What Portland Really Thinks of Vancouver: Vantucky

July 11, 2011

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I’ll be synthesizing more from this article on the wasteful (and crony) spending on the Columbia River Crossing, but for now I’ll leave you with this little gem from Rep Earl Bow Tie Blumenauer’s former right hand man who got a sweet gig (even increasing his hourly rate just for this project!) at the CRC. Tom Markgraf’s job was to market how wonderful the bridge is:

“I think this is the hardest project in Oregon’s history,” he said. “It’s nuts. You’ve got double the politics. There are two of everything, two governors, two legislatures, two departments of transportation. You’ve got a governor (Ted Kulongoski) who on this issue was checked out, a mayor who professed to support the project, but whose staff was trying to kill it. You had a prima donna at Metro (Bragdon) and you had this deep arrogance in Portland about Vancouver. “Vantucky,” that’s a phrase that originated in Portland.” 

Former Metro Councilor Patricia McCaig (who worked on Kitzhaber’s campaign–move along, nothing to see here) who basically moved him out.
Portland elites prefer to impose their will on Vancouver to mold it into another transportation utopia, as they see it. They would rather Vancouver be called Vancouver, Oregon or, as Lew likes to call it, PortCouver.
Vantucky? Keep it classy, Portland elites.

Tell ’em where you saw it. Http://www.victoriataft.com