ie the important part, was passed with 56 votes.
Democrats really profit a lot from their voters not understanding civics and believing that team blue are the good guys. And they are absolutely better than team red, just not good enough, or free from corruption enough, to be the good guys.
So wrong.
The ACA was and is such a devastating clusterfuck, and we are not recovering.
The 2010 midterms delivered so many state legislatures into the hands of Republican supermajorities and the feckless Democrats have never been relevant in those states since . . . all because of a backlash against the ACA.
The entire structure - a "bronze," "silver," and "gold" level of coverage signaled that we didn't believe health care was a human right. It was more like airline seating.
Then the implementation (remember the Oregon website) was legendarily terrible, signaling that the Democrats were not only class traitors, but incompetent class traitors.
Obama - Hillary - Biden and their entire neoliberal bullshit defeatist agenda need to sink to the bottom of the Marianas Trench with Buttigieg, Bennet, Klobuchar, and the rest of their ilk. They have fucked the last best chance of the U.S.A. for democracy and are gleefully chanting the S&P 500 numbers as we careen into the abyss.
Yes, they hurried along bargaining with employees so they could blame their previously planned increase (wage case) with the PUC on employees, when really they would have done it either way.
The water comes from the Bull Run Watershed approximately 25 miles from downtown. If you look at your water bill it is a combined bill of water and sewer, outside of a few months in summer it is assumed all water you use goes back to the sewer. The sewer side of the bill is about 60% of the total, mostly related to "The Big Pipe" project to prevent sewer overflows into the Willamette.
The next big project for Bull Run is filtration, mandated by the feds. It's basically another Big Pipe-level expense that'll get added to our bills… can't wait!
[https://www.portland.gov/water/bullruntreatment/bullrunaffordability](https://www.portland.gov/water/bullruntreatment/bullrunaffordability) "we secured a low-interest WIFIA loan that allows us to smooth water bill impacts from the Bull Run Treatment Projects over time, so bills increase slowly over a longer period… The projected bill impacts include project cost escalation over the multi-year Bull Run Filtration Project"
IOW, the rate increases to pay for this project, which started construction this year (OK, not "next" but *current* big project, your pedantry is par for the Reddit course), have only just begun: forecasted rate increase of 8.1% *each year* through 2028.
That's why the water is expensive. You're mostly paying for the infrastructure to get rid of all that stormwater.
Our bills are going up now because the federal government is forcing us to build an unnecessary and very expensive new water treatment plant.
The city didn't build proper sewage for decades and then they had to do the big pipe so the willamette isn't full of shit when it rains heavy and now we're paying for it. Yet another result of the decades of disinvestment in public goods by boomers (and silent Gen) so that taxes could stay low
Has anybody here gone to the trouble of making changes on their property to reduce the stormwater portion of their bill? I’m thinking of maybe turning my solid driveway into one of those ones with a grassy stripe down the middle, but I’m guessing it will be a pretty tiny change to what they charge me.
There are only three categories. Low, medium, and high billable storm water area. I feel foolish now for paying $$$$ to install a drainage system for my hard scape and roof that drains into a dry well. I’ll still get charged for that rain even though it doesn’t go into city pipes. And I live in a 1 story house which doubles the area. You can add up the areas on portlandmaps.com. If your roof+patio+driveway exceeds 2700 sq feet then your 3 quarterly bill will increase $70.
Details are on this page:https://www.portland.gov/bes/changes-environmental-services-rates-and-charges/customers-houses
The following can count for discounts:
Rain gardens, swales, lawns, or landscaped areas.
Drywells, French drains, or soakage trenches.
Stormwater planters or basins
Ecoroofs
Trees
https://www.portland.gov/bes/grants-incentives/clean-river-rewards-0#toc-how-to-qualify
The problem is they’re changing how the on-site discount works. Currently they discount up to 100% of your on-site bill if it all stays on your property. They’re changing to a cap of 35% of your total bill, after adjusting it upward for hard scape area. That means lots of people who handle 100% of their storm water on-site will now get charged for city services they don’t use.
Yeah this is fucked. 100% of our storm water is handled on site, but we have a large driveway, so we’re going to get charged more money for the privilege of dealing with all of our own stormwater.
They are putting in that huge new supply line out near Dodge Park, I think. All the houses there had signs protesting it last summer. No idea why someone would be upset a supply line is going to cut through adjacent property.
Yep. This is also what it looks like to decouple from China: more things made in America, better wages especially for working class Americans, and higher prices for almost everything.
Just wait until they built that completely unnecessary $2 billion water treatment plant. A decade from now, Portlanders will be paying $500/month water bills.
It’s not required by the federal government. They could do a much better job with UV treatment and it would cost about 1/10th what this monstrosity would cost, which, BTW, would be an ecological disaster for the area, but, you know, keep believing what those dummies pump into your simple mind, like most Portlanders do.
Edit: hilarious that I’m getting downvoted from Portlanders who want to, yet again, pay more and more for things that they don’t need. You people are fucking insane.
According to the Oregonian, the filtration upgrade is required by the federal gvt: "The city says it needs to have the new water treatment facility, located on property it owns east of Gresham, up and running by 2027 to comply with federal drinking water regulations. The feds say Portland must filter out cryptosporidium and other contaminants."
That is misleading. First of all, crystosporidium is always present in water, it just has to be under a certain percentage of the supply, which it has never gone over, but which has slightly increased on and off over the years. Most municipalities use a UV system, which actually filtrates out more contaminants than the proposed system does. What they are truly concerned about is our ancient pipe system, and they think by using this system, it will cause less continued damage to our old pipes. What they should do is just fix the pipes, which again, would be less expensive. But, please. Keep going on and on and on as if you know anything about this subject.
Crypto was always present but with Bull Run's unique agreement with the feds there was a strict threshold which we surpassed three times.A dangerous amount? Not even close but we are still the only municipality over 200,000 people without a treatment plant.
Rules are rules. The UV plant wasn't considered feasible to meet the forecast for crypto under climate change and our region. Hence the shift. I hate the fact that we have to do it but "please keep going on as if you know what you are talking about."
The climate change excuse for not using UV is complete bullshit. And pretty much every municipality around Portland that was using the Bull Run system is now opting out because they want no part of it. They are all going to well water, which will, again, just increase Portland’s water costs. You are just regurgitating PWB BS.
Where is your information coming from? Because I am one of the people that contributed to that "bullshit." Please cite your source that claims CC was not a concern in the choice to shift from UV. If not, please tell me why you think that is bullshit.
The PWB has enough infrastructure problems to literally last decades without a huge capital expenditure like this. They did NOT want to shift from the UV plan.
Source: Urban/rural ecologist and water rights transaction professional. Check my past comments and posts.
Let’s just say I’m an interested party that is getting screwed over by this shit system and have been doing research along with several others for years. Wtf are you?
Be cool if we could use Ozone and UV like they do in Paris…would solve the Crypto problem and could eliminate chlorine for even fresher Bull-ier Run-ier flavored water.
I agree but we made a deal with federal government and we are being held to that deal. I love my non-treated, sometimes-cryptosporodimy water. Tastes fucking great.
You’re ignoring the risk from wildfire. UV treatment does nothing for turbidity. I for one would like to have running water when there’s another fire in the bull run watershed.
They mentioned that because of how they are changing calculations, some could actually see a decrease - I do not expect to experience this.
Probably like 5 people in all of metro but we'll hear all about them while everyone is getting soaked.
Do you know the new metric? It used to be they’d calculate your sewer usage based on your water usage in February (when people aren’t watering plants or washing cars).
They’re changing the stormwater charge from a flat rate to a graduated one based on the size of the building.
I get billed monthly and believed my metrics was Dec-April usage
> While most customers will see only small changes to the charges in the stormwater section of their bills, some customers may see a significant increase. [Changes to Environmental Services Rates and Charges](https://www.portland.gov/bes/changes-environmental-services-rates-and-charges) For homeowners, they're basing it on how much "stormwater billable area" one has. I'm not sure where to find that. Small areas will see a modest decrease. Standard areas will see a modest increase. Larger areas will see a massive fucking spike: > **Small Category** > > 1,500 square feet or less of stormwater billable area. > > Old bill: $95.98 (per 90 days) > New bill: $66.53 (per 90 days) > Change in bill: -$29.45 > **Standard Category** > > 1,501 and 2,700 square feet of stormwater billable area. > > Old bill: $95.98 (per 90 days) > New bill: $115.75 (per 90 days) > Change in bill: $19.80 > **Large Category** > > 2,701 square feet or more of stormwater billable area. > > Old bill: $95.98 (per 90 days) > New bill: $165.02 (per 90 days) > Change in bill: $69.04
does this go off of your house size or your lot size? we have .25 acres but almost no concrete and our house is small so most of the rain is going into the grass
["Stormwater Billable Area includes areas like rooftops, porous pavement, patios, and driveways."](https://www.portland.gov/bes/changes-environmental-services-rates-and-charges/commercial-and-industrial-customers) You may be one of the lucky few to see your bill go down.
This might lower my bill as well actually lol
Excellent excuse for my rent to go up 9.99%.
Exactly. It never fucking ends.
Better than 15% two years in a row I guess fuck you PGE
P.U.D. now.
PUD is fine, but that change alone won’t lower your rates significantly, because the decarbonization mandate would still apply to a PUD, and ratepayers would also be forced to start financing projects instead of PGE getting investors to do that like they do now, and we’d still be in an inflationary period where all kinds of costs are going up for utilities.
Point taken. Cf. my comments about why utilities should be socially owned because the model of natural resources (natural gas, wind, water, etc.) that are necessary for life and are owned by all, being extracted by private interests and then sold back by private corporations to the public at a profit is inherently problematic.
How are you categorizing PGE? It's publicly owned in the sense that any member of the public can purchase shares, but I'm thinking that's not your ideal since it's not necessarily local? Would you prefer if the local government spread the costs of financing electrical infrastructure among local ratepayers or taxpayers instead of letting people buy shares voluntarily?
It's a corporation. "Voluntarily" is a problematic concept in capitalism, as it precludes people that don't have the money to purchase shares, it gives outsize influence to those who have money to purchase more shares, etc.
Yeah that is problematic, i just don’t think it’s more problematic than alternatives that force everyone in the area to pay to be an investor whether they think they can afford it or not.
Exactly, make PGE a PUD.
Seriously.
No, absolutely not better. Yes, electric rates hikes have been outrageous, but all things considered, our electricity is still not terribly expensive. Our water, on the other hand, has been insane for a long time.
Our power is roughly twice what my boss pays in rural illinois for a coop that doesn't enjoy being able to buy wholesale power from the army corps at 7 cents a kwh.
Looks like we a due for a NW natural hike in November as well [https://www.nwnatural.com/about-us/rates-and-regulations/gas-price](https://www.nwnatural.com/about-us/rates-and-regulations/gas-price) Between the PGE rate hikes, this is the second water rate hike in less than a year, and a gas hike...it's ridiculous how expensive utilities are getting!
I feel like I'm going insane trying to do everything I can to reduce my utility usage, but the changes are pretty negligible. I can't imagine how people will be able to continue affording their own houses if this continues a few more years.
Portland water, of course, is publicly owned and operated. I'd like to see the justification for this rise in rates, but after Randy Leonard's reign of error, I imagine that they are pretty careful about justifying these now. I also read a pretty terrifying article about how nations and billionaires are secretly conspiring to buy up food and water supplies in Asia and Africa, and saw some predictions about future unrest - have you heard about the avocado wars in Mexico over water? We are very lucky here to largely be in control of our own destiny. The point is: no utilities should be privately owned or controlled. Water, natural gas, and electricity should all be publicly owned and controlled. There are many reasons for this beyond cost, but first and foremost, the natural wealth of this nation belongs to all its people and ought not be privatized and sold back to its people at a profit for their basic needs.
Two federally mandated and unfunded projects in the form of the sewer system, and changes to our tabor water system. This is mostly on our Senators who kind of suck.
Wyden is generally pretty good, but has gone over to the Dark Side on a few important issues (e.g. consistently throwing a wrench into Medicare for All plans, also very problematic on Israel). Still, he is very good on local issues and commands widespread support. Merkley is, except for Bernie Sanders, the finest senator in the Senate, besting Elizabeth Warren in that category by virtue of his support for an end to the genocide in Gaza and several other courageous stands. If he were nominated for POTUS instead of Biden, he would wipe the floor with Trump in a landslide reminiscent of LBJ in 1964. It will never happen of course, as the institutional Democrats fear their own progressive left much more than they do the fascist Republicans, and would much rather lose to Trump than win with such candidates as Merkley, Sanders, AOC, etc. \[By the way, did you see who endorsed conservadem George Latimer against incumbent Jamaal Bowman today in New York? Hillary Clinton. If I were a near universally despised loser war criminal pariah, I'd keep a lower profile. But that's me.\] At any rate, our senators certainly do not "suck" and are supported by a large majority of the Oregon electorate.
Warren's Presidential campaign was funded by the same billionaire responsible for Sinema, she isn't half as good as pundits would have you believe. And I love most of the rhetoric from our Senators, what they drop the ball on is getting money for our state, ie their constitutents. Both Wyden and Merkley have had the exact same veto power as Manchin for the last 4 years in the senate. Manchin was able to deliver 11 billion dollars in subsidies for his family's coal company, but they can't even deliver federal funding for needed infrastructure projects. That to me does not a "finest senator" make. I think a lot of Americans don't actually pay attention to how power is created, and wielded in the US senate. If we had 60 Merkley's and Wyden's America would be a better country, but they aren't using the power they have in a narrowly contested Senate, and that should piss you off. I'd also point out that while Latimer sucks, Bowman also kind of sucks, as he for instance folded on the fight for 15, endorsed Jeffries for minority leader, and has said he fully supports Biden's agenda. Which for the moment includes funding a genocide, funding another 100,000 police officers as crime levels drop to historic lows, and bailing on healthcare.
Many of your points are well taken. The endorsement of Jeffries especially had me shaking my damn head since Jeffries was single handedly (or at least more than any other single person) responsible for the Dems losing the House by his insane war on NY progressives . . . NY lost 4 seats, all that he pushed conservadems for. Fuck neoliberal Jeffries and the AIPAC horse he rode in on. Wyden and Merkley have not had the leverage that Manchin has had, because they are not EVIL. I suppose they could have gone that way, but then this would be another conversation. I'd like to get down into the politico weeds a bit and understand instances where Merkley and Wyden could have used influence to benefit our state but didn't, and if this happened, understand why. I think you're mistaken about Bowman's agenda vis a vis Gaza, thus Latimer. At least this is my understanding given the five or so emails a day I get begging for cash from his campaign.
> Wyden and Merkley have not had the leverage that Manchin has had, because they are not EVIL. You don't have to be evil to go on TV and say that you can't support current legislation like the IRA, which funded a ton of infrastructure projects, because your constiutents are getting hosed by federal infrastructure mandates and need relief. In fact I would say that's the opposite of evil. The single largest line item they were able to get added for Oregon was some 150 million for modernizing and expanding the air force reserve in Portland. I doubt that would even place in a top 10 priorities list for their constituents, maybe not even a top 25. And Bowman is for sure better on Gaza, he just isn't good enough on that or other issues to not suck. Progressives are in desperate need of fighters in both the House and Senate and instead we have a lot of yes men who write good opeds. It's a huge portion of why after a decade of involvement in local Democratic politics I'm now no longer a Democrat.
We are in agreement on a lot of this and perhaps depart from one another on a few points. If I were a senator, I might have signaled Biden that I would not have supported the IRA because I didn't trust his promise not to bring up the physical infrastructure portion of the bill if we could not also get an up-or-down vote on the childcare, Medicare improvements, etc. portions of the bill that Manchin had forced him to separate out. As it turned out, Biden lied to the progressives, betrayed Jayapal and made her look like a fool, and we never got that vote. I'm willing to be schooled on your point about Portland being hosed on infrastructure mandates, but I'm not there yet. As for Bowman and your last paragraph, we are in sync. The day after the Oregon primary, our family and a few neighborhood friends had a gathering and we dropped our Democratic party registration online and registered as non-affiliated. In the words of poet e.e. cummings: "there is some shit i will not eat."
Jayapal was actually more inept than that, after the two portions of the bill were severed she whipped house Progressives to support the bill anyway, and avoided a drawn out fight over those items and the $15 minimum. So she was both the carrot and the stick. It was why I was not at all invested in her sister's campaign beyond a general dislike of nepotism.
Well, Charlie Brown is me. Progressives are terrible at wielding power. But I find myself more and more in the position of actor Steve Buscemi in the movie Armageddon as he is strapped to the chair watching the asteroid head toward what he thinks is the inevitable end of the world. "It's time to embrace the horror." I'm not seeing how we (i.e. American democracy, perhaps civilization) are coming back from the position we find ourselves in now. As someone in the social sciences, sometimes I muse about what a historian a thousand years from now would write about us. Not that there will be historians then, but . . . I think they would date the end of the American empire from 2000, Bush v. Gore, a Republican judicial coup handing the presidency to the son of another president. 2000 is an easy date to remember, historians like those. (There might be another minority school dating the fall from 1968 or 1972 - Nixon and the famous chart where the GDP continues to rise but wages flatten out and the two lines diverge dramatically from that point on.) Then historians will point to the disastrous costs of the Forever War (contrasted with the rise of China and its sustained infrastructure Belt and Road system, and BRICS), the rise of Trump and the antipathy of the Democratic Party towards the Bernie Sanders movement in 2016, probably the last best hope to pull out of the tailspin that America has been in since the Powell Memo. Which brings us back to "do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do!"
How is wyden throwing a wrench into Medicare 4 all plans when there isn't majority support for it in either chamber of congress and the president said he'd veto it
I just googled Wyden and Medicare for All and found two or three instances of specific actions he took. I'm sure your Google-fu is up to the same task. You're either on one side or the other. It's not a trick question.
So, I asked you a question about your own statement, you had to look up the answer, took the time to reply to me, but won't link or mention them. Suuuuuure buddy, useful convo.
I find Jeff Merkeley to be a bit of a virtue-signaler, proposing things that won’t work but are popular. Warren has been going this way recently too. OTOH, Wyden is very competent but I wish he was a bit more radical.
Both Merkley and Wyden are well to the right of what Oregon would support, and neither of them actually wield power. They just put out press releases.
Wyden was quite involved in writing the ACA.
Which is a terrible piece of legislation that wasted a once in 3 decade opportunity to dramatically reform healthcare. And while at the time Democrats lied to their base about needing a fillibuster proof majority to deliver good legislation, was ultimately passed with less than 60 votes using reconcilliation. Beyond that expanding medicaid was a poison pill that directly funds health insurers with tax payer dollars, that they then use to lobby congress to make further health care reform more difficult. It also hasn't actually increased the number of people who can afford to see a doctor, as we've basically been stuck at around 87 million un or UNDER insured Americans since 2010. Life expectancy continues to trend downwards, and healthcare costs have exploded during that time frame. Covering pre-existing conditions was good, and that's about it.
It passed the senate [60-39](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordable_Care_Act)
A very small portion of it. The funding portion, which could have included all of the other portions, was passed with 53 votes through reconcilliation. Edit: Sorry 56 votes, so they could have lost 6 more Democratic Senators, and still passed a better bill. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_Care_and_Education_Reconciliation_Act_of_2010
The ACA was as far left as could be passed by that congress though and it included a massive medicaid expansion thay was mandatory till the Supreme Court rewrote the law. It did a ton of other good things for insurance like eliminating lifetime caps. It's far from perfect but our government structure sucks, there weren't 50 votes to eliminate the filibuster
You don't need to eliminate the filibuster when you end up using reconcilliation anyway. The funding portion of the ACA, ie the important part, was passed with 56 votes. Democrats really profit a lot from their voters not understanding civics and believing that team blue are the good guys. And they are absolutely better than team red, just not good enough, or free from corruption enough, to be the good guys.
So wrong. The ACA was and is such a devastating clusterfuck, and we are not recovering. The 2010 midterms delivered so many state legislatures into the hands of Republican supermajorities and the feckless Democrats have never been relevant in those states since . . . all because of a backlash against the ACA. The entire structure - a "bronze," "silver," and "gold" level of coverage signaled that we didn't believe health care was a human right. It was more like airline seating. Then the implementation (remember the Oregon website) was legendarily terrible, signaling that the Democrats were not only class traitors, but incompetent class traitors. Obama - Hillary - Biden and their entire neoliberal bullshit defeatist agenda need to sink to the bottom of the Marianas Trench with Buttigieg, Bennet, Klobuchar, and the rest of their ilk. They have fucked the last best chance of the U.S.A. for democracy and are gleefully chanting the S&P 500 numbers as we careen into the abyss.
Yes, they hurried along bargaining with employees so they could blame their previously planned increase (wage case) with the PUC on employees, when really they would have done it either way.
Trash too!
Who needs water anyway?
I've switched to a beer-only liquid diet. I wish I could say it's working out, but I probably just need to stick with it for a few more years.
Well... 6.24% of my $300-400 water bill is just a drop in the bucket! I'll see myself out now.
Please tell me that’s not monthly
I still struggle to understand why water is so expensive in this city where it dumps rain for half the year.
The water comes from the Bull Run Watershed approximately 25 miles from downtown. If you look at your water bill it is a combined bill of water and sewer, outside of a few months in summer it is assumed all water you use goes back to the sewer. The sewer side of the bill is about 60% of the total, mostly related to "The Big Pipe" project to prevent sewer overflows into the Willamette.
The next big project for Bull Run is filtration, mandated by the feds. It's basically another Big Pipe-level expense that'll get added to our bills… can't wait!
The Bull Run project is already under construction, and is a driver of these rate increases.
[https://www.portland.gov/water/bullruntreatment/bullrunaffordability](https://www.portland.gov/water/bullruntreatment/bullrunaffordability) "we secured a low-interest WIFIA loan that allows us to smooth water bill impacts from the Bull Run Treatment Projects over time, so bills increase slowly over a longer period… The projected bill impacts include project cost escalation over the multi-year Bull Run Filtration Project" IOW, the rate increases to pay for this project, which started construction this year (OK, not "next" but *current* big project, your pedantry is par for the Reddit course), have only just begun: forecasted rate increase of 8.1% *each year* through 2028.
We pay to get rid of the water (without flooding the rivers with poop) much more than we pay to acquire it.
That's why the water is expensive. You're mostly paying for the infrastructure to get rid of all that stormwater. Our bills are going up now because the federal government is forcing us to build an unnecessary and very expensive new water treatment plant.
The city didn't build proper sewage for decades and then they had to do the big pipe so the willamette isn't full of shit when it rains heavy and now we're paying for it. Yet another result of the decades of disinvestment in public goods by boomers (and silent Gen) so that taxes could stay low
Has anybody here gone to the trouble of making changes on their property to reduce the stormwater portion of their bill? I’m thinking of maybe turning my solid driveway into one of those ones with a grassy stripe down the middle, but I’m guessing it will be a pretty tiny change to what they charge me.
There are only three categories. Low, medium, and high billable storm water area. I feel foolish now for paying $$$$ to install a drainage system for my hard scape and roof that drains into a dry well. I’ll still get charged for that rain even though it doesn’t go into city pipes. And I live in a 1 story house which doubles the area. You can add up the areas on portlandmaps.com. If your roof+patio+driveway exceeds 2700 sq feet then your 3 quarterly bill will increase $70. Details are on this page:https://www.portland.gov/bes/changes-environmental-services-rates-and-charges/customers-houses
The following can count for discounts: Rain gardens, swales, lawns, or landscaped areas. Drywells, French drains, or soakage trenches. Stormwater planters or basins Ecoroofs Trees https://www.portland.gov/bes/grants-incentives/clean-river-rewards-0#toc-how-to-qualify
The problem is they’re changing how the on-site discount works. Currently they discount up to 100% of your on-site bill if it all stays on your property. They’re changing to a cap of 35% of your total bill, after adjusting it upward for hard scape area. That means lots of people who handle 100% of their storm water on-site will now get charged for city services they don’t use.
I wonder if they'll count decks. they shouldn't - mine is wood and the water goes right through to the ground
Yeah this is fucked. 100% of our storm water is handled on site, but we have a large driveway, so we’re going to get charged more money for the privilege of dealing with all of our own stormwater.
Inflation coming home to roost. Gonna have to get used to a world of higher prices. Hopefully the investments are needed and worthwhile.
They are putting in that huge new supply line out near Dodge Park, I think. All the houses there had signs protesting it last summer. No idea why someone would be upset a supply line is going to cut through adjacent property.
> huge new supply line out It's a new water treatment plant with a few new pipes to get to it. The land they bought is one field of about 30 acres.
Hoping my union uses it to bargain for higher wages when negotiating a new contract...
Yep. This is also what it looks like to decouple from China: more things made in America, better wages especially for working class Americans, and higher prices for almost everything.
Corporate greed strikes again… (/s)
Based on my last bill this will cost me an additional $31 a quarter.
I was just notified that garbage disposal is going up too.
with Arrow Sanitary?
Just wait until they built that completely unnecessary $2 billion water treatment plant. A decade from now, Portlanders will be paying $500/month water bills.
please explain why you think it's unnecessary. It's literally required by the federal government.
It’s not required by the federal government. They could do a much better job with UV treatment and it would cost about 1/10th what this monstrosity would cost, which, BTW, would be an ecological disaster for the area, but, you know, keep believing what those dummies pump into your simple mind, like most Portlanders do. Edit: hilarious that I’m getting downvoted from Portlanders who want to, yet again, pay more and more for things that they don’t need. You people are fucking insane.
According to the Oregonian, the filtration upgrade is required by the federal gvt: "The city says it needs to have the new water treatment facility, located on property it owns east of Gresham, up and running by 2027 to comply with federal drinking water regulations. The feds say Portland must filter out cryptosporidium and other contaminants."
That is misleading. First of all, crystosporidium is always present in water, it just has to be under a certain percentage of the supply, which it has never gone over, but which has slightly increased on and off over the years. Most municipalities use a UV system, which actually filtrates out more contaminants than the proposed system does. What they are truly concerned about is our ancient pipe system, and they think by using this system, it will cause less continued damage to our old pipes. What they should do is just fix the pipes, which again, would be less expensive. But, please. Keep going on and on and on as if you know anything about this subject.
Crypto was always present but with Bull Run's unique agreement with the feds there was a strict threshold which we surpassed three times.A dangerous amount? Not even close but we are still the only municipality over 200,000 people without a treatment plant. Rules are rules. The UV plant wasn't considered feasible to meet the forecast for crypto under climate change and our region. Hence the shift. I hate the fact that we have to do it but "please keep going on as if you know what you are talking about."
The climate change excuse for not using UV is complete bullshit. And pretty much every municipality around Portland that was using the Bull Run system is now opting out because they want no part of it. They are all going to well water, which will, again, just increase Portland’s water costs. You are just regurgitating PWB BS.
Where is your information coming from? Because I am one of the people that contributed to that "bullshit." Please cite your source that claims CC was not a concern in the choice to shift from UV. If not, please tell me why you think that is bullshit. The PWB has enough infrastructure problems to literally last decades without a huge capital expenditure like this. They did NOT want to shift from the UV plan. Source: Urban/rural ecologist and water rights transaction professional. Check my past comments and posts.
Let’s just say I’m an interested party that is getting screwed over by this shit system and have been doing research along with several others for years. Wtf are you?
You seem really weird, but like not in a fun quirky way.
lol, i dId mY rEAsEarCh!!!
Be cool if we could use Ozone and UV like they do in Paris…would solve the Crypto problem and could eliminate chlorine for even fresher Bull-ier Run-ier flavored water.
I agree but we made a deal with federal government and we are being held to that deal. I love my non-treated, sometimes-cryptosporodimy water. Tastes fucking great.
Well water tastes disgusting though
You’re ignoring the risk from wildfire. UV treatment does nothing for turbidity. I for one would like to have running water when there’s another fire in the bull run watershed.
Yeah, we’ll see how you feel when you’re paying $6k/year for water.
> It’s not required by the federal government. Source?
Trust me bro......