That's entertainment
I see they're talking up a storm about what to do with the Keller Auditorium in downtown Portland. Suddenly the politicians have decided it's a worn-out, dangerous old thing and it has to go! "Cats" must have a new palace!
One of the options is to fix it up, and the other two are to build something new elsewhere. The two other locations would be down at the real estate development company known as Portland State University, or over at the sketchy Lloyd Center. Both of the alternate sites have have serious issues.
Anyway, have a laugh as you consider why, for some reason, city comnmissioner Carmen "Chainsaw" Rubio has a lot to say about it all. Could it be that her favorite construction company will make mucho dinero on the deal, depending on where it goes? Sounds like her team wants to rehab or rebuild the existing hall. But will Carmen deliver the pork in time? If she doesn't get elected mayor, she'll be back running some sort of vague nonprofit this time next year.
To top all the comedy off, Rubio's bragging that she's got tens of millions of "clean energy" tax dollars to throw at the project. Proving once again what a ridiculous slush fund that hideous sales tax really is. Everybody uses energy, and so the "clean" tax revenue can be thrown at virtually anybody the City Council members want to enrich. What the grant recipients don't have to spend on an air conditioner, they can fritter away or steal any way they want. Money is fungible, folks.
The clean energy tax was supposed to save the whales, and it sounds like it very well may – just not the kind of whales that live in the ocean.
If you're wondering how the Keller got into such a state of disrepair, remember that even though the city owns the Keller, Metro operates it. And, everything Metro touches gets run into the ground. Remember last year, the Schnitz's HVAC system failed and shows had to be moved to the *rimshot* Keller.
ReplyDeleteI like the Keller fine as-is?
ReplyDeleteNot that ‘just fix it on time so it doesn’t spiral at minimal cost’ is something on the agenda for any politician that likes ribbon cuttings & taking $ to her a go-between between finance & construction in some capacity (mostly what all local municipal politicians are, anynore?).
Attendance isn’t up on in person entertainment in general, it’s not too giant, close to some transit & close to some not too sketchy parking?
Open up the Keller to some speakers, book readings and smaller scale less classical forms of music for more days, make it take less subsidy & spin it off the tax roles?
Not that that will happen anytime soon?
Your word-maker appears to be broken.
DeleteI remember when lake Oswego was touting buying ‘clean energy’ for its new city hall (($)haul?) replacing the old one that wasn’t that old (80s/tract homes, condos etc well under way by then) to begin with & the new plans didn’t include more energy efficient HVAC & insulation practices that uses less energy in the first place, could provide municipal heating to adjacent buildings, & buy off-peak-rate ‘time of use’ much less expensive .05c exclusively hydropower kilowatts at night with some harmless solar generation installed during the day.
ReplyDeleteAll relatively easy and inexpensive things that can be done without additional taxes or ‘buying green energy’ if a new/major rehabbed building is to be built, anyway?
But, you know, local politicians have no incentive to save tax payers $ on the electric bill or take responsibility for risky endeavors (general bourgeois politician allergy to responsibly) and want to slap stuff up fast for the ribbon cutting, get the $ fire hose turned on for their construction & finance buddies & plans shoved thru/before anyones the wiser.
Your ‘leaders’ in ‘clean energy’ or ‘environmental’ works.
Some planning is inevitable/required for better lane & energy use, but more shiny costly entertainment stuff is about as far from that as you can get from that.
How about some actual good buildings & transit that are easier to police, can be dismantled and moved that cost less to maintain, heat & rebuild in general?
^None of the last part helps finance, construction, oil/pirvstr energy companies & keeping people as wards of the state captive, so it doesn’t happen?
ReplyDeleteNo ribbon cuttings or shiny new pet projects for politicians, either…
The Keller location is good, the building is good-enough/perfectly fine (almost a little overly formal & fancy).
Maybe we could have rehabbed all that now half-dead office space near the Keller instead of building SoWhat?
You could still have built the Tillicum crossing & the Orange line…
Most everything but keeping the garbage processing local & green spaces that metro administers that no one wants to pay for desperately needs to be spun off & reworked to be more user-fee oriented.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it never recovered from the beating it took when the Sex Pistols played there in/about 1996. I was near the front for that one, and to this day I always wondered why they were booked there.
ReplyDeleteA testament to how enslaved we are to technology. OMG, the building doesn't have the latest gizmos and wiz-bangs! What shall we ever do? Meanwhile the great pyramids (still don't know how or who) are doing just fine after likely 10s of thousands of years- since they align to Orion at around 12,000 BC
ReplyDeleteThe Keller has been a centerpiece arena in Portland’s entertainment for long enough to deserve refurbishment. Unfortunately, it’s a public property. Which means the collection of bobbleheads in Portland’s bureaucracy will insist that their input heard above the opinions of the unwashed. It’ll be a junior version of the Columbia Crossing debate.
ReplyDeleteThey should have kept the Keller as the “fancy” venue in town while only doing basic upkeep at the old Paramount. That way there could be a 3,000 seater that could be leased for everything and anything. Being an old stage crew nerd from high school, it was fun to explore the various nooks & crannies of the old Paramount. I think that I have seen maybe 3 or 4 shows there since the change.
ReplyDeleteRenovation is overdue. Is the MERC still a thing? A side effect of the Blazers moving out of the Coliseum and into the Rose Garden was the MERC was suddenly deprived of its primary source of funding. I believe the Keller was funded from that source. I could be all wet.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, it would be nice if the thing were fixed under a different regime. Let's see how they screw it up.
MERC is still a thing. Since Lynn Peterson, it's gone from making about $9 million a year to losing about $6 million a year.
ReplyDeleteHuh, I wonder what else happened in that period that might cause a tourism and performing arts organization to see its bottom line drop
DeleteMost other places have recovered. And they didn't blow bazillions against all sane advice to build a white elephant hotel.
DeleteThe Keller is downtown. That bummer can't be fixed. People with names ruined Portland. They're still iin charge and still ruining it.
ReplyDelete