Ridenbaugh Press/Northwest

An Oregon Supreme Court decision in the case Klamath Water District et al v. United States, a case referred to it (partially) from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, is being roundly praised by water user advocates.

The Oregon court said the referrals “ask whether, as a matter of state law, the farmers and irrigation districts that use water from a federal reclamation project have an equitable property interest in a water right to which the United States holds legal title and whether an equitable property interest in a water right is subject to adjudication in the ongoing Klamath Basin water rights adjudication.”

In background, the court said “The Federal Bureau of Reclamation manages the Klamath Project, which stores and supplies water to farmers, irrigation districts, and federal wildlife refuges in the Klamath River basin. The plaintiffs in the underlying federal litigation are farmers and irrigation districts that use water from the Klamath Project for irrigation and other agricultural purposes. As a result of drought conditions in 2001, the Bureau terminated the delivery of water to plaintiffs that year in order to make water available for three species of endangered fish. Claiming a property right in the water, plaintiffs brought an action in the United States Court of Federal Claims, alleging that the United States had taken their property in violation of the Fifth Amendment and, alternatively, that the United States had breached its contractual obligation to deliver water to them. The United States asked the federal claims court to abstain from deciding plaintiffs’ takings claim until an ongoing state water rights adjudication determined what, if any, property rights plaintiffs had in the water from the Klamath Project.”

In response, the court concluded: Continue Reading »

Candidate filing in Oregon is done for this cycle, barring unusual circumstances, and not counting appearances from the minor parties. Now we can take a quick first run at what’s emerging among some of the 306 candidates . . .

U.S. SENATE Ten candidates for the U.S. Senate this time, including one overwhelming favorite – incumbent Democrat Ron Wyden – and a cast of lesser-knowns. Two – Loren Hooker and perennial Pavel Goberman – are primary contestants. Among the seven Republicans, most of whom list no previous governmental experience, the most likely nominee will be former law school dean Jim Huffman. Although, in what’s apt to be a low-key primary, you’d be hesitant to post a flat bet on any result.

U.S. HOUSE 1 All five House seats wind up contested, and more candidates filed in the 1st than any other. Democratic incumbent David Wu seems, again, strongly positioned (the Oregonian actually put a positive-spin headline about him on the front page this week) – he’s been underestimated in most of the last few cycles. David Robinson of Beaverton will opposed him in the primary. Four Republicans filed here – Stephan Andrew Brodhead, Rob Cornilles, John Kuzmanich and Douglas Keller; Cornilles seems to have developed the best organization and campaign effort so far, but all are newcomers to campaigning and the primary outcome is far from certain.

U.S. HOUSE 2 Republican incumbent Greg Walden seems unassailable in this strongly Republican district, but the Democrats did come up with a candidate, Ashland writer Joyce Segers. Those two will proceed to the general.

U.S. HOUSE 3 Earl Blumenauer, the Democratic incumbent in this strongly Democratic district, has another low-key primary challenger (John Sweeney) and – second time around – Republican Delia Lopez, who lives a couple of hours south of the Portland-based district in the small city of Oakland. (Yes, she can legally file for the seat, but expectations of victory ought, of course, to be modest.)

U.S. HOUSE 4 Only a few months ago, Republicans were looking at this seat with some realistic hopes, back when veteran Democratic incumbent Peter DeFazio was considering a run for governor instead, and Springfield Mayor Sid Leiken looked like a strong nominee. Neither circumstance came to fruition, and now DeFazio is back as an extremely-hard-to-beat incumbent, and Republicans have two little-known challengers (Jaynee Germond of Dillard and Art Robinson of Cave Junction) headed to the primary. Doesn’t look like a lot of excitement here.

U.S. HOUSE 5 This could be the one really hot congressional race in Oregon this year. Democrat Kurt Schrader is in his first term in a district still pretty closely balanced between the parties (though Democrats have been picking up). Republicans have their strongest congressional challenger anywhere in the state (and probably their strongest challenger in Oregon period above the legislative level) in state Representative Scott Bruun, a relatively moderate and strongly articulate and knowledgeable legislator from West Linn. Bruun has a Republican primary with Fred Thompson of Salem, which may help him organize earlier around the district. Unless Thompson delivers a shocker in May, the Schrader-Bruun contest will be one of the best to watch in Oregon this year.

GOVERNOR No fewer than 13 filers for governor this year, and so few with any realistic shot of getting past May. Among the Democrats, there’s former Governor John Kitzhaber, who has the best odds, and of it isn’t him, it’ll be former Secretary of State Bill Bradbury. Two other Democrats – Steve Shields (thought he’d pulled out?) and Roger Obrist – are in the primary too. And then there are nine Republicans; of them, five are little-known, one (Bill Sizemore) has some name ID but not in politically helpful ways, and then there are the three invited to speak at the Dorchester conference: Allen Alley, Chris Dudley and John Lim. The race upcoming seems likely to revolve heavily around either those three, or maybe evolve into a de facto two-way between Alley and Dudley.

STATE TREASURER The unexpected race (noted in previous posts) will feature three Democrats: new incumbent (and former Multnomah County chair) Ted Wheeler, state Senator Rick Metsger, and former Treasurer Jim Hill. We’ll start with an incumbent’s presumption, but there’s plenty of room for surprises here. Republican state Senator Chris Telfer of Bend will face one in November.

LEGISLATIVE Not many stunners here – we’ll cut short this too-long post before getting into the details – but will note generally that Republicans have improved their candidate filings for legislative seats, a roster than sank to mediocre levels in 2008. In fact, if an initial check is right, Republicans have filed candidates for all but one of the 60 House seats, which means more ballot lines filled than the Democrats have done – a real achievement. And they’ve done not badly with filling slots on the Senate side too.

Ted Wheeler

And with the speed of superglue – hastened by the 5 p.m. candidate filing deadline – a whole section of Oregon politics for the months ahead is snapping into place.

The reason, as noted here earlier, is the combination of a candidate filing deadline today, plus the death on Sunday of state Treasurer Ben Westlund. He was probably one of the most-liked people in Salem, but the law didn’t allow for time to pause and grieve, only time to decide and file.

The first key action today was Governor Ted Kulongoski’s appointment to treasurer for the period from here until after a new treasurer is elected. That went (in what felt like a small but not large surprise) to Multnomah County Chair Ted Wheeler. Wheeler hadn’t been much involved in politics on the state level up to now, but he has gotten good headlines at Multnomah since he took office there in January 2007, leading a commission which had been a trouble spot for some years, and smoothing out and broadening its activities. He was already running for re-election to the county office this year, and had drawn only slight opposition. The appointment is likely to get positive media attention.

It is professionally defensible. From Wheeler’s own statement on the appointment: “I imagine in some corners of the state, people will ask: ‘Who is Ted Wheeler?’ The short answer is that I currently serve as the chief executive officer of the largest county in Oregon, that I was a senior manager of an investment firm in my private sector career and that I have graduate degrees in government and business. In short, I’ve got a good resume for this job. Frankly, I’ve thought for some time that I might run for Treasurer at some point in the future. I never expected it to be this soon.”

He is also running for it, and as an incumbent is likely to be well-positioned. His ties to the Portland business community are likely to generate a large campaign treasury, and he probably will be able to look to labor for substantial support too.

Not of that is stopping other candidates from entering, two of them state senators: Democrat Rick Metsger of Welches and Republican Chris Telfer of Bend. And there’s former state Treasurer Jim Hill, who can point to his past experience there. Al three can be considered serious candidates, but our guess is that Wheeler will enter as front-runner.

Wheeler’s departure at Mulnomah leaves open his seat at the chair, and another commissioner, Jeff Cogen, and a former state senator, Margaret Carter, are in for that.

More on candidate filings once the deadline is past, later today.

A sense of whiplash today, so soon after the sad and shocking news of Oregon Treasurer Ben Westlund’s death yesterday: An immediate, hard, fast for a job no one had expected to be on the ballot this year: Oregon state treasurer.

There are two races right now, in fact: One for appointment to the position, which could happen very quickly, and the other for election to the (partisan) job. That second will play out from here to November, of course, but the participants will have very little time to decide whether to enter. While candidate filing has been open since last September in Oregon, it ends tomorrow. The space of about 48 hours, the office will have come open for election, and the field of candidates for it will be closed. A weird state of events. And the key participants will mostly be people who counted Westlund as a good friend, and really would rather not be contemplating all this just now.

There is also this to consider: When Governor Ted Kulongoski appoints a new treasurer, that person is likely to be given an inside track on election to the job. If, that is, that person is a candidate. No immediate word on a choice from the governor’s office, but the timing puts unusual pressure on his decisionmaking, since running for the office as an incumbent could be a huge advantage.

The first in was state Senator Rick Metsger, D-Welches, who ran for secretary of state in 2008 and is leaving his Senate seat this year (that is, not running for re-election to it). A strong, appealing candidate who came across pretty well in the sec-state race, said he’s running for the office whether appointed to it or not.

At Blue Oregon, Carla Axtman spins out several other prospects too, including Greg Macpherson, the former state representative from Lake Oswego, Senate Majority Leader Richard Devlin, activist (and 2008 Senate candidate) Steve Novick, and Multnomah County Commission Chair Ted Wheeler. Any could be solid candidates for the job. Macpherson and Novick have experience running statewide.

But that doesn’t necessarily exhaust the field. We picked up talk this afternoon about another prospect as well, a highly-regarded officeholder, said to have a strong shot at the governor’s appointment. Of course, many such rumors could be circulating at this point.

MIA so far: Serious prospects for treasurer on the Republican side. But there’s no doubt some scrambling to get that ballot line, for an open office, filled quickly.

All of it is happening quickly. Feels as if, too quickly.

Ben Westlund

Ben Westlund, 60, the Oregon state treasurer who died today of cancer, had a cancer outbreak years ago. Part of his response to it was to bear down on developing a serious statewide Oregon medical care program. He was a state senator, and with another senator, Alan Bates, they toured statewide, developed it over a period of time and got it through the Oregon Legislature – an almost astonishing achievement.

Westlund was among the most immediately impressive legislators we spotted when moving to Oregon some years ago, on a range of fronts. He stood out for party, for one thing – he was a Republican, an independent and a Democrat in the legislature. He ran for governor as an independent, and was elected in 2008 as treasurer as a Democrat.

His subject area knowledge was strong enough that you could call him wonkish, but for his manner and approach – energetic, direct and even charismatic. He was a natural to run for a higher office, had he lived longer.

Westlund’s switch to the Democratic legislative caucus prompted a witty comeback from the Republican Senate Leader, Ted Ferrioli, to the effect of: I hope the Democrats get all the joy from him that we did – a reference to how he wasn’t always among the most loyal of troops. But you can read the comment in more than one way. As it stands, Oregon got a good deal from Westlund during the too-short time he was here.

A Dudley greeter at Dorchester, early on/Stapilus

There was a tea party and Sarah Palin presence of sorts (the latter being a cardboard cut-out) at this weekend’s Republican Dorchester Conference. But they weren’t in the Necanicum Room, where most of the candidates, organizers and vendors could be found; they were toward the end of a hallway off to the side.

The tea accoutrements weren’t especially visible elsewhere either, at least on Friday, at the Oregon Republican (unofficial but highly established) event, held again this year at Seaside. They didn’t have their kind of candidates much in evidence, either.

Dorchester felt like a contrary mix. More optimism than four years ago, and on surface impression a bigger turnout. (A positive indicator for Republicans – House Minority Leader Bruce Hanna, R-Roseburg, said at the Dorchester opening that candidates for 58 of the 60 House seats were present; an impressive display.)

But not some other things.

The nominees for governor (speaking at Dorchester) are Allen Alley, businessman and former staffer for Democratic governor Ted Kulongoski, legislator (Senate and House) John Lim and former NBA basketball player Chris Dudley. Their approaches, and the distinctions among them in the crowd, were clear enough.

Dudley got the loud response – a snap response for him personally. He had a visual advantage, physically towering over the other two. (In his opening statement he added to it by standing in front of the podiums, poised there tieless and coatless in white shirt, the image of Jimmy Stewart. It was a strong image. Continue Reading »

I was involved once with a political campaign in which the candidate had a long history of newspaper columns. One of the first jobs out of the launch: Review them all. Who knew what ticking time bombs might await? In that case, as it happened, there weren’t any big ones; or at least, his campaign (and the opposition, which must have been doing some due diligence too) never came up with any shocking.

Already, though, Oregon U.S. Senate candidate Jim Huffman, who looks like the probable Republican nominee against Democrat Ron Wyden, seems to have some issues with writings from the past.

Word that Huffman might run has been circulating for a while, and no sooner had the deal been done than Democrats pounced. They posted a page called “Meet Jim Huffman,” with some strong opening shots:

“When the Wall Street and bank executives who caused the financial meltdown started taking billions in taxpayer-funded bonuses, Huffman defended them in an April 2009 Oregonian essay titled “Outraged at Those Bonuses? Get Over It.” . . . Huffman signed a FreedomWorks petition supporting President Bush’s risky scheme to gamble Americans’ retirement money on Wall Street – a plan that would have given investment firms an additional $240 billion in management fees. . . . Huffman believes the only way to reduce health care costs is to restrict patients’ access to care, stating in an Oregonian essay that the ‘rationing of health care is unavoidable.’ . . . Huffman joined a 2007 FreedomWorks letter arguing that federal action to avert the mortgage meltdown was unnecessary because ‘market corrections have already begun.’”

And so on. When the Oregonian’s Jeff Mapes interviewed him, he was described as “disheartened” about the early shot and said, “I’ve got such a vast amount of stuff I’ve written, much of which, frankly, I don’t remember.”

He or someone on his campaign probably had better, quickly. Wyden is a very strong favorite for re-election anyway, but shots like this threaten to wipe out Huffman before he even gains a beach head.

Oregon has a new political news web site, the Oregon Politico.com; we’ll doubtless be checking in for news there.

Beyond that, a little note of perspective on it is warranted.

It presents itself as a straight-up news site, its listed staff includes a political reporter and an investigative reporter, and its mission statement says, “Oregon Politico is dedicated to reporting news from the state’s capitol and government bureaucracies in a fair and balanced manner whilst promoting an open and transparent government.”

Maybe the “fair and balanced” reference there should be a clue. Dig a little deeper and check out the “copyright and legal” page, and there’s this: “This Site and all of the information it contains (including, but not limited to, news articles, video, charts, graphs, graphics and photographs) is the property of Cascade Policy Institute, unless otherwise noted.”

Cascade is not a politically or philosophically neutral organization; its front web page notes it is “Promoting public policy alternatives that foster individual liberty, personal responsibility and economic opportunity in Oregon” – a more subtle version of “free market solutions”, essentially libertarian in view, promoted by counterpart organizations in other states. (The most recent headline on its web site: “Unemployment Insurance Extensions Appeal to the Heart but Rob the Soul.”) Such descriptions show up in the Oregon Catalyst.

This approach – of seemingly dispassionate news sources cloaking the machinery run in fact by highly ideological organizations (see also the Idaho Reporter.com, a project of the Idaho Freedom Foundation) seems to be a growing trend: Illusory neutrality in news production, a la Fox, spreading now to the state and maybe local level.

If there’s a complaint here, it’s not with the existence of the sites, or the independent reporting – we need all of that we can get. There are plenty of overtly partisan sites that do a good deal of digging and reporting, and a good deal of it has real value. But those sites (ranging, say, from Blue Oregon to Idaho Conservative Blogger) generally are forthright about their biases and preferences, and don’t pretend they’re something they’re not.

There’s news, and there’s news. There are all kinds of filters for news. And if you’re running your news through a filter, best to be up front with everyone about what it is.

The Oregon Legislature’s special session is done as of mid-afternoon, a day later than most members had hoped but still three days ahead of the deadline. It was a special session not because it was called for emergency business – which ordinarily is supposed to be what even-year sessions, when they occur, are about – but as an experiment to see if even-year sessions can work reasonably well.

Evidently they can. The final hangup (and not one between parties but between House and Senate) had to do with how long the sessions in an annual-session scheme should run; those deadlines would be built into a constitutional amendment to set up annual sessions henceforth. On Wednesday (after Senate President Peter Courtney decided against giving up and adjourning), they resolved the impasse. As the Salem Statesman-Journal noted, “The total time of 195 days over a two-year cycle would be shorter than the 211 days that lawmakers have met on average over the past decade, counting the current session in its 25th day.”

A call to cut session length might be an overall voter winner in November.

They can add that to a considerable batch of legislation approved in these last three and a half weeks. The list form the House speaker’s office included these (and it’s a partial list): Continue Reading »

Time to prepare for breaking out the D-word?

The northwest’s snowpack seemed to be in pretty good shape two to three months ago. Less so now, and in places it could get pretty parched.

Only one spot in the Northwest has higher than normal accumulated precipitation: The Olympic peninsula (at about 151%). Other than that, it’s a question how relatively dry are you?

Th driest river basins (compared with the percentage four months ago in parentheses):

Washington: Spokane 65% (was 94%), Lower Snake 67% (was 103%), Upper Yakima (was 74%)

Oregon: Klamath 71% (was 74%), Hood/Sandy/Lower Deschutes 72% (was 101%), Rogue/Umpqua 74% (was 85%), Willamette 74% (was 103%).

Idaho: Henry’s Fork/Teton 60% (was 88%), Snake River above Palisades 61% (was ), Clearwater 62% (was ), Spokane 65% (was 94%), Salmon 68% (was 89%), Willow/Blackfoot/Portneuf 69% (was 73%).

It was a Peter Courtney moment. Presiding over the Oregon Senate, just after absorbing news from across the Rotunda as the Legislature was preparing to adjourn:

“All right, I’ll tell you what’s happening,” as if announcing social plans on a Saturday night. “The House is coming in at 2:45. They’re gonna do some stuff. Then they’re going to adjourn and come back in at 4:30. Then they’ll do some more stuff.” (Courtney’s style, some combination of informal and driven, is all his own.) The Senate would return around 5, he said, hopefully with most of the House work complete.

The exact clock times, of course, didn’t hold. But both chambers continued processing bills, and you could tell from the visitor’s gallery that staffers at least were optimistic of an early-evening adjournment. And no late glitches seemed to be lying in wait.

The latest “experimental” even-year Oregon legislative session does seem nearly over, maybe later today. It has worked; substantial legislation moved through smoothly, and the session seems about to end ahead of deadline (which was February 28).

The major loss, as now appears: The proposed constitutional amendment to allow annual sessions. The House and Senate seem positioned to simply agree to disagree. Ironic, since this session seems to have been a good Exhibit A for the proposal.

We just last night caught up with the most current (streamed) episode of Leverage, the TNT series about a group of con artists, set in the Boston area but shot in Portland. The show is well done on its own merits, but we have fun picking out specific scenes at Portland we know. PGE Park and the city hall were two good recent examples.

It’s felt a little like an outlier, in that Vancouver B.C. tends to get a lot more TV and film work; it has been the leading film center on the west coast north of southern California. Among other things, shooting costs there may actually be a little lower than in Portland.

But Portland’s clout in the biz is picking up. Leverage is one factor, and another is the area’s intensive and cutting-edge digital video industry.

The Oregon House Sustainability and Economic Development Committee held a hearing on all this today, and the indications emerging suggest that more of this business may be coming: Not an explosive increase, but more. People working with Leverage were there, and show creator and runner Dean Devlin, who had planned to appear, delivered a statement.

One conclusion was that Oregon isn’t notably attractive on the immediate upfront numbers; other states have juicier governmental giveaways. (Michigan evidently is notorious for this.) But Oregon, and Portland especially, has other good advantages: Widely varied and easily accessible scenery, good infrastructure, a solid base of actors and crew to work with. The various sorts of commercial shooting business, from commercials and corporate videos to full-out entertainment programming, seems to be picking up as word of the advantages picks up. (One motion picture, niche-described as “faith-based horror,” was said to be in progress.)

The economic advantages were hyped too hard; no one spoke of it as an economic savior. But Representative Vic Gilliam, who played a bit part on Leverage, recalled Devlin telling him on set that about 140 people were working that day, nearly all Oregonians.

And if you’re in Oregon, keep a lookout for $2 bills. On item that emerged at the hearing: Devlin apparently paid out much of the Leverage staff per diems with $2 bills. If you see one in circulation, odds are that’s where it came from.

Matt Wingard

Start this with a quote from Oregon state Representative Matt Wingard, R-Wilsonville, appearing in the Hillsboro Argus: “It’s amazing to me that somebody blogging in their underwear from a basement of their mom’s house can make a vicious personal smear on their Web site.”

So many are the problems with that quote, that even it’s hard to know where to start. Does the fact of easy communication in today’s technology really amaze the representative? Does he really hold with that old wheeze stereotyping bloggers? If the answers are yes, then part of what happened in the Wingard global warming plagiarism dispute starts to fall into focus – and not to the representative’s advantage.

The blogger Wingard was specifically upset with was Kari Chisholm, one of the founders of Blue Oregon and a website designer for a bunch of Democratic officeholders and candidates – the runner of a substantial business, and a far distance from Wingard’s stereotype. (Would he apply the stereotype as well, say, to Jeff Mapes of the Oregonian? Or, say, to attorney Jack Bogdanski?)

He was upset with Chisholm because the blogger had been paying attention to a House floor speech (actually a “remonstrance,” a point of order that allows members to speak on whatever subject they want) he had given, on global warming (he is an arguer against), and thought some of the words had a certain ring. Chisholm ran a check, and it turned out that they did: Most of it was taken, word for word, from the Washington Times. A few other slices came from other sources, but no more than a few words at most from Wingard himself.

Reading from someone else’s article or publication is okay, and nothing unusual. But in this case, Wingard didn’t bother to attribute any of it: To listen to his floor speech, he seemed to have created it all himself. After Chisholm called him on it, Wingard acknowledged the source in a press release and elsewhere. But not until he was called on it.

Chisholm also pointed out this: “This incident is especially damning for Wingard because he’s a trained journalist. He’s got a degree in broadcast journalism – and once worked as a journalist in Yakima, Washington.” Among journalists, plagiarism has happened, but when exposed it’s usually followed with a quick boot out of the profession.

Wingard hasn’t yet come up with a decent explanation. He said that he meant to attribute – but he didn’t until after he was publicly challenge on it. He said he didn’t have time for an attribution – but the speech lasted several minutes, and attribution would have taken seconds.

The only explanation that seems to make sense is that Wingard just didn’t know any better or wasn’t thinking. Just as, apparently, about bloggers.

If you’re in favor of having medical practices at what may be the only hospital in your region determined by the doctrine of a specific religious organization, than you may find what happened in Bend to be unfortunate.

The rest of us may see it as a hopeful harbinger for the future.

The Catholic Diocese of Baker, which has been the church’s sponsor for the St. Charles Medical Center at Bend, said this week it will end that relationship:

Recently, hospital administrators and Baker Bishop Robert Vasa have “respectfully disagreed” on the meaning of some of the directives. In particular, St. Charles offers patients tubal ligations, a form of permanent female reproductive sterilization, which, Bishop Vasa says, goes against the church’s teachings.

“It is my responsibility to ensure the hospital is following Catholic principles both in name and in fact,” Bishop Vasa says. “It would be misleading for me to allow St. Charles Bend to be acknowledged as Catholic in name while I am certain that some important tenets of the ethical and religious directives are no longer being observed.”

Bishop Vasa asked St. Charles in 2007 for an audit of the hospital’s compliance with the ethical and religious directives. The hospital openly provided the bishop with the information. Since that time, Bishop Vasa and hospital officials have had a number of discussions about the future of the hospital as a Catholic institution.

In the context, this seems amicable enough – an agreement to disagree and a logical move forward. The two organizations seemed both saddened by it, and no doubt some people are: St. Charles has been a Catholic hospital for close to a century. A tradition is ending.

(In many respects, the changes may be subtle: “Mass will no longer be celebrated in the hospital’s chapel and all items considered Catholic will be removed from the hospital and returned to the church. The St. Charles name will remain the same and the cross will remain on top of the building.”)

Others from the Bend area, probably plenty of Catholics included, may see this as a tradition worth ending. The connection between religious organizations and hospitals never seemed entirely logical (in the modern era), except maybe in the sense of fostering a general sense of unifying medical provision with charitable work – and we all know how well that’s worked out. Catholics in Bend will still be able to manage their own health within the constraints of their church’s doctrine, if they choose to; but there’ll b no pressure now for non-Catholics to do so.

There are plenty of other Catholic hospitals, at present, in the Northwest. This move may reverberate.

(H/t for the post headline, to Bend or Bust.)

Probably doesn’t feel that way right now to the Boise advocates – Mayor David Bieter among them – of a downtown streetcar, but in denying federal money to the city for that project, the feds may have done those advocates a big favor.

This marks the opportunity, which maybe some of them have been quietly hoping for, to back off.

No doubt Bieter was very serious about creating such a project; it would much change the look and feel of Boise’s downtown, and some positives likely would have come of it. But the questions about how and why it would work, and whether it was the right priority for the area, were almost overwhelming. We’ve been struck by the number of Boiseans who have been long-time passionate supporters of mass transit who could not see their way to supporting this one, even if most of the money for it was federal. Polling suggests that Boiseans overall are highly skeptical.

Streetcars are not necessarily a bad idea. Portland has a good streetcar system (linked to its light rail and bus operations), and picked up $23.2 million today for its program. Tucson and Dallas got money for streetcars too.

And for now at least, Boise city officials indicated they won’t be giving up.

But they may be well advised to see today’s decision as an opportunity to take a pause, step back, and rethink.