PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The city of Portland is being sued over its plan to use up to $12 million from a surcharge on customers’ sewer bills to help pay to plan the Portland Harbor Superfund cleanup.

Oregon Public Broadcasting reports it’s the second lawsuit challenging the use of funds collected by the city’s sewer utility, the Bureau of Environmental Services, to pay for the city’s share of the Superfund work.

Attorney John DiLorenzo and his clients contend that despite rulings in a previous lawsuit, the city has continued to use restricted sewer money as a piggybank for projects that should be paid for by unrestricted tax dollars in the city’s general funds.

“They’re using the sewer fund as a bank,” DiLorenzo said.

City leaders and environmentalists say the sewer utility’s spending on the Portland Harbor project was clearly upheld by a judge in 2017 – and the new lawsuit is the latest in a series of tactics to delay the federally-mandated clean-up of the river.

“We’re operating squarely within the ruling that the court has already given,” said Commissioner Nick Fish, who oversees the Bureau of Environmental Services. “Since this lawsuit essentially raises the same issues, we believe it’s frivolous.”

The clean-up is expected to take up to 13 years and cost approximately $1 billion, and the city is one among many parties legally liable for the pollution.

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The city will spend $195 million to retrofit the Portland Building, which is only 33 years old but maligned by structural defects and other flaws.

The exterior of the Michael Graves-designed postmodern office building will be left alone while the inside is gutted and given a seismic overhaul, per a preliminary plan approved by the Portland City Council on Wednesday.

The city’s chief administrative officer, Fred Miller, told the council that he wants to help minimize the project cost by keeping some of the 1,300 city employees who work at the Portland Building there during construction. Presently, approximately $30 million would be used to relocate employees and secure temporary workspace during the five-year project.

“We could save millions,” Miller said.

The council on Wednesday heard and approved three resolutions related to the project, bringing a formal end to its budget-setting phase. The city will now solicit bids from contractors before a design-build contract is considered by the council.

City commissioners were dismayed the cost was so high above initial estimates, one of which was less than $100 million. Miller told the council it would be more expensive to tear down the Portland Building and start over, or build elsewhere.

“It’s important to note that this is the lowest-cost option,” Commissioner Nick Fish said.

Fish and the other commissioners approved the first resolution to set a timeline of five years and a cost of $195 million. They repeatedly sought assurance from Miller that those numbers would not grow.

“I’m still skeptical,” said Commissioner Dan Saltzman, who ultimately voted to approve the resolution.

The second resolution equalized rents across all city departments. The renovation will be funded through the rent increases and a 5 percent appropriation from the general fund.

The third resolution – to dedicate 1 percent of the project cost to opportunities for women and minorities – elicited the most discussion on Wednesday. Minority business owners and advocates questioned the figure and asked how officials determined it.

“Although it sounds like a good number, I’d like to know how much that really is,” said Maurice Rahming, president of O’Neill Electric.

Also, three of the building’s current vendors – two restaurateurs and a retail shop operator – spoke at the hearing and sought reassurances about the project.

The 15-story Portland Building was completed in 1982 for $25 million. The iconic Portlandia statue was added near the front entrance three years later. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places; however, it’s not up to current seismic code and is subject to plumbing and electrical problems. Those issues and the nontraditional exterior have frequently drawn criticism.

“You have $195 million,” Mayor Charlie Hales told Miller. “Make this right … make us proud.”

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A Portland-based firm’s idea to provide transitional housing and services for the homeless under Interstate 405 earned first place in a design competition hosted by the American Institute of Architects‘ Portland chapter.

The concept by an Opsis Architecture team of Joe Baldwin, Jennie Cambier, Heather DeGrella and Bryan Hollar, Jim Kalvelage, Chet Morgan and Nate Wood took the top honor in the STITCH II competition. For the contest, designs were sought to serve the needs of Portland’s homeless population on an unused space under I-405 between the Pearl and Alphabet districts.

The winning entries were announced on Tuesday during a reception at the AIA Portland‘s Center for Architecture. Vancouver, B.C.-based GBL Architects staffers Andrew Emmerson, Joey Stevens, Roberto Podda, Kelsy Whitten and Jason Smith placed second. Portland-based designer Jon Creighton took third.

The winner received $500, the runner-up received $200 and the third-place entrant received $100.

A jury of architects, construction and development professionals and government officials evaluated the 33 contest submissions, which mostly came from Oregon designers. The contest jury included Dave Otte of Holst Architecture, Don Stastny of StastnyBrun Architects, Portland City Commissioner Nick Fish, Bob Walsh of WALSH Construction Co., Jill Sherman of Gerding Edlen and Portland State University assistant architecture professor Margarette Leite.

The jury was unanimous in its decision to award first place to the Opsis Architecture team, Stastny said. Jury members liked that the design included transitional housing that also felt connected to the two adjoining neighborhoods, he said.

“Their proposal was very complete and in a lot of ways extremely well thought out,” he said.

The STITCH II competition was similar to one held last year in which designs were sought for potential urban gathering spaces over a portion of I-405. Like last year, the plan is to share with the city of Portland, Metro and TriMet the ideas generated by the competition for activating underutilized urban space, contest organizer Jonathan Dunn said.

Winning designs and honorable mentions will be posted on the AIA Portland website, at .

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An independent auditor hired to investigate budget overages during construction of an employee building at the Columbia Boulevard Wastewater Treatment Plant found no evidence of illegal practices, according to Portland Commissioner Nick Fish.

“In response to the auditor’s report about the new Bureau of Environmental Services employee building at the Columbia Boulevard Wastewater Treatment Plant, I committed to bring in an outside law firm to review the findings, conduct an investigation, and issue a written report on lessons learned and ‘best practices,’ ” Fish wrote in an email. “In its report, Barran Liebman LLP found no evidence that laws, rules or ethical guidelines were violated. However, the report raises a number of red flags about bureau practices and decisions.”

The Bureau of Environmental Services recently completed design and construction of an office building that was supposed to cost $3.2 million. Instead, ratepayers forked over $11.5 million to complete the building.

Portland City Auditor LaVonne Griffin-Valade conducted an audit of the project and released in October 2014, stating that cost increases were due to the bureau expanding the project’s scope, making “discretionary design choices” and failing to oversee the project during the design phase.

Fish’s office hired Barran Liebman‘s investigators to review the auditor’s report, investigate whether any laws, rules or guidelines were violated, and analyze project management decisions.

The firm’s report states: “We found no evidence that funds were misappropriated, misdirected or mishandled (with the sole exception of the pass-through payment to the designer discussed in more detail below). We also found no evidence that caused us to question the motivations of the BES staff. While there is considerable legitimate debate about BES decisions and judgment calls and whether the right choices were made, we saw evidence that the BES staff tried to make the best choices for the city and the ratepayers and we were impressed with their skill level. Our review, however, identified practices and decisions that contributed to the controversy and which we believe should be evaluated by the city in its ongoing discussions about best practices in managing capital projects of this magnitude.”

The “pass-through payment” mentioned in the report was a transaction during the design phase in which the project’s general contractor, Skanska, paid the project’s design firm, Skylab, and was reimbursed from the construction budget.

“We did not find any evidence to suggest that the design work was not performed and we did not find any evidence to suggest that the design work was unnecessary,” Barran Liebman investigators wrote in their report. “BES had, however, incurred the expense without authority. Specifically it had permitted design work to proceed when the design budget was exhausted and ultimately arranged for payment from the construction budget by means of a pass-through.”

Barran Liebman issued 11 recommendations the bureau should implement in order to prevent a situation like this from occurring again. Fish said he’s “already initiated a number of reforms that address many of the findings. They are designed to strengthen accountability and transparency.”

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A committee led by Portland Housing Bureau Commissioner Nick Fish and Multnomah County Chairman Jeff Cogen is proposing to add new restrictions to the city’s Limited Tax Exemption program.

The LTE provides property developers with up to 10 years of property tax savings if they build affordable housing in certain areas of the city.

In 2010, the Portland Housing Bureau started the “Big Look” policy review project to discover recommendations for program improvements. Last week, the review committee selected recommendations.

“We wanted to look at the breadth of the program to find where it’s efficient and where it needs to be lined up better with what the city and the housing bureau are trying to accomplish,” said Kate Allen, senior housing policy advisor for the bureau. “We want to make sure each aspect of the program is delivering on its goals.”

The LTE program, initiated in 2008, is divided into five different categories: nonprofit-low-income housing, multiple-unit housing, resident rehabilitation, single-family construction and transit-oriented development.

Recommended changes include: awarding exemptions on a “competitive” basis, meaning the merits of all LTE applications would be reviewed against other proposals to assure project quality and geographic distribution; establishing a $1 million cap of “foregone revenue” – property tax money the city and county forego in exchange for a public good – for multi-unit developments; and establishing more requirements for single-family construction, including compliance with the Portland Housing Bureau’s minority homeownership goals, green building and workforce equity programs.

Throughout the committee’s two-year existence, feedback has often been sought from the housing development community. Allen said some of the recommended changes were received with enthusiasm, while others were met with skepticism.

“Any time we add process to a tool that is put out there to incent development, it raises concerns,” Allen said. “Like most smart contractors, they don’t want more hoops to jump through.

Jim Kosta, owner of BW Construction, said he applies for 15 to 20 limited tax exemptions a year for his single-family developments. When asked whether the proposed changes would hinder his ability to receive exemptions, he said he “really doesn’t see much of an issue,” except for the “adherence to quality design standard,” which is one of the proposed requirements for single-family construction. Among other conditions, the standard would recommend that single-family houses be built only on lots surrounded by sidewalks.

“(Having to build on) lots with sidewalks narrows the availability of lots to build affordable housing on,” Kosta said. “To initiate a sizable number of new requirements and slowly bring them into effect would create issues that everyone would have to deal with.”

Some multi-unit developers, like Brendan Lawrence, project manager of the long-delayed Prescott Apartments in North Portland, are worried that the “competitive” basis would create uncertainty for some projects.

“Projects are relying on these programs to provide new housing options to areas of town that would otherwise not see new development, and they may not run on the same path as to what the city deems as ‘quality projects,’ ” Lawrence said.

Meanwhile, Allen made it clear that the recommended changes are not set. The review committee, the city and Multnomah County plan to hold multiple meetings, and some public forums also are in the works. Allen added that the changes, if deemed suitable, would first be given a three-year trial period.

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It was an easy sell to the Portland City Council last week: a master plan for a three-acre park connected to a mixed-use building on one acre – similar to the Pearl District’s Jamison Square – at the crossroads of three park-deficient neighborhoods.

But kids can’t play on master plans and dogs can’t play fetch with ideas.

The city of Portland over the past few years has used money from system development charges to buy available open space in areas east of Interstate 205 so that parks can be developed. But a lack of money from urban renewal areas and other sources has inhibited such planning.

However, Commissioner Nick Fish, who oversees Portland Parks and Recreation, made it clear at the council meeting last week that one of his top priorities is to get a $200 million bond measure passed and parks built in the area. He also is pushing an initiative to get small projects started.

“I just got re-upped by the voters for four more years and it’s my task over that time to piece this together and go to the people,” Fish proclaimed after the Gateway community park master plan was approved.

The bond would help pay for projects like the Gateway one, which in the master plan includes a water feature, a natural play area for children, space for a farmers market and a “snake run” for novice skateboarders. Or bond money would go toward master planning for recently purchased lots such as the Wilkes Headwaters property. That 20-acre parcel is expected to become a four-acre park and a 16-acre natural area.

Master plans exist for nine parcels east of Interstate 205, but funding sources are identified for only two. The total cost to transform the other seven plans into parks is $67.1 million.

According to Jim Blackwood, policy director for Fish, there are several reasons for the lack of parks east of Interstate 205. For instance, some areas weren’t even annexed into the city until the mid-1980s. And areas incorporated earlier came from Multnomah County and don’t mesh well with city layouts and services, he said.

“It’s more than just providing the parks out there,” Blackwood said. “It’s also about providing safe access to the parks, which costs money.”

Another issue is that the Gateway Regional Center, Airport Way and Lents Town Center urban renewal areas are the only three URAs east of Interstate 205; eight exist west of Interstate 205. And on top of that, the funding for the urban renewal areas that are out there is beginning to dry up. The requested 2011-12 budget for the Gateway URA is $5.3 million, down from over $7 million the year before.

Plus, Fish noted, residents east of Interstate 205 tend to not support bond measures and similar funding that could pay for the parks.

“Some of our biggest doubters are the ones being impacted by this the most,” he said.

In order to gain support from the west side, more than half of the bond money would go toward improvement and maintenance projects at parks west of Interstate 205.

But Bob Earnest, co-chairman of the Gateway Regional Center URA advisory committee, pleaded with City Council to find a way to fund his neighborhood’s project before the bond measure, which would appear on a ballot in 2012, at the earliest.

“We need this,” he said. “You just tell me what to do and I will do it in order to get this funding.”

Fish has one idea.

He has requested $1 million in general fund money for this year’s budget to start the E205 initiative. The plan calls for the city to join the Portland Parks Foundation in a search for matching dollars from the private sector so that smaller projects can be started at some of the open spaces pegged as future parks.

“We have a lot of community involvement in the bank on these master plans and we can’t let that go to waste,” Blackwood said. “What we will do is create a menu of isolated features that could be built at these lots in the meantime.”

Projects would range from drinking fountains and benches to children’s play equipment. The cap for a project would be set at about $250,000, Blackwood said.

In the meantime, residents who live east of Interstate 205 will have to wait. But Fish said the wait won’t be long and the end result will be worth it.

“We’ve made extraordinary investments in land east of (Interstate) 205 and we now have a series of iconic parks in the area ready to go,” Fish said. “This is an exciting time and I will work to make these parks happen.”

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Portland City Council today unanimously voted to move forward three proposals for the redevelopment of Memorial Coliseum to the request for proposals process.

But some councilors also sympathized with concerns raised in a minority report, submitted to the council by five members of the Rose Quarter Stakeholder Advisory Committee, that asked to put the brakes on the process.

Commissioner Nick Fish said he was very concerned that one or more of the project teams could pull out of the process if they believe the process hasn’t been fair. He also expressed concern over a lack of cost analysis for the proposals and the competing priorities of the Trail Blazers.

“I support the resolution before us with significant reservations about this process and where we’re heading,” Fish said. “I’m not convinced that this won’t be a futility. I don’t remember the last time we had a minority report as to the point and provocative as this one.”

Commissioner Randy Leonard said the minority report raised legitimate questions with regard to the management of the coliseum. He also expressed interest in performing an independent financial audit of the Memorial Coliseum, but that effort has not yet been confirmed.

The three teams, which include the Memorial Athletic and Recreation Center, Veterans Memorial Arts and Athletic Center, and the Trail Blazers/Winterhawks concept will now receive a small stipend, totaling $120,000 for all three teams, to help them prepare their proposals for the city to review later this year.

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