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Portland Commissioner Amanda Fritz delays $170,000 request for downtown holiday marketing program, ugly sweater contest [The Oregonian, Portland, Ore. :: ](Oregonian (Portland, OR) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) July 30--Portland is just a few weeks into a new fiscal year, but on Wednesday the City Council considered dipping into its contingency fund to pay for a downtown marketing program put on by the chamber of commerce during the holidays. Despite cutting $828,309 in funding for the Downtown Marketing Initiative from its budget weeks ago, the elected officials are now considering restoring $170,000 of it. The emergency ordinance left the City Council pondering ugly sweater contests and holiday shopping promotions during a late July meeting agenda that included a landmark deal to approve short-term rentals. The Portland Business Alliance made a hard sell, and its testimony came after an extensive update from Travel Portland leaders on the thriving tourism industry and lodging tax revenue hitting the Rose City's coffers. Lisa Frisch, PBA's downtown retail program director, testified that adding back $170,000 would allow the chamber to pay for a "very scaled back, very bare-boned" holiday marketing program. She described the funding levels as "not sustainable." The transportation bureau paid for the $828,309 in the previous fiscal year, with the funding coming from the bureau's general transportation revenue dollars. Frisch said the chamber would be able to hire a social media contractor to manage its Instagram and Facebook accounts, but "active management of comments will be difficult because of the lack of city funding." The chamber would also cut print and television advertising from its budget, and eliminate an online ugly sweater contest. PBA would continue with so-called "yarn-bombing," adding sweaters to downtown animal sculptures. But Commissioner Amanda Fritz wasn't moved by the PBA's plea on Wednesday. "If I was going to vote to spend $170,000 today," she said, "I would vote for [pedestrian] crossing improvements in east Portland." Mayor Charlie Hales said the city's "budgetary situation is counting to evolve" and its prudent to reconsider funding some programs. But Fritz successfully delayed a vote on the $170,000 request until next week. After the meeting, Fritz said the emergency request came "out of the blue" with no briefing from Hales' office. She has no problem with the downtown marketing initiative, saying it's a good program that brings more bodies and revenue downtown. Fritz, a second-term commissioner and longtime member of the Planning Commission, takes issue with the process. "It's a good product, but it's not the right process to pay for it," she added. The City Council just emerged from months of work to make the right budget decisions, she said, a process that resulted in cutting the downtown initiative. "Did we just decide that wasn't the right decision?" she asked. "If so, lets go back and reopen things because I've got a couple things that I didn't get in that budget that I'd like to put on the table." "It's not appropriate to make grabs through contingency," she added. The City Council will vote on the $170,000 next week. -- Andrew Theen ___ (c)2014 The Oregonian (Portland, Ore.) Visit The Oregonian (Portland, Ore.) at www.oregonian.com Distributed by MCT Information Services |