Flight of the Portland paycheck

It will be a while before the Blazers leave town, and they may never. But while everybody dithers about them, Portland is losing other businesses left and right. Daimler just announced that it's shutting down its truck factory on Swan Island in north Portland and laying off about 375 people. The jobs are going to the East Coast.

This depressing announcement comes on the heels of the news that Under Armour is abandoning its corporate headquarers in the old YMCA building on Barbur, while the celebrity-backed Aviation Gin has shut down its hospitality room out in industrial northwest. The company stopped producing booze in Portland several months ago.

There's also a rumor afoot that another 200 jobs are about to leave close-in northeast Portland bound for Clark County, Washington soon. That would count as staying in the Portland metro area, but for the city, it might as well be the moon.

Manufacturing, corporate, spirits industry – it's all packing up and getting out of Portland. What's to replace it? Junk, or nothing. No wonder the bars and restaurants are also folding everywhere you look.

It seems like we've set ourselves back 50 years in the last five. The city council is paralyzed by its own immaturity, and the mayor has turned out to be kind of a strange dude. He appointed a city manager who's obviously in way over his head and will be of zero help in this situation. The local "prosperity" agency is utterly incompetent. The county commission is worthless, or worse. The governor keeps appointing economic task forces, but their reports pile up while the slide continues, with week after week of bad economic news. 

Then again, we do have a $2 billion airport terminal! And don't forget, folks, "you're gonna see dashboards."

With the people we have running the show, Portland has not yet hit bottom. But we are clearly in free fall now. The reasonable folks are not speaking up loudly enough. Instead, a lot of them are leaving. It's really a shame.