Commentary By Ron Beasley
This is the Sellwood Bridge which crosses the Willamette River in Portland Oregon. It is nearly 90 years old and has a safety rating of 2 on a scale of 100. It is administered by by Multnomah County but 70 percent of the traffic across the bridge are commuters from Clackamas County. A new bridge will cost about 290 million dollars. Clackmas County was asked to contribute 22 million dollars - less than 10 percent of the cost - and the county agreed. They decided to asses a temporary five dollar a year surcharge on motor vehicles registration until the 22 million dollars was recovered.
An anti everything Teabagger group was successful in getting this proposition refered to the voters.
OREGON CITY -- Clackamas County voters on Tuesday resoundingly rejected contributing to the cost of replacing the Sellwood Bridge, a decision that sends Multnomah County commissioners scrambling to secure funding.
Partial returns indicated voters rejected the fee 63 percent to 37 percent.
The measure called for Clackamas County residents to pay a $5 annual vehicle registration to help raise the county's $22 million contribution for the $290 million replacement bridge.
Voter turnout in Clackamas County was about 41 percent.
It's now unclear if construction on the bridge will begin in a year as originally scheduled, Mike Pullen, a spokesman for Multnomah County, said Tuesday night. "It could delay the project," he said. "It could mean the whole project takes much longer."
The bridge will simply have to be closed down in two to eight years. It will be Clackamas County that suffers. They may actually be forced to take the light rail which they also fought but lost. In this case the just say no to everything Teabaggers said no to something that they need and would have cost them a penny and a half a day. Perhaps the US population has truly become to stupid for Democracy.
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