Citing a need for an organization focused on regional infrastructure development – specifically for projects that support job creation – leaders of the Community Investment Initiative this week presented the clearest picture yet of their project.
Members of the Initiative's Leadership Council briefed the Metro Council and the Metro Policy Advisory Committee on the Regional Infrastructure Enterprise, an organization designed to speed development readiness of projects that create jobs.
Citing a shortfall of more than $27 billion to fund the infrastructure needed to create jobs, Leadership Council co-chair Tom Imeson said the projects would provide assistance to catalytic projects.
The Regional Infrastructure Enterprise wouldn't immediately call for a revenue stream, and proponents of the Regional Infrastructure Enterprise say they'll find ways to build smaller pilot projects to start with. Those projects could be selected in the coming months.
Their main goal, Leadership Council members said, is supporting public-private partnerships that can cut development costs for taxpayers and lead to a stronger economy. Initiative advocates say they want to try to find ways to make it easier to build infrastructure projects by working beyond political boundaries.
"The costs of doing nothing are staggering," Leadership Council co-chair Karen Williams said this week. "The quality of life will suffer now and in future generations. Our competitiveness is already being impacted by some of our infrastructure deficits, and that condition is only going to worsen."
The series of presentations by CII representatives is the result of years of work by Metro to address a funding shortfall for the region's infrastructure. As early as 2010, then Metro chief operating officer Michael Jordan was saying that the region needed as much as $41 billion to maintain the region's existing infrastructure and build new infrastructure to accommodate growth.
With the assistance of Metro staff, Leadership Council members have been meeting since early 2011 to try and address that shortfall.
Much of the commentary from elected officials, both Tuesday at a Metro Council work session and Wednesday at the Metro Policy Advisory Committee, was positive. But representatives on both bodies had concerns with aspects of the Leadership Council's proposals.
Some of the regional elected officials said they were worried about the Regional Infrastructure Enterprise's management, which has yet to be finalized.
Multnomah County Commissioner Loretta Smith asked Imeson, who is also the public affairs director at the Port of Portland, whether there would be elected officials on the board that oversees the Regional Infrastructure Enterprise.
As currently conceived, Imeson said, Metro and the Port would be responsible for selecting the concept's leadership.
"We wouldn't be electing people to this," he said. "There could be elected officials on it… but there wouldn't be elections for members to the RIE board. We would want a mix of public representatives."
The concept didn't face any less skepticism from Hillsboro Mayor Jerry Willey, who questioned the Regional Infrastructure Enterprise's relationship to Metro. He said he has concerns about Metro's influence on the process.
While the Enterprise concept was developed by Community Investment Initiative members, the Initiative was initially started by Metro and it has largely been staffed through the regional government.
"I don't see any representation for county or city governments included in" the management plan, Willey said. "That's a concern to me."
Imeson didn't respond to Willey's concerns at Wednesday's MPAC meeting. But Metro Councilor Craig Dirksen, at a work session Tuesday, said the nature of a public institution means that it inherently can't be as efficient as a private entity.
He pointed to his experience as the mayor of Tigard, where he said he tried to make government function more like a business.
"People really didn't like it," Dirksen said. "When you're acting like private enterprise, there's no public process. That's one of the things that keeps government from being like private enterprise, is you have to go through public process when there's public funds involved."
Where some MPAC members were worried about management, the Metro Council was more concerned about money. While Imeson and other Leadership Council members said they plan on starting small, there was an understanding that if the first phases are successful, the concept will need cash to be viable long-term.
"If money is the limiting factor, where is the money going to come from?" asked Metro Councilor Shirley Craddick.
"With the initial projects, even though there are still constraints, we're not looking for a new revenue source for those," Imeson said. "We might look for a partnership that doesn't currently exist."
He said the initial projects serve as demonstrations.
"What we're demonstrating is we can go after a goal, achieve it and deliver it, and these projects would have to be consistent with the rest of what we're talking about – job producers," Imeson said. "Done right, they would be good examples for the region to say we're building confidence in this approach, and enabling us to go further down the road."
Metro Councilor Carlotta Collette, the council's liaison to the CII, pointed out that the concept doesn't necessarily have to rely on a new funding stream to succeed in building new infrastructure.
"It's not that we're going to come up with a new taxing entity that's going to want a sales tax or some stream of funds that's just going to be for infrastructure," Collette said. "There might be foundation support, there might be private support, there might be tax revenues they already have that they leave on the table because they don’t know about them."
She lauded the CII's Leadership Council members for their work addressing the region's multi-billion dollar infrastructure funding shortfall.
"I think the work you guys are doing is extraordinary," Collette said.