91视频

A group of Wilsonville citizens concerned about a plan by the city to entice a solar manufacturer with urban renewal money last week discovered that SoloPower opted for a deal in Portland instead.

But John Ludlow, a former Wilsonville mayor and a member of the group, said a threat still exists.

鈥淚’ve heard rumors that there is someone else out there looking and it will be interesting to see what the council has to say about it,鈥� Ludlow said. 鈥淭hey say the URA is SoloPower specific, but just like any URA they can make amendments to it once it’s in place.鈥�

SoloPower, based in San Jose, Calif., on Friday announced definitive plans to spend $340 million to establish manufacturing operations at a site in Portland rather than in Wilsonville. But the citizens group, Stop Urban Renewal Giveaways, wants to know what the city plans to do with the one-property urban renewal area it created to attract SoloPower.

The group filed paperwork with the city of Wilsonville last month to place a referendum on an upcoming ballot that would ask voters whether to overturn City Council’s decision to create the URA.

鈥淚 told (City Council) in January, again in February and again in March that we always vote on urban renewal in Wilsonville; it’s always how we’ve done it,鈥� Ludlow said. 鈥淚 told them if they didn’t listen to me they were going to get a lesson in civics, and I think they did.

鈥淗opefully they now understand that they should ask us our opinion more often.鈥�

The single-property URA was created around the property boundaries of a vacant, 400,000-square-foot distribution center in Wilsonville. The city didn’t qualify for the state’s enterprise zone program, which offers five-year property tax abatement when improvements are made to a property, so it created a URA that emulated one. SoloPower would have netted between $11 million and $13 million.

Mark Ottenad, a spokesman for the city of Wilsonville, said officials are obviously disappointed to lose the SoloPower opportunity and the 500 jobs it potentially could have created at the manufacturing facility. But the city’s next step concerning the URA isn’t clear because officials haven’t had a chance to discuss the situation yet.

鈥淎ll I can say is that we would have liked the opportunity to work with SoloPower in Wilsonville, but we are glad they decided on a location in the Portland region,鈥� Ottenad said. 鈥淭he city could start to discuss what to do with the URA (this) week, but even if they do it will likely be discussions in work session, and not during the actual council meeting.鈥�

But Ludlow said the discussions will have a big impact on how his group moves forward. The group has in hand the 915 petition signatures required to proceed with the referendum, he said, but it doesn’t want to waste taxpayer resources if the council chooses to sunset the URA before it absorbs any more resources.

鈥淥ur concern with the timing is that we have to file our referendum by this Wednesday, so we need to know how the council plans to move forward,鈥� Ludlow said. 鈥淚 think it’s going to be an interesting next few days.鈥�