Vancouver mayor: Put light rail on new bridge
Transportation - Royce Pollard wants tolls to help pay for the new crossing and a vehicle tax for other needs
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
ALLAN BRETTMAN
The Oregonian
VANCOUVER -- Royce Pollard rarely misses an opportunity to declare he is mayor of "America's Vancouver."
But on Tuesday, he almost sounded like he was mayor of Oregon's Portland.
Pollard, delivering his annual State of the City address, embraced light rail, saying he wouldn't support an Interstate 5 bridge replacement plan that didn't include it. He said vehicle tolls would be essential to pay for the new bridge. And he said that a $20-per-vehicle license tax would be needed for new transportation projects elsewhere in the city.
And then he talked at length about global warming, compact fluorescent light bulbs, hybrid vehicles, environmental building standards, increasing the city's tree canopy, and an imaginary conversation with an Alaska glacier.
Pollard, 67, usually takes his hourlong annual speech to review the past year's highlights, with only an occasional controversial remark. Perhaps the most memorable "State" remark came in 2003, when the retired Army lieutenant colonel invited city critics "to seek a warmer climate and move."
But on Tuesday, he forcefully endorsed light rail, one of the most controversial topics in Clark County.
"I've said it before, but it bears repeating," Pollard said. "Vancouver and Clark County residents have the cheapest buy-in to one of the most successful light-rail systems in the world, the MAX system. There is over $5 billion invested in light rail across the river. We can tap into that system at a very minimal cost. And believe me, we'd be foolish not to."
Most, but not all, of the 400 people in the downtown Hilton Vancouver Washington applauded his light-rail remarks.
Referring to the county's resounding 1995 defeat of a sales tax to support light rail, Pollard said the county has changed into "a different and more progressive community than we were back then. . . . Let me say it again, light rail will come to Vancouver."
But it likely won't happen without support from other Southwest Washington public officials.
And after his speech, Vancouver City Councilwoman Jeanne Harris and two members of the Clark County Board of Commissioners, Betty Sue Morris and Steve Stuart, said Pollard's light-rail remarks were off base.
"He doesn't speak for the entire City Council," said Harris, who also is a board member of C-Tran, the county's public transit agency.
The board is weighing the merits of light rail and a bus rapid transit system across a proposed Interstate Bridge replacement.
Pollard's next controversial topic was supporting tolls to help pay for an Interstate Bridge.
That might be a dangerous stance. An estimated 60,000 people commute from Clark County to Oregon for their jobs and pay Oregon income tax, and many think they pay enough already. Oregon received nearly 55,000 income tax returns from Clark County in 2004, totaling about $121 million in income taxes. Only seven of Oregon's 36 counties paid more.
No matter.
"I stand before you today firm in my resolve that there will be tolls on the crossing," Pollard said.
The mayor's four-year term expires in Dec. 31, 2009. He did not give a definitive yes or no when asked if he would run for another term.
About that glacier:
Pollard, who in 2005 was among 358 mayors to sign the U.S. Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement, attended a mayors summit on climate change in Alaska last year.
"I saw for myself the results of warmer temperatures on the glaciers," Pollard said. "I even communicated with a glacier. . . . I did put my hand on the glacier. And the glacier said to me, 'Mayor of America's Vancouver, I'm melting. I'm melting. I'm melting, help me. . . . It didn't really say that."
Allan Brettman: 360-896-5746 or 503-294-5900; allanbrettman@ news.oregonian.com
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