The Columbian: has a roundup of primary night down here.
Vancouver Mayor Royce Pollard faces a heated battle to keep his job in November after waging a neck-and-neck struggle with Councilman Tim Leavitt in Tuesday’s primary.
Preliminary tallies released Tuesday night show Pollard with 43.1 percent of the vote, followed by Leavitt with 42 percent.
A third candidate, citizen activist Charlie Stemper, had 14.9 percent and will not advance to the Nov. 3 general election.
This should be a very interesting race to watch. As the article notes, Pollard is a 14 year incumbent, and the blunt former military officer has only once received less than 60% in a general election. Leavitt is campaigning on “change,” which is evident if you check out his web page. Remind you of anyone else’s?
There’s a generational component at play, with Pollard generally receiving backing from many long-time establishment figures. But Leavitt has secured some pretty impressive endorsements as well, including some union locals, various civic and community groups and of course, the Building Industry Association, the local BIAW affiliate.
Perhaps as importantly, Leavitt is endorsed by county commissioners Marc Boldt and Steve Stuart, whose party labels read “Republican” and “Democrat” respectively, but who in reality are both solidly in the BIAW camp.
There are long-standing frictions over growth between the county and the city, and one way to view Leavitt’s run is as an attempt by the pro-developer forces to take over the city government as well. The bubble may have burst, but the local bidness guys and gals are busy planning for the next one, and it would be great for them if the city doesn’t give them any trouble.
While there are the usual assortment of hyper-local issues, like redevelopment of Vancouver’s waterfront, the big regional issue at play is a new bridge over the Columbia River, ie the CRC project. This might wind up being a key factor in the race, with Pollard sticking to his vision of a completely revitalized downtown replete with waterfront, new bridge, capped freeway and light rail.
Leavitt has been pretty vocal about resisting tolls on any new bridge, which makes for good populist fodder, but doesn’t really match up with existing federal, state and local budget realities. Without tolls there won’t be a new bridge, as federal transportation funds aren’t what they used to be and there is strong political pressure in Oregon on the issue of cars coming in from the Washington side.
So to boil it down, the long-term incumbent and former military guy is the one with the vision for the future, including light rail and a more viable urban landscape, and the “change” guy endorsed by the BIAW is the one pecking around the edges, with the support of some Democrats, campaigning to stop a new bridge, even if he doesn’t say so explicitly.
It’s not that there aren’t real issues to address, and there are legitimate beefs with the city over where to put resources. The arts community is supposedly quite unhappy with Pollard over what they perceive as a lack of support, and many downtown merchants got their dander up early on about the possibility of light rail disrupting their businesses. Sprawl and traffic on the east side of town is as bad as ever, although over the last decade the city has made significant improvements in services delivered to that area.
The real issue, I suppose, may actually turn out to be the lack of funding for municipalities in general, and just how much less in basic services people want. There’s never any shortage of people to complain about taxes, and in this economy that would seem to work in Leavitt’s favor. This could wind up being the race of Pollard’s career.
Why would anyone trust a BIAW candidate?
If anyone thinks transportation funds are short now, wait until everyone starts driving rechargeable electric cars and gas tax revenues drop to zero.
I think we should start a discussion about the future of transportation funding as soon as the dust settles from the health care debate and this fall’s elections. Gas taxes are on the way out. Even if ICE’s (internal combustion engines) stay with us for a while, increased CAFE requirements and manufacturers’ improvements to the mpg performance of vehicles guarantee that gas tax revenues relative to vehicle miles driven will fall dramatically. The “cash for clunkers” program vividly demonstrates how eager drivers are to get rid of their gas guzzlers and get behind the wheel of hybrids and other gas-thrifty vehicles.
By the time hybrid mileage is up to 100 mpg and all-electric cars begin to flood new-car showrooms, gas taxes won’t begin to keep up with road building and maintenance needs, and we’ll have to find some other way to pay for roads.
The “way” that makes sense is charging vehicle owners road fees based on a combination of vehicle size and miles driven; or, if that’s too complicated, then “road use” fees based on miles actually driven. A simple excise tax on vehicles, of the type opposed by Tim Eyman, won’t cut the mustard. Such a tax is grossly unfair to senior citizens, bus commuters, and others who need to keep a vehicle for some uses but drive few miles a year. There’s absolutely no justification for making a retired person on a fixed income who drives 2,000 miles a year pay the same road taxes as a commuter who drives 50 miles a day each way.
What’s clear is that gas taxes are on the way out as a means for financing the road component of our national and local transportation systems; and what equally clear is that we need to give careful thought to what kind of tax/fee system will replace gas taxes when vehicles no longer run on gas.
Having met and tried to work with Mark Boldt when he was in the state legislature, I would almost automatically oppose any candidate he supports. He’s a fucking idiot.
There was a particular piece of legislation that I had been lobbying Boldt on for a couple of months. He voted against it in committee, then for it on the floor (keep in mind the language of the bill he was voting on both times was EXACTLY THE SAME), then when the reconciled bill with very minor language changes came back he voted against it again.
It was truly bizarre. I repeat, Mark Boldt is a fucking idiot.
Anyone who thinks Steve Stuart is in the BIAW camp is an idiot. The guy is a former lobbyist for Futurewise, the anti-BIAW.
Interesting you’d rail on Leavitt for affiliation with the BIA when Pollard’s got fully 1/3+ of his financial support from just 2 or 3 old-guard developers. Those are the cronies who in charge when Vancouver sprawled out all over the map, when banks like the Bank of Clark County started up and thrived because of development spending, only to crash and burn and take the town with them. Pollard wanting to put a “portland lite” development down by the river doesn’t make him progressive. And wanting to pay for a bridge by penalizing Vancouver’s working class for not being able to find jobs because he’s done nothing to legitimately foster job growth certainly doesn’t make him the candidate of the future. In no way shape or form has Leavitt said he’ll stop the bridge. That’s nonsense Pollard started saying the other day as soon as he got scared. How is it even remotely reasonable to come to the table and say, “ok, tolls: how high do they need to be to get this thing paid for?” Maybe if we didn’t have 30,000 people crossing the bridge for work that Vancouver doesn’t have, and paying OR income tax that they receive no representation for. But Vancouver’s commuters shouldn’t foot the bill for that bridge. On what planet is that equitable?