Meeting the Challenge of Senior Underemployment – One of Our Greatest Socioeconomic Opportunities

Recently, I’ve had a couple of lengthy discussions with a friend who, like me, chose to move to Southwest Washington from Southern California. In those conversations, we compared notes on our different experiences with moving and in becoming a part of the community where we both now live. One of the most significant differences in our respective experiences is that my ability to find the sort of employment we had in mind for me, in moving here, has turned out to be much different than what we envisioned. I told my friend that one reason why reality turned out to be different from what we had anticipated was that I’d failed to take into account the impact that my (then) approaching the age of 60 would have on my ability to find the sort of employment we had targeted for me. I was surprised (and frankly, had my feelings get a bit hurt) when my friend, who is an employer, differed with me that my age had impacted my employment as I’d indicated. Since then, I’ve come to accept that it’s completely logical for our views to differ on this. My views come from the perspective of having dealt with this “where the rubber meets the road”. My friend, who I recognize as being exceptional as an employer who understands the value in hiring more experienced workers, probably hasn’t interviewed for a job himself since 1979 or earlier and that has to insulate him from a fully realistic perspective. Regardless, it alarmed me to think that there may be many influential people, like my friend, who don’t even recognize that this challenge exists. I couldn’t be more certain that it exists and that it’s worsening. With that said, I believe this present reality may hold a much needed silver lining for the restoration of our nation’s socioeconomic health.

According to Gallup, U.S. unemployment presently stands at 9.3%. According to AARP, unemployment is 6.7% for Seniors (people aged 55 and over). Initially, that makes it sound like older workers are doing better than the general population. However, since the recession began in December of 2007, the unemployment rate for Seniors has increased by a factor of 2.09, while unemployment in the general population increased by a factor of 1.86. Furthermore, the average duration of unemployment for Seniors is 53.6 weeks (more than one year) versus 39.4 weeks for the younger unemployed. Additionally, since the beginning of the recession, there has been a dramatic increase in early enrollment for Social Security retirement benefits and spending of retirement savings. For many Seniors, this means risking poverty in their later years.

The stats outlined above should help support the reality of the challenge I’m trying to address here. To take that a step further, I want to augment these cold hard facts with some living breathing human stories. Fittingly, I’ll start with the story I know best … my own.

Let me start by acknowledging my understanding that my age has not been the only factor causing my employment in our new home to be different from what we expected. Certainly, I have my own set of pluses and minuses. Another key factor is that, though I’ve come into this area on business since 1979 and I thought I had a good sense of where I’d fit in, I didn’t have a well developed network of local business contacts. The Portland/Vancouver business community is quite provincial and having such a network is a must. And, since we moved to Southwest Washington in mid-2005, that means we made our move just as the economy was slowing, moving towards the recession that hit fully in 2007.

What I did bring to the table was my professional background in Sales and Sales Management, with technology-based business-to-business systems-solutions. Our employment plan was for me to find a “mid-level” job with Base Pay of at least 60% of that which I’d had in my last corporate position. My Wife, Ruth, who had been in charge of the administrative staff of the Orange County Public Defender’s Office, was only going to work as she wanted to.

Here is a thumbnail sketch of how things have worked out with our Plan versus Actual:

We’ve been in Southwest Washington for about 70 months now. During that time, I’ve had four periods when I was “between jobs”. Especially considering my previous work history, it still astonishes me to note that those periods cover a total of 30 months. Though I won’t bore you with the related stats, without hesitation, I can say that I spent every day of these periods tirelessly leaving no stone unturned in my efforts to secure a job. The yield of those efforts included: a phenomenal number of interviews (with a remarkably high percentage of those having me included in the final round of candidates) and the five jobs I’ve taken. Additionally, due to my employment challenges and the erosion of the investments at the core of our “nest egg”, after a little over two years of “retirement”, we agreed that it was a good idea for Ruth to return to work.

OK, enough of my own story for now. As I said earlier, I understand that my age has not been the only factor effecting my employment since moving to Southwest Washington. To provide a bit more clarity here, I want to share some related specifics from a few other human stories. As I, also, mentioned earlier, one of the other factors that I recognized as negatively impacting my employment expectations in my newly chosen home was that I didn’t have a well developed network of local business contacts. So, as “I spent every day of (my ‘between jobs’) periods tirelessly leaving no stone unturned in my efforts to secure a job”, one key aspect of my efforts was to network my socks off. In doing this, I became well acquainted with many whose experience was not that different from mine. These included:

 A President of an apparel manufacturer. After two years of unemployment he accepted a position as VP of Operations for a heavy equipment dealer. That job lasted 1 ½ years. He has returned to consulting, as he looks for his next opportunity.

 A CEO of a company providing business training products and services. For three years now, he has returned to consulting, as he looks for his next opportunity.

 The General Counsel for a financial services company. He went into private practice for two years while looking for his next opportunity. Now, he is Divisional Counsel for a technology services company.

 A Director of Sales and Marketing for a software developer. The four years that have passed since he held that job have included three jobs and three significant periods “between jobs”. Now, he is working as a Manufacturer’s Rep.

 A VP of Sales and Marketing for a Fortune 500 company. He was unemployed for most of a year before taking on a role as VP of Sales and Client Services for a small local software services firm. Then, he moved to a job as VP of Sales and Marketing for a local consumer goods manufacturer.

 A VP of Client Services for an outplacement firm. The three years since she left that position have included two jobs and two significant periods “between jobs”.

 An SVP Worldwide Support and Services for a software developer. Now she is consulting while looking for her next opportunity. This followed two stints as COO for local companies and two times “between jobs”.

 A VP of Worldwide Sales for a software developer. The five years since she left that position have held a VP-level job with a marketing research firm, a VP-level job with a nonprofit, a couple of advisory/consulting gigs and several periods “between jobs”.

 A President and CEO of a telecom company. For nearly two years he was “between jobs” but got one six-month consulting gig. Now he is employed as a Senior Operations Manger with a nonprofit.

 A CEO/President of a beverage wholesaler. Since leaving that job, he has done over seven years of consulting while looking for his next opportunity. Now, he is working as a Manufacturer’s Rep.

 A VP Sales and Marketing of a company providing business training products and services. After about 1 ½ years of unemployment, he is launching a new company offering media services for businesses.

 A CFO-level person who had been working abroad. He moved back home to be with an ailing parent who has, since, passed away. During over three years “back home”, he managed to get only two months of consulting work. He has returned to a financial role, working abroad, for a U.S. Government agency.

 A Director of Sales and Marketing for a corporate continuing education services firm. This was followed by nearly five years that included consulting and looking for his next opportunity plus a 1 ½ year stint as a Sales Manager for a web-based services firm.

 A VP of Human Resources for a business and technology consultancy. This was followed by four years of consulting and looking for his next opportunity. Now he is working as a Director of HR for a small local investigation services firm.

Though this may seem like a fairly long list, I can assure you that it is not, by any means, an exhaustive list of those I met in job-networking, whose experiences were similar to mine. It’s not even a complete list of individuals whose experience was like mine, who are also Seniors but that is one thing everyone on this list has in common … they are all Seniors, at least aged 50 plus. Another thing they all have in common is that they are all quality professionals.

Unfortunately, the unemployment/underemployment challenges I’m addressing here haven’t been limited to me and my business contacts. Just this past month, The Columbian published an article entitled Older And Out Of A Job that addresses and evens expands on many of the same issues that I’ve raised in this article. I have no doubt that countless stories, similar to the ones I’ve listed and the ones detailed in The Columbian’s article, can easily be found throughout the U.S.

So, what does this tell us? Obviously, there is a lot of unemployment and underemployment here. Surely, the earnings of this group has been significantly diminished and along with that, the positive impact that this group’s spending has on our economy has, likewise, been diminished. Of course, I don’t know how my diminished earnings experience compares to the folks I’ve listed but here’s how this has played out for us:

As noted earlier, the Target Income of our employment plan for me was a Base Pay of at least 60% of that which I’d had in my last corporate position. My first job came close to matching up with our plan, with Base Pay of about 97% of our Target Income. Job #2 was about 68%, job #3 was about 83% and job #4 was about 67%. I’m choosing to not include the income from my current job in this conversation. I believe I’m in this job because it’s where the Lord wants me for now. If you want to know more about that, you’re welcome to check out an article entitled An “Off-Duty” Grandpa’s Perspective On Autism. Suffice it to say that my leading to be in this job had little to do with what it pays and that a calculation of how its pay stacks up to our Target Income for me yields an outrageously low %. Although a Target Income for Ruth was not included in our original plan, I think it’s appropriate to note that her income is about 44% of her pay from her last corporate position.

Surely, the folks listed above were affected similarly, with income as well as with erosion of the investments at the core of their “nest egg”. And, no doubt, there are people on this list who have found themselves in the position of needing to risk poverty in their later years by enrolling for Social Security retirement benefits early and by spending retirement savings.

So, with all this said, where is this silver lining I’ve alluded to? The answer requires taking a closer look at the folks involved than they seem to have gotten from many prospective employers and matching that up against certain aspects of the current socioeconomic crisis in the U.S.

In taking this closer look, the qualities that I see as being most important to recognize in these individuals are the qualities of their generation … the Baby Boom generation. In my opinion, the greatest overall value Baby Boomers have to offer is what I call a “A Great Wealth of Wisdom.” This generation was lavished, more than any other, with education. Moreover, they were raised by the GI Generation, who instilled them with a great work ethic. That meant, not only did they get a great education, they actually went out and tried to accomplish everything they could with that resource and in the process, grew the resource by honing it with experience to create … “A Great Wealth of Wisdom.” I have no doubt that you would see this reflected in the respective resumes of every individual mentioned in this article.

The aspects of the current socioeconomic crisis in the U.S. that I have in mind for the qualities of the baby boom generation to match up against, generally, fall under the heading of Global Competitiveness. Obviously, just reducing the unemployment/ underemployment of this group and making better utilization of this group’s “Great Wealth of Wisdom” would be a boon to the U.S. But just think about the impact this could have on some of the issues of our Global Competitiveness that are troubling us so much right now. Things like:

Education

Our diminishing ability to compete in the Global Economy because of the continuing decline in the quality of education we’re providing our youth is a common lament. More lamentable is that no solution seems to be getting implemented, generally and it doesn’t seem that anyone is offering a solution that can be implemented in time for the U.S. to maintain its position as the predominant global economic power.

Well, the “Great Wealth of Wisdom” of the Baby Boom generation can match wits with anyone in the world and that resource is available right now. Furthermore, by giving more emphasis to having Baby Boomers mentor younger workers, we can increase growth of this resource and magnify its impact. Finally, aiming this resource at Education Reform in the U.S., can affect an ongoing state of regeneration of this resource. If we don’t take steps like these, if we just go on as we are now, sadly, this invaluable resource will die with the Baby Boom generation.

Innovation

Lets see, innovations from this generation have included: DNA fingerprinting, the Personal Computer, the World Wide Web, OCR and text-to-speech technology, the Flex-Foot prosthesis, Controlled Drug-release technology, the USB port, Rechargeable batteries, Ethernet, the Cell phone, etc. Any questions?

Other

In addition to Education and Innovation, the other major areas of consideration for determining Global Competitiveness are: Institutions, Infrastructure, Macroeconomic Environment, Goods Market Efficiency, Labor Market Efficiency, Financial Market Development, Technological Readiness, Market Size and Business Sophistication. As I said earlier, obviously, making better utilization of this “Great Wealth of Wisdom” would be a boon to the U.S. I think it’s just as obvious that these other major areas are where the positive impact of unleashing this resource would be most evident.

In order for the silver lining I’ve mentioned to become a reality, the remaining question is: What is the most expedient way to go about unleashing this resource? As you might suspect, I think I can help with this but I don’t think I’m one of those who we should be looking to for the best answers here. I think the Innovators from among the Baby Boom generation itself are those we should look to for this. Innovators like the friend I mentioned at the outset of this article, who has built a very successful business on his abilities as an Innovator/Problem Solver.

In submitting this challenge/opportunity to our nation’s greatest Innovators, I want close by pointing out a few reminders about the group of people who comprise this invaluable resource, this “Great Wealth of Wisdom”:

- These are not necessarily folks who are all on the verge of retiring. Most of the Seniors I know, who are at early Retirement Age for Social Security (62) want to work for another 8 to 10 years. For many of them, the unemployment/ underemployment experience that they’ve had in the past few years has provided further encouragement for them to work well beyond Social Security Retirement Age. And, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the Baby Boom went through 1964. These folks are presently aged 47 so they may be looking to work another 25 years or so.

- And, these folks are a great value. If you stop to do the math, you’ll recognize that, with one of my four jobs that I included in this discussion, I was knocking myself out to do the best job I could and I was doing so for about 40% what was once just my Base Pay. Of course, I can’t say that there is a 1:1 comparison between my experience and the experience of others I’ve mentioned in this article but I think it’s a pretty good indicator that the “Great Wealth of Wisdom” I’ve mentioned is presently available at a great bargain.

- Finally, these folks are anything but quitters. With the individuals I’ve mentioned here, just think about the number of new jobs taken on, the “between jobs” efforts, the consultancies, the entrepreneurial attempts, etc. Sure, there has been ample unemployment and underemployment but you didn’t hear much about folks who were just giving up. Of course, the need for income has been a factor in the stories of these people but what’s a more significant factor is that these folks have a burning desire to make the best contribution they can with all they’ve been blessed with. Knowing that, I’m confident that, if they were approached by one of the Innovators I’ve mentioned, to join a newly-formed Silver Lining, Inc., the nearly unanimous response from this group would be like mine, in saying, “Put me in Coach!”

The Sky-High CRC Light Rail Crossing Project - A Most-Important Public Forum

The Portland/Vancouver community is being given a marvelous opportunity to be enlightened and to be heard on the topic of the proposed CRC Project … the biggest public works undertaking in the history of the community. This event is entitled Bridging The Gaps. It’s scheduled for Saturday, June 4th, from 1pm to 3:30pm, at the LifePoint Church Campus – 305 NE 192nd Avenue – Vancouver, WA 98607.

The key elements of the agenda for Bridging The Gaps are:

- Expert presentations on the proposed CRC Project, Light Rail and practical alternatives.*

- Elected officials, presently involved with the proposed CRC Project, have been invited to discuss the project and to debate the issues.*

* Event organizers are encouraging citizen participation and questions throughout the agenda. To assure ample time for this, a Community Interaction time is being made available following the formal agenda, from 3:30pm to 4:30pm.

The proposed CRC Project is for a single bridge, replacing the current I-5 Bridge across the Columbia River, connecting Northwest Portland and Southwest Vancouver. The embedded YouTube video makes it apparent that there are folks in the community who view the cost of this scheme as outrageously sky-high. Considering that this cost is over 10 times as much as the cost of the I-205 Bridge that connects Northeast Portland with Southeast Vancouver and that many in the community believe that two additional bridges make more sense than one replacement bridge, the value of the opportunity that Bridging The Gaps offers seems pretty obvious.

Specific Bridging The Gaps agenda topics include:

Transportation Priorities / New Bridges

Spending Accountability / Funding / Oversight

Citizen input / Vote / Transparency

Confirmed expert panelists are:

Joe Cortright, President and Principal Economist for Impresa, a consulting firm specializing in regional economic analysis, innovation and industry clusters. Regarding the proposed CRC Project, Cortright has said, “The region needs to take a closer look at this mammoth project which would require us to go deeply into debt, tie up the region's limited financial resources for decades, and … there is little evidence to suggest that the bridge will achieve its primary purpose.”

John Charles, President and CEO of Cascade Policy Institute, a public policy research and educational organization that focuses on state and local issues in Oregon. Charles’ summary on the proposed CRC Project is, “Among the hundreds of projects we’ve seen, the current CRC proposal stands out as a doozy, throwing staggering amounts of money at a wasteful, ineffective plan.”

Paul Guppy, Vice President for Research of Washington Policy Center, an independent, non-profit, non-partisan think tank that promotes sound public policy based on free-market solutions.

Tiffany Couch, Founder of Acuity Group, a forensic accounting firm.

Elected officials invited to participate as panelists include:

Jaime Herrera Beutler – U.S. Representative (WA-03)

Peter DeFazio – U.S. Representative (OR-04)

Tim Leavitt – Mayor, City of Vancouver, WA

Sam Adams – Mayor, City of Portland, OR

Tom Mielke – Chairman, Board of Clark County (WA) Commissioners

The real VIPs are:

Not just Very Important Participants, in fact the Most Important Participants are the citizens of the Portland/Vancouver community. Bridging The Gaps can only be of worth, if YOU show up. Please do.

“Is Anyone Listening?” Sessions on Columbia River Crossing Boondoggle

During the past month, several “Listening Sessions” have been held in the greater Portland/Vancouver area regarding the Columbia River Crossing (CRC) Project. If you’re not familiar with the CRC, it’s a scheme to replace the I-5 Bridge that connects Portland, OR with Vancouver, WA. Its current estimated price tag is $3.6 Billion, which easily makes it the largest public works project in the history of this part of the country.


The first of these “Listening Sessions” was one I announced in a previous article, entitled Vancouver Council’s Rush to Build “The Bridge of the Tyrants” . This was a U.S. House Transportation Committee “Listening Session” being held, in part, as the result of encouragement from U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler. Although I was very pleased and encouraged to announce this meeting, I also experienced some significant related frustration because my travel schedule meant that I wouldn’t be able to attend. According to The Columbian’s account of this meeting , it seems that I wasn’t the only one who experienced frustration related to this meeting. I’m confident that Congresswoman Herrera Beutler’s intentions for this meeting, as a “Listening Session” were genuine. Apparently Committee Chairman, U.S. Rep. Mica, had something else in mind, though. The Columbian reported that Mica “wielded his gavel — and his wit — to cut short testimony on the bridge project”. This report went on to note that less than half of the people who came, “(hoping) to send a message to Congress, pro or con, about the Columbia River Crossing were lucky enough to get seats inside the small community room at the Clark Public Utilities building” and that “only five, chosen by lot, got to ask questions at the session’s end.”

Next came two “Listening Sessions” conducted by the CRC itself. These were held on March 10th. One session was held in Portland during the day and a like session was held in Vancouver in the evening. I attended and testified at, the evening session. Since the observations I would make about this meeting are, generally, the same as comments I’ll make about a more recent meeting, I won’t go into detail about this event. However, I do want to say that, aside from public comments offered regarding the final design of the CRC’s planned bridge, my impression was that all other aspects of this “Listening Session” were just for show. Since it appeared that the CRC was electronically recording this meeting, I’m assuming they will be posting this recording on their Website - http://www.columbiarivercrossing.com/Default.aspx. If so, you can check out the details of this session and judge for yourself.

The most recent “Listening Session” on this topic was conducted by We The People – Vancouver (WTP). This was the first in what WTP intends as a series, saying they are “scheduling meetings where representatives and subject matter experts will be invited from both sides of this project and both sides of the river to listen, speak, and dialogue.” Especially since I’ve been such a vocal proponent with WTP’s Leadership to do this, I’m pleased that they have launched this initiative. The Special Guest invited by WTP for their first “Listening Session” was Vancouver’s Mayor, Tim Leavitt. Here too, since I’ve been such a vocal proponent of Mayor Leavitt doing more to engage with his constituents on this topic, I was especially pleased that he accepted the invitation.

Unlike the previously mentioned CRC “Listening Sessions”, I didn’t get the sense that Mayor Leavitt’s participation at WTP’s event was just for show. However, I can’t say I felt that Mayor Leavitt’s listening, though seemingly genuine, could be categorized as the sort of listening one does, with ready willingness to hear why they should consider adopting the opposing view/s of another. It really seemed more like the sort of listening a person does to better understand another’s view/s in order to respond with as much detail as possible to justify view/s held coming into the dialogue. This was magnified by the demeanor of the two Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) that Mayor Leavitt brought with him to the meeting. Bringing SMEs along was, of course, a wise thing for Mayor Leavitt to do. However, their attitude (particularly with one) seemed condescending and adversarial ... no way to foment an ideal atmosphere for open dialogue. Here again, let me point out that WTP electronically recorded this meeting. I’m told they will be posting this recording on their Website soon - http://www.wepeeps.org/index.html. Please feel free to check out this recording and come to your own conclusions about this meeting.

Regardless of their demeanor, the presence of the SMEs that Mayor Leavitt had join him for the WTP “Listening Session” helped me to start getting a better idea of where the disconnect is between government officials, who seem to be hell-bent on the present CRC scheme and a significant portion of the community, whose attitude is, “This scheme does not map to what we want or need.” And, if I’m right about the source of this disconnect, I’d like to offer some suggestions on steps to take to move in the direction of resolving this disconnect.

As is most often the case, what SMEs present can be “down in the weeds.” Once dialogue is initiated at that level, naturally, it will tend to remain “down in the weeds.” Though I’m not a SME and it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to try to participate in their “down in the weeds” dialogue, listening to it gave me the opportunity to observe that the disconnect on this topic isn’t really at that level. It remains at a much higher level … a level where non-SMEs, like Mayor Leavitt and folks like myself still need to connect before handing the matter over to the SMEs. With that in mind, I thought it could be helpful to take a second look at some of the views Mayor Leavitt expressed at this event and contrast them with my own.

The first views I want to revisit are personal ones. Mayor Leavitt pointed out that he moved to Vancouver in 1980 when his family moved here from Yakima. His primary purpose in bringing this up was to point out that he has found Vancouver “a great place to live” and wanting to maintain that reality is a key to why he “strives to make decisions that are in the best interest of the community.” By contrast, my Wife and I moved to Vancouver more recently … in 2005. However, we did so without having a close friend or family member living here. We chose to move here because we too saw it as “a great place to live” and we want to do what we can to help keep it that way. My point here is that I genuinely believe, at this high level, Mayor Leavitt and I are on the same wavelength.

However, I did notice that Mayor Leavitt’s views and mine began to diverge noticeably when the level of observations dropped down to those specifically related to the CRC Project. To illustrate this, here are a few of Mayor Leavitt’s related views, contrasted with mine:

Leavitt - The I-5 Bridge should have been replaced long ago.

GW - I understand that the present I-5 Bridge has its shortcomings and it won’t always meet the needs of our community. It seems to be meeting today’s needs though. It’s not like you hear reports of parts of the bridge falling off into the Columbia River or that it has anything to do with the present challenges in the very down local economy.

Leavitt – The CRC discussion has been going on for the better part of two decades. There’s been a lot of public outreach on this topic. We’re now in the 11th hour of this project.

GW - How is it that I and a significant number of others in our community have the sense that we haven’t been engaged with on this topic, if the CRC discussion has been going on so long, with “a lot of public outreach”? Why is it that, while making a show of “listening”, elected officials and bureaucrats predominant efforts seem to be aimed at keeping the public from officially expressing their views through elected officials or through voting initiatives? Considering the significance of this, admittedly, important project; shouldn’t this be done before determining that we’re at the “11th hour” and cramming a boondoggle that includes every imaginable bridge-feature down the throat of the public?

Leavitt - Folks on other side of the river won’t allow another bridge beyond the CRC Project.

GW - What?! Oregon is a sovereign State but it’s not a foreign country. If they really believe this sort of extortion is appropriate, in order to force us to have the bridge project they want us to have, wouldn’t it be just as appropriate for WA to install toll booths just for Northbound vehicles with Oregon license plates that want access to WA, Canada and AK?

Leavitt – We need to act now before we lose the Federal money available for this and while President Obama has this project on his radar.

GW – Again, I say “What?!” “The Federal money” comes from us. Why should our taking the time to assure that our money is spent on what we need and want have anything to do with whether or not our money is available to us?

Of course, the contrasting views above do not represent an exhaustive list. But I believe that the items listed are typical of the disconnects between the opposing sides on this topic and I do believe that the overall disconnect that continues to bog down this project remains at this level. With that in mind, here are some ideas on appropriate steps that could be taken, in order to move forward from here:

In my testimony at the CRC “Listening Session”, I stated, “You can’t ‘unscramble’ an egg.” My point with this allegory was that I didn’t expect the CRC to undo the work they’ve already done or to un-spend the money they’ve already spent. However, I did urge them to “stop throwing in more eggs and stop scrambling them” until the public is fully engaged on what they want and what is needed. So, my suggestion for Step #1 here is to simply put the brakes on this project until the above-mentioned disconnect is resolved.

Switching metaphors, instead of trying to “unscramble an egg”, I suggest taking the “peeling back the onion” approach to this project. In other words, deal with this matter, layer by layer, along lines like these:

Use both traditional and new media to educate the interested public on each major issue. Then, using the same tools, determine how that public sees the need, as well as what they want, on each of these issues. Where there seems to be consensus, close the issue and move on.

For issues where predominant consensus isn’t clear, schedule real listening sessions and/or voting initiatives. Here too, when this process produces consensus on an issue, close it and move on.

Using this sort of approach, as Step #2 will eventually allow us to arrive at a real 11th hour, not an artificial one.

I know this seems like an overly simple approach to addressing a major disconnect about a $3.6 Billion project. However, it does appear to me that, somehow along the way, some simple basic high-level understandings were not achieved before the project moved along, getting way “down in the weeds”, to a point where no one seems to see a way out without a result being forced on one side or the other. I, also, recognize that, even if it makes sense to many, it may not be realistic to expect my suggested approach to be taken by all the governmental entities involved. My hope is that this approach will, at least, be adopted by the City of Vancouver, with Mayor Tim Leavitt as its Champion. Even if this ended up meaning that Vancouver was the “lone voice in the wilderness”, with a position on this project that opposed the position of every other governmental entity involved, Tim Leavitt could hold his head high while continuing as Mayor and afterwards, knowing that taking this stand provides the strongest affirmation of his commitment to “(strive) to make decisions that are in the best interest of (our) community.”

Comments

A Bridge too far Removed from Reality


Submitted by Mike M Boyer on Sat, 2011-03-19 11:15.

+3

+-Since Oregon will NOT tolerate a third bridge it must be that our current Interstate bridge will have to be demolished before construction on the Pie-In-The-Sky bridge can begin.







When I build myself a newer and better house I do not demolish my old one. I sell it or rent it out.







The Folly of the Light Rail Mafia never ceases to amaze me.

What I wanted to know and


Submitted by judyinwash on Mon, 2011-03-21 05:50.

0

+-What I wanted to know and didn’t hear – what were the factors that changed between 1999 and 2006 – when light rail was written into their results, but not before. Why WON'T Portland let us build other bridges? Why work JUST on the I-5 bridge?







I heard on the radio yesterday there was a poll taken in Oregon and 60% want the new bridge. Why didn’t they poll Clark County who will be most affected by it?







And what happens when the fiat system (federal reserve notes) are only worth 1 cent on the dollar? Can we get our money back if they can’t finish it?







I'm looking into the possibility of working from home for the company I work for in Portland. I already pay almost $200/month just for parking! I can't afford another $100/month just to travel the bridge!







I'm so angry about this whole thing and NO ONE will listen!