This topic will be the subject of a much longer upcoming post but to summarize yesterday’s work session regarding the twenty year tax abatement for Jordan Cove, there were few answers to many questions. 
Port CEO David Koch attended and was clearly unprepared to answer questions relating to the many aspects of the so called community enhancement plan. A few things of note:
- Koch claims he and port commission chairman David Kronsteiner presented the plan to Governor Kitzhaber and that the response was favorable.
- Koch also claims that Jordan Cove will be paying the same amount in community service fees over the life of the abatement that they would be paying if they just paid taxes, (not according to their numbers), which if true begs the question why do this at all?
- The record of decision on the Jordan Cove project is still two years out so what is the big rush to implement this now?
It is hard to view this plan as anything other than an attempt to privatize government. The meeting was recorded by PEG and the video will be well worth watching when it is available.
The preferred method of killing the baby is not “drowning it in a bathtub,” but by starving it to death. That way you can just walk away and blame it on inefficiency and takers.
Why is our trainee elected independent unbiased tax assessor who should be doing all to shift the tax burden from the homeowner to deep pockets Jordan Cove pimping for the LNG man? Hit in the head too many times by the MAD boom or zapped by the TI APS115? Mrs. Helmsley was wrong; big guys pay tax also. The long time experienced tax man and commissioner recognizes this is a crappy deal for the little person.
Why do this now?
Its because they have all their pieces set on the “boards”.
If they wait the cast may change and they may have a harder time getting this through different officials that they need to sign off on this plan. They have the dream team in place at the four taxing districts, so they better get it done NOW, before the public can react.
It might be that JC plans to flip the project once they have approvals in place. That is what developers do after all. A 20 year tax abatement would certainly sweeten the deal to a bigger more experienced player in the natural gas operations end like Exxon
The good thing about these underlings presenting the group plans is the fact that they are careless and they have been outing their bosses.
Kitzhaber has a lot of democrats fooled. They think he is trying to take the state in a green direction. The only green he sees looks like this $$$$$$$$.
This plan has been announced prior to approval. They fully expect it to happen. That is why they are being so careless. If it weren’t for the loose lips of Koch and McKelvey we wouldn’t have confirmation of the involvement of Kitzhaber and Verger in the grand plan from the beginning, yes back when they told the other democrats that they were keeping an open mind and they were undecided about Jordan Cove, they were appropriating the dredging funds, the public RR funds and crafting the tax evasion plans. Now you know why a lot of people who discovered this left the democratic party. Its corrupt. Its been performing a dance for the public and the local press has participated in the cover-up.