Reviews & Comments
Brush Prairie, WA
re: Error in Hockinson taxation
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2/24/2021Makes me laugh that people can disagree with you. What you said is entirely correct, but Oregon's tax rate is actually 9.9%, while Washington has no state income tax. And regardless of where you earn your living, if you are an Oregon resident Oregon wants their cut regardless. What I do not understand is people who live in Washing, commute all of the way down to Salem to work for the Oregon government, and then commute back home, all the while paying Oregon income tax. Strikes me as a little strange, especially since they intend to start having tolls on the "freeways" through and around Portland.
Portland, OR
re: Pass on Portland
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1/31/2021Don't forget taxes, user fees, and more taxes. Who cares that there isn't a sales tax. They are just disguised as user fees. To take a walk in a state forest - something we used to do for free - you now need a parking permit. Then you need a forest permit. The you need to make a reservation. Yup, to go for a walk through nature. Right now Multnomah County/Portland is in the top 5% for aggregate property taxes - state plus local add-ons. It is in the top 5% for income tax. It is in the top 5% for housing costs in relation to wages. And It regularly is chosen as the second most gloomy city in the country behind Seattle. But that is just winter. In the summer we can go three months with barely a drop of rain and the greenery is parched and tinder dry. Other than that, and the fact the public schools cause a great many minorities to send their kids to private schools, it is a fantastic place to live.
Portland, OR
re: Used to be a nice place to live
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8/7/2020The comments were made at Canadian universities. One son went to the University of Victoria where he earned a computer sciences masters and now is a software engineer for Apple, and the other was admitted to the University of British Columbia, where, in spite of your knowing what other schools say, told us exactly what I typed. I have no reason to make it up. They had quite an extensive knowledge of the schools down here and regularly recruited foreign students. And last I checked they were ranked 27th in the world. Probably a slight bit better that yours, although if you worked for Carnegie Mellon then you also would be in that rarified air of excellence.
Portland, OR
re: Antifa and Homelessness, name a more icon
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6/28/2020Tanner, just be pleased they stay in Portland. After I moved to the burbs and actually got quality schools for my kids, a low crime rate, and to be away from the stifling idiocy of Portlanders, I've really enjoyed living around these parts. But one of the great things about liberalism is that they stay in the urban centers, and as they tax themselves to death, and kill and destroy each other's property the rest of us can live a nice life. I hope Portland becomes one large autonomous zone and they put up a wall around it to keep their people in.
Portland, OR
re: Expensive but amazingly beautiful
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6/28/2020Portland's response to affordable housing has been to have a fee schedule for building permits that starts around $50k, then add in system development charges of at least $25k, and now such things as requiring swales for stormwater runoff instead of using the sewer, which the last one we did was over $20k. So before you have paid for your lot, which can easily run $150k for a smaller city lot, and you have put out about $100k. Add in the cost of the lot and you already are pushing affordability without any actual building taking place.
Portland then instituted rent rigid rent controls along with rental licensing and inspections, and to no one's surprise, other than affordable housing advocates and city officials, I believe they have issued one multi-family housing building permit since, while more than 20% of previous rentals have been converted to sales because landlords are leaving the city on droves. If you want to see how socialism fails just watch Portland. They control every aspect of your life, and make sure they get their cut along the way.
Portland, OR
re: Homeless Drug Addict Utopia; Hell for Fam
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2/18/2020Sounds like what my brother-in-law ran into. He and my wife have a small garden behind their office building and he was out watering the tomatoes (he is now 72-years old). A homeless guy walked up and demanded money. He said no way and the guy lifted him up and threw him back into the raised beds breaking three ribs.
The police were called and took almost an hour to get there. When they did arrive they asked what do you want us to do? The homeless guy was a crazed druggie with a knife and the police said they would not intervene and remove him from the property, but that they would call in their mental health squad who would stop by sometime the following day. The guy was threatening to kill anyone who came near him, yet the police said if they tried to do anything they likely would have to shoot him, and since they didn't want to do that they got in their car and drove away, leaving my brother-in-law, with three broken ribs, there with the guy threatening to kill him.
The mental health squad never did show up but the guy finally got bored sitting by himself and left later the next day. That is the Portland I've come to know after living both in Portland and now in Happy Valley for the past 30 years, and it is the Portland I would love to leave, if we weren't so heavily tied financially to the area.
Portland, OR
Used to be a nice place to live -
2/18/2020I moved into the area more than 30 years ago. Coming from the Midwest, which I thought was pretty hick, although I liked it, the first thing I said when I arrived was dang, this place is more hick than the Midwest - sort of meant as a back-handed compliment. I really wanted to just find a lovely place with a pleasant, and not extreme, climate. This was it.
But as the years have gone by and layer upon layer of oppressive government and endless fees and taxes have piled up I am ready to move on. The Portland schools were not good, and it was an open secret that bad teachers were shuffled to the minority schools and any good ones were moved to serve the more affluent neighborhoods - still going on today.
We moved to Happy Valley, which had much, much, much better schools for our kids and lower taxes and cheaper housing prices. When our kids went to college the universities they applied at commented that they were coming from a top-notch school system and were given priority over kids who might have had a higher GPA, but were from lesser districts.
But the bottom line is that this area has never seen a tax or levy they do not like, and with tolling of the freeways coming soon it is not the place I moved to, and just about every day I try to convince my wife, who grew up here, that it is time to let ANTIFA and the homeless take over and give all of these fine people something to be proud of.
The only question is, where should the next adventure start?
Port Orchard, WA
re: Quality of Life
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4/5/2019Hilarious reading a comment from Carson City, NV. My wife wanted me to research moving to Carson City. My conclusion was, if you despise vegetation, love endless sand, want to fry your skin to a crisp - great for melanoma - and want virtually nothing to do all summer other than head into Reno and hang out in the casino, then Carson City is heaven on earth.
If you are going to live in the Pacific Northwest, in virtually any city or town, it is green. When it comes to green in nature it generally means one thing, moisture as in water as in coming from the sky. As the country bakes each summer and I hear of water shortages it makes me appreciate that this area will be supporting human life when a great many others are struggling.
Portland, OR
Over 30 years the place really went downhill. -
2/23/2019I moved in 30 years ago to a lovely 1907 home in a quiet, close-in neighborhood. It reminded me so much of NE Minneapolis I thought I was back there again. But over time the city changed in a way I haven't liked at all. If you check air quality you will see it absolutely !@#$%, and it really does. The city keeps trying to restrict the flow of traffic, and crime is pretty bad. Add in a homeless encampment on virtually every corner and it is yet another failed experiment in socialistic government (what is the saying about repeating things and expecting a different result?).
After deciding the Portland government had not even the slightest sense of fiscal responsibility, and the Portland public schools were some of the worst I've ever seen, we moved out to Happy Valley with the second lowest city tax rate in the state and really good schools. Sitting atop Mt Scott looking out at the Portland valley one thing is very apparent, the air quality really does !@#$. It is solid brown virtually every clear day we have, which with only 144 sunny days a year isn't all that often. Kids are now gone, the legislature is passing every fee and tax it can think of, housing prices are absurd (cost-of-living at 147.6 vs 100.0 nationally pretty much says it all). So even though my wife is a native Portlander and has a business here that is more than 50 years old, we have decided it is a good time to move on. I hope the weird crowd enjoys a whole lot more taxes, because they are coming your way.
Knoxville, TN
re: Boring
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2/23/2019Move to Portland, Knoxville gets 62 more sunny days a year as I type this looking at our sixth day in a row with a fully-cloudy sky, although that does get broken up with foggy days. I actually miss Minnesota where we would go stir-crazy in the winter and get what they called cabin fever, but even then we would get an Arctic high where the wind was calm, temperatures frigid, but a beautiful blue sky. I hear that blue sky in Knoxville is lacking due to air quality and that has me rethinking our move out of Portland.
Knoxville, TN
re: Knoxville is a horrible place to live in
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2/23/2019Sounds a lot like where I live, except we constantly are being touted as one of the best places to live. Portland used to be a great city in an absolutely beautiful area. But the cost of living vs income levels has gone through the roof, and now with state rent control coming, endless gun-control measures, trying to raise an additional $2.7 billion in spending while doing noting to pay down the $30 billion in unfunded pension liabilities has caused virtually every person I know, of all political persuasions, to be saying there has to be a better place out there. This is nuts. I think it is a national epidemic of unbridled spending and an endless string of government regulations that has made people seek a place where they can live as they like. It sounds as if Knoxville has all of the common city maladies yet if you wish to go off and live your life the way you would like there is that possibility. We do not have that here. The land-use laws are very rigid and the government very powerful. And our evening news is filled with 22 minutes of death and endless problems that will all get better with just another government program and just a little more taxes to pay. But just like my returning to my homeland in Minnesota and finding it unrecognizable, you really can't ever go back home. It isn't there, and you aren't who you were when you were there.
Knoxville, TN
re: A most wretched hive of scum and villainy
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2/23/2019Thanks for the entertainment. Much better than most TV sitcoms. Waiting for the next episode. My suggestion is you do not take up writing travel guides. They tend to require something of substance in their reviews.