Portland in Decline – A Continuing Story

Last week, Jim Pasero of Third Century Solution published the firm’s newsletter noting that the very people who were complicit in the downfall of Portland and Oregon are now calling for the creation of a new business association to help boost the Oregon Comeback. What a hoot.

Let me first digress to give my comments some context. When I returned to Oregon as state vice president for the telephone company in 1997 I came with instructions to get the telephone company out from under the corrupt and burdensome regulatory structure known as “rate of return” regulation as administered by the Oregon Public Utility Commission (OPUC). I came with a reputation as an aggressive regulatory attorney for the telephone company including a previous assignment in Oregon as the state general attorney. As such I was not welcomed with open arms by the Commissioners who after making me cool my heels in their reception area sent a secretary out with a note stating that they refused to meet with me – even for a courtesy visit – except at a publicly noticed meeting and with their own attorneys from the Office of the Attorney General. Okay, it made the job more difficult but not impossible.

What I didn’t anticipate was my first meetings with the Portland business community. As state vice-president and a principal funder of the business associations I was granted not only membership but a seat on the various associations boards of directors. These associations were dominated by the local utilities, banks, and technology companies and were represented by what I judge as third tier corporate officers – much like myself. Oregon is a small business community and word had already gotten around about my initial confrontation with OPUC. While I was welcomed by fellow association board members it was obvious that they did not want to get tarred with the same brush in my coming fight with OPUC – or for that matter the state governor who let me know early that he was not supportive of our regulatory goals.

It was here that I got my first taste of the Portland business community. During one of my first meetings with the executive committee of one of the associations we were debating an agenda for the upcoming legislative session. It was noted early in the meeting that the governor’s agenda was focused on saving the salmon, increasing spending on public schools and supporting some environmental program so inane that I cannot recall its purpose other than to spend a lot of money. The conversation quickly turned to how we would support the governor’s agenda to the exclusion of everything else. Finally, I raised by hand asked – apparently impolitically – what about the business issues like high taxes, burdensome regulation, a lack of job growth, etc. At that point I was informed that Oregon had such a high quality of life* that growth was inevitable and that we need not worry about the issues I raised. Instead we should concentrate on the governor’s agenda. It was obvious that these business executives were more interested in getting their phone calls to the governor returned than promoting a healthy business climate. That was reinforced for me shortly thereafter when my own CEO called to complain about a lack of response to some other issue by the governor and what was I going to do about it. I told him that the governor did not support our deregulation agenda and that I could either focus on getting our agenda passed or getting his phone calls returned but doing both was fruitless. Our CEO knew the right thing to do and told me to forget about phone calls from the governor. The point here was that I could not count on the Portland business community for any support for our agenda.

So lacking that support we focused on the state legislature and in the process met and was befriended by Jim Pasero. Mr. Pasero recognized the problem with the Portland business community and helped steer me to the “mainstreet” business community and some of the leaders of the historic Oregon economy – timber, manufacturing, transportation and food production. In the end, we prevailed and the Portland business community continued as described in Mr. Pasero’s recent newsletter when he quoted former President Richard Nixon:

‘Having been down, I can understand people that are also down. I want to help them. But a lot of people only play winners. That’s particularly true in what I call the Wall Street crowd. Douglas MacArthur often told me that. He said, ‘These people here, Mr. Vice President, they are the coldest, most cynical people in the world. They aren’t conservative. They aren’t liberal. There are just for whoever happens to be on top.

“Hearing Nixon’s words made me point fingers at the business class in Portland and the entire Metro area, at their behavior for this past generation, and their responsibility for the pathetic condition of downtown Portland and the entire state of Oregon. Many are saying that the city of Portland will not recover, ‘at least not in our lifetimes.”

Mr. Pasero continued:

“Despite all of this mess, what’s most difficult to replace, and whose collapse goes unreported, is Oregon’s entrepreneurial culture. After a generation of abuse, the “pipeline” is now empty.”

I retired from the telephone company in 2001. And when I did, I did not return to residency in Oregon because, for me, the writing was already on the wall. High taxes, perpetual burdensome regulations, Quixotic pursuit of all things progressive, and a preference for welfare and public employment as opposed to the private sector. The recent call for a new business group by the very people who stood by as Portland was destroyed is just another way of supporting the current governor’s progressive agenda for more of the same with maybe a new face or title or justification. Will Portland ever recover? I doubt it. And if it does it will be in spite of the downtown business community and not because of it.

And validation of this sediment will be obvious when Portland returns its clones of yesterday to the City Council and its Democrat governor and his/her super majorities in the House and Senate. I am in my 80’s – I doubt that I can live long enough to see a change in direction for Portland and its dominance of Oregon.

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* You might ask how that “qualify of life” thing is working out for Portlanders.