(Photo © J. Maus)
When Jesse Cornett threw his hat into the ring in the race for Commissioner Dan Saltzman’s seat on the Portland City Council, I immediately heard from my sources at Portland State University (where Cornett worked before leaving to run his campaign). They were ecstatic that someone with such a bike-sensitive ear and track record in government (he was PSU’s lobbyist in Salem) was making a run to be one of Portland’s five leaders.
I met Cornett for the first time at the BTA’s annual New Year’s Day ride and I’ve been looking forward to a more formal sit-down interview ever since. I got that opportunity yesterday. Cornett and I discussed a number of issues — including how to pay for new bike infrastructure, the Columbia River Crossing project, bikes as an economic development tool, and more. Read a transcript from our conversation below:
How would you assess Portland’s progress in becoming a city where people can get around in something besides a car?
“We don’t have room for more lanes for cars, so we have to make sure that we’re making it so people can have an easier time commuting by bike.”
“I’ve been bike commuting on some level since I first lived here in 1995. I think Portland has a great head start compared to a lot of other cities. Many areas of the city are very safe and friendly to ride bikes in, but if you get off the beaten path much at all, you see that there are many, many miles of roads that are really not conducive to bicycle commuting. As you said when we talked on New Years Day, this is about a four mile radius from downtown — but also from neighborhood to neighborhood to neighborhood.
I live out in Lents. I can get anywhere I want to in my neighborhood. Everything is close and accessible, but I can’t get anything unless I get in my car. It’s not safe to bike on Foster or 82nd (the two major streets where I live) there aren’t sidewalks on some of the streets. But essentially, a lot of neighborhoods including my own are lacking basic infrastructure.
Portland is going to continue to grow in the next 20 years. We don’t have room for more lanes for cars, so we have to make sure that we’re making it so people can have an easier time commuting by bike. Even living in Irvington [Northeast Portland], you’ve got that awful I-5 interchange on Broadway to go into downtown – so there’s still a lot of work to do.”
Do you think the City is doing enough, too much, or the right amount to hasten this change?
“I like that Portland has made some honest improvements recently. I love the concept of the cycle track on Broadway; I think that it could be improved a little bit — a curb primarily, to separate it from the parked cars — so there’s need for some improvement there.
Chris Smith brought the bicycle master plan to my attention right when I announced my candidacy. I think the goal of 20% [bike usage] in rainy February is tough to imagine, unless we can pass an ordinance that limits the time of day it rains in Portland — I would be very supportive of that by the way. But 8-9 months out of the year I think that’s an entirely possible goal and I like that the City has put the forward thought into the plan.
But what I’d like to see is it funded. We can plan and plan and plan, but unless we’re actually putting our money where our mouth is and focusing on some basic infrastructure projects, we’re not going to get there. If you look at some of the other projects that we have in the hopper. If they were simply to be scaled back, there would be ample funds for massive bike infrastructure in Portland.”
“Massive bike infrastructure” sounds great, but where’s the money going to come from? How do you suppose we pay for the projects that need to be done to make bike travel easier?
“I think that tolls on bridges to make sure that too many transportation dollars aren’t being spent on those projects, so we can divert those into a pot to make sure that other infrastructure is developed is a great way [to raise revenue]. I don’t think that any type of bike-specific fee is going to be a solution.
We’re at about what, 8% of bike commutes into downtown Portland? But what percentage of PBOT’s budget is being spent on bike projects? 2-5% is good, but if we’re going to get to 20% [ridership] shouldn’t we also have a plan to make sure that we’re spending 20% of every transportation dollar in this region to improve bike infrastructure? Actually, we don’t have to, if we spend 10% we would have a massive improvement. Spending should be in better proportion than it is now.”
Your platform talks a lot about helping small businesses. Have you thought about how to deal with powerful voices in the business community who think the City is doing too much for bikes and that bike infrastructure is somehow bad for business?
“I don’t think the two issues are at odds at all. If people have nowhere to park, their business is going to go downhill. Bikes are a tremendous way to reduce congestion in the city center, so that those who choose to drive into downtown have the ability to find a parking spot. If, for instance you live in the West Hills and you’re going to have to spend 20 minutes to find a parking spot to go into Nordstrom, downtown, and deal with everything else, why wouldn’t you just drive out to Washington Square? Or over to Lloyd Center? If you were driving, isn’t that logical thing to do?”
Should the price of parking go up downtown to make it more available for people that can pay, but perhaps less available for people that are on the fence, that might be able to take a bus, or ride their bike?
“Well, the trend that I’ve seen in recent years in Portland is that the fees to park have stayed flat, while the fines for violations have been more of a straight line up.”
So, do you think it’s better to charge more for parking or to increase fees?
“Charge more for parking.”
General (non project-specific) tolls aren’t a political reality yet, so if you talk about raising new revenue, would you support increasing the price of parking downtown?
“[Long pause] I haven’t put a lot of thought into it. On the surface, that seems like a reasonable way to encourage alternative forms of transportation, but I’d have to think about it some more. But I think you’re right, businesses would definitely start squawking.”
Have you thought about bureau assignments? Would you lobby the Mayor’s office to get transportation?
“It will be interesting to see what happens with the police bureau. You have 900 police officers in Portland that have been trained and have the discretion if necessary to take a life. I don’t think that the Mayor should be able to buck that responsibility to another commissioner… I have more public safety experience than any of the other candidates, including the incumbent, so it would be interesting. I would love it, but far outweighing that is that it should remain in the Mayor’s portfolio.
I would like the transportation bureau and there are other bureaus that I look at… but I haven’t let my imagination run wild yet. There are so many interim steps. First there’s public financing, second I have to get through a primary, I have to beat an incumbent, then I’ve got to convince the Mayor who’s going to have three of his peers jockeying for changes as well.”
Suppose you are elected and the Mayor gives you the transportation bureau. The first thing you’ll hear about is the $500 million maintenance backlog, the roads are crumbling and need to be repaved, etc., etc., How would you balance the need to address that backlog, with the need to invest in new bike infrastructure?
[He went into an analogy] “I really need a new furnace at home. It’s not that old, but I’ve got them dumping 200 gallons of oil into my backyard into the tank. It’s horribly inefficient, it’s not environmentally friendly and I really need a new hi-efficiency furnace. But our house is too small, we’ve got an unfinished basement and the maintenance on the furnace is going to be put on hold, because to have the house that we really want right now, we’re going to go ahead and put in a third bedroom and a bathroom in the basement.
The parallel here is simply that there’s always going to be maintenance. I have a list of 20 things around my house that I’d like to do… There’s a never-ending list of projects that could and should be done and someday will be done, but, you can’t put them as the top priority instead of never making progress and I think that you should make progress and prioritize the other projects when you can.”
So, to clarify, you’re saying that while the maintenance backlog is important, it can’t come at the expense of doing things a bit differently?
“If the number one priority was the backlog, we wouldn’t have the cycle track. We wouldn’t have any of the [bike] improvements we’ve seen in recent years. At Portland State [where he worked for last 3 years], we have a staggering amount in deferred maintenance that needs to be done, but if we had made that our only priority, we wouldn’t have that great new Bike Hub would we? Or the student rec center, or a new school of social work. So, I think you make maintenance a priority, to make sure that our city is livable, without forsaking the future and having progress.”
How do you think the City has handled the CRC to this point? Do you agree with the decisions or the general stance that Mayor Adams has taken on it?
“If I wanted to build a big bridge — I understand the need for moving freight into and out of the city — but if I were trying to build a new bridge, I would probably come forward with a proposal for a 12 or 14 lane bridge if what I needed was an 8 or 10 lane bridge. If you come to the table with a 12 lane bridge, that’s probably not your bottom line, and the city agreed to that and everything moving backward from there has been interesting to watch. I am supportive of something. I think we have to find a way to make sure that we are moving freight without creating sprawl.”
Do you think it’s possible to move forward with the project with the existing framework, or are you in favor a complete restart of the entire planning process after $50-75 million has already been spent on planning?
[He corrects me, saying they’ve spent $100 million in planning so far.]”You know, if it takes $50 million to make sure we’re building the right bridge, versus saying, ‘Well we spent this $100 million so we’re going to build this bridge for $3.6 billion’, I’ll take plan A anytime to move forward with a new process.”
So you’d rather start a new process. Is that what you’re saying?
“I’d rather make sure we get it right, even if that means starting a new process. There’s a ton of work that’s been done. I don’t know if we need to re-invent the wheel. The political sides are so polarized on this issue — maybe we can’t move forward on anything.”
Do you think it’s possible to reach consensus between two regions that are so very different?
“It’s imperative that consensus is found and I hope it’s found in the not too distant future. Washington has to have this as as large of a priority as Oregon does. Our congressional delegation needs something to throw their full weight behind. Unless we have [Congressman] Peter DeFazio jumping up and down saying “My God, we have to fund this!” It’s not going to happen. So I’m a skeptic. I have friends and colleagues that are at opposite sides of this project, and if I thought I could support this bridge I would have, but I just think it’s flawed.”
Another part of your platform is local economic development. Do you think Portland’s burgeoning bike economy is something the City could put more weight behind?
“I heard somebody say, you don’t have a good apparel industry because you have a plan to attract them, you have a good apparel industry because Phil Knight decides to live here. You don’t have a good bike industry because we choose this path, you have a good bike industry because people like Chris King choose to live here. It’s the lifestyle and it’s attracting entrepreneurs.”
Would it make sense for the city to nurture this bike economy? For instance, there’s been a lot of energy put into electric cars. Do you think the bike businesses that are already here warrant more attention than they’re getting?
“I think that the city should go out of its way to help make sure that we’re attracting and retaining not just businesses but the type of businesses we’d like to see. Electric cars; absolutely. Bike part manufacturers; absolutely… Instead of taking areas like biotech, that we think we have a shot at attracting to Portland and investing in them, we should look at areas like the bike sector where it’s already coming, it’s already here. Obviously something’s working here, so how do we foster that?”
What do you think about the car/bike dichotomy that goes on in Portland? Do you think it’s a real problem?
Yes. I think that’s a real problem. I’ve said this to a motorist in my office who was thrashing on bicyclists: ‘You were able to get here five minutes faster and find a parking spot faster because 8% of the daily trips are on bicycles. If everyone of us were in cars, that wouldn’t work.’
I think it’s incredibly short sighted for motorists to rue bicyclists being on the road. I think it should be encouraged. Yes, it’s a real problem. People have been hurt… It’s been a rough couple of years, there have been a number of incidents. But I can’t help but wondering how overblown it is. Newspapers are dying. More and more the papers in Portland are becoming sensationalist, and stories about what would otherwise be considered a minor altercation between a bicyclist and a car — if there’s one shred of conflict there than it can be blown up quite a bit and I will dare to say perhaps a little bit too much.”
A lot of that anger comes from a sense that bikes don’t pay their way. How would you respond to someone who came to Council and testified that they don’t want any more cycle tracks because ‘those free-loading bicyclists don’t pay!’?
“We don’t have hard numbers on it, but we would probably find that a large % of bicyclists actually own cars [a recent survey by the BTA showed that 90% of “cyclists” own at least one car]. We pay income tax. We pay property taxes…
And you could take that logic a step further and say: I don’t have kids in the school system and my wife and I aren’t planning to become parents, so why should I pay as much in taxes to pay for our schools as you do? Because that’s what it takes to have a strong society and that’s just what you do.”
What about your personal life? What’s the Jesse Cornett story?
I moved to Portland in 1995, went to high school just outside Seattle, Washington. My goal or plan was never to go to college… I was an awful student in high school… But I had a great experience at community college and transferred to PSU in 1999.
At the time I was going to be a police officer, so I decided to go back to school… Political science was an easy degree for me to get. In 2000 I decided to go to the Democratic Nominating Convention even though I’d never done anything in politics.
Cornett spent the next several years working as a legislative aide for various politicians and for the legislature in Salem. In 2006 he ran for Oregon State Senate and lost by a “razor thin” margin. He left the Salem grind and then took a job in government relations (lobbyist) with PSU for three years.
“As my time at PSU wrapped up I thought long and hard about where I wanted to be and what I wanted to do and where I thought I could have the greatest impact on the day to day issues — bike paths, interactions with police, how much you’re paying for your water bill. The city makes a lot of decisions that impact everyday Portlanders and something’s been wrong with the mix in City Hall lately and I think it’s time for a shake-up.
I really think that un-electing a three-term incumbent who talks a good talk and has been there for a lot, but not necessarily been a great leader, is a good start.”
Cornett is quickly closing in on the 1,000 signatures and contributions he needs to qualify for public financing. From sources close to the race, it’s likely he’ll be the only one of the six contenders to qualify in time (this Friday). To hear more from Cornett and the other contenders — including incumbent Dan Saltzman, come to the Candidate Olympiad event tomorrow night.