Scam alert

There are so many pots of poorly supervised, or completely unsupervised, tax dollars sloshing around Portland. You have your Metro, your Tri-Met, your OHSU, just to name a few. But the biggest and baddest of them all may very well be the Port of Portland. A cash cow airport with more revenue than even the Goldschmidt people could burn through.

And so it's time to pay attention. Yesterday this jaw-dropping story hit the wire. The Port is apparently going to sell off a bunch of its property and use the money for "shared prosperity." 

The restructuring is part of sweeping philosophical shift away from facilitating trade for powerful business interests to a “shared prosperity initiative” intended to spread the wealth to people of color, the poor and the marginalized. In some cases, that could mean selling off profitable operations in order to pursue these new, broader aims, which are taking root amid a resurgent civil rights movement.

Say, what? 

It would be wonderful if we could undo the injustices of Portland's past, and everyone should be doing their part to try. But if you think that race reparations are all that the Port of Portland is up to here, you're kidding yourself. Let me put this in bold type: Something very, very odd is going on. I've lived here long enough to smell it. Deals have probably already been made. 

"Shared prosperity." Ha! Ha! That's a good one. Reminds me of the old days, when everything was "vibrant" and a "linchpin," and they held "charrettes." Whatever happened to "for the chidren"? Now it's "equity," I guess. The new all-purpose Portland cover story.

Keep an eye on who the prospective buyers of the Port properties are, and what the terms are. And for Pete's sake, somebody please take a look at whether this is even legal under state law and the Port charter. 

Right out of the box, it looks like a Portland classic.