The cover story in this week’s edition of the Willamette Week pulls back the veil on how the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) is building support for their $1.9 billion I-5 Rose Quarter freeway expansion project.
The story, by Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Nigel Jaquiss, is a must-read for anyone who cares about state transportation funding, ODOT, and the future of the Rose Quarter area. It focuses on a consultant hired by ODOT to facilitate meetings of the project’s Historic Albina Advisory Board (HAAB), and the amount of money ODOT has spent on planning the project in general — despite claiming they are out of money and despite having not yet broken ground.
Here’s an excerpt:
Instead of bulldozers and wrecking balls, ODOT comes this time bearing lucrative contracts and gift cards. Over the past four years, to make its pitch to Black leaders, the agency deployed an army of consultants, none more important than a loquacious preacher from Vancouver, Wash., named Dr. Steven Holt…
Holt’s company, Try Excellence LLC, which includes Holt, another consultant and his son, has charged ODOT $2.7 million since 2020. (A recent contract with another government agency shows the firm charges $650 an hour.)
Try Excellence’s billings are a fraction of the more than $127 million the agency has spent on the Rose Quarter project so far, but also a measure of how hard ODOT is promoting the project.
Holt is the facilitator for the HAAB, a committee ODOT has leaned heavily on in order to turn the tides of political opinion about the project. Recall that ODOT created the HAAB only after they dissolved a similar committee whose former members said the agency silenced them because they spoke out against the project. The HAAB is now credited with helping ODOT win the $450 million federal Reconnecting Communities grant. (The Willamette Week article reveals committee members have been paid $48,000 in cash and gift cards for their time since 2021. According to the committee’s charter, members can receive $30 per hour for their time after completing required paperwork.)
Jaquiss also touches on a lawsuit filed by Holt against other community leaders for what he alleges is defamation of character.
It’s an important article that illuminates the people and public relations behind ODOT’s massive effort to make sure their controversial project moves forward.
Read the Willamette Week article here.
Thanks for reading.
BikePortland has served this community with independent community journalism since 2005. We rely on subscriptions from readers like you to survive. Your financial support is vital in keeping this valuable resource alive and well.
Please subscribe today to strengthen and expand our work.
Tina Kotek needs to bring some sanity to ODOT. It is poor form for her to let this agency continue to be so deeply mismanaged and self-serving.
She will act only if we demand it. This calls for a citizens’ uprising.
2.7 million in 4 years to a “business” with almost no overhead. Thats some hefty salaries–regardless of one’s opinion of ODOT using our tax payer dolars to influence the political process (BAD!!!)
–did Holt et al. deserve those millions? What are their qualifications?
Jonathan,
So we finally have an educated Black man (Dr. Holt) being well compensated for his efforts to restore a historic Black community and you are beguiling him? Just when our government agencies (that have promoted racist policies and practiced systemic racism in the past) begin to value the input of POC, you pounce. It’s time to check your privilege on this one. White Saviors are not true allies if they support POC only when they agree with their own personal ideology.
Hi Latisha,
I disagree with your interpretation of what I’m doing here. I’m not “pouncing” on anything. I’m telling folks about what the Willamette Week story is about because I think it’s an important story. Thanks for your comment.
Do you think the Rose Quarter project will actually rebuild the black community in the historic Albina neighborhood? It’s always seemed to me that ODOT brought in black community members to galvanize support and deflect criticism for a freeway project that doesn’t really do anything to provide homes, jobs, wealth, or prosperity to people of color. It’ll move more cars and trucks and cause more auto dependency. That’s a given. But how this actually rebuilds community in Albina is beyond me. The freeway caps will just create more unprogrammed open space in a part of the neighborhood that will likely remain a car sewer.
A bigger win would be redeveloping the blocks that were leveled by the hospital and turning the Vancouver/Williams couplet back into bidirectional streets.
ODOT has repeatedly disrespected and used the black community for their own self-interests. Look back over how many times people had to walk away from the table. Holt is clearly just being paid to push ODOT’s agenda. For that kind of money, many people would say anything, whether they believe in it or not. It makes it hard to trust him.
I wonder if Dr. Holt could help get more affordable housing built in Portland.
I wonder if Dr. Holt could also help with the homeless and houseless situation.
That would be money well spent.
We don’t need more freeway lanes. we have enough already. I support building the cap, and developing more community assets but we do not need auxiliary lanes for 405 users to get to the I-84 on ramp parking lot. this bottleneck will never be solved. I-84 has 3 eastbound lane and more than twice as many on ramps from NB I-5, SB I-5, Morrison Bridge, I-405, NE Broadway, NE Weidler, N Ramsay, NE Grand Ave, NE 16th Ave, all trying to cram into three lanes. ODOT should stop telling lies.
If any of the accusations mentioned in the article are true, then a person’s skin color nor education excuses what was done to others by Holt.
From the WW article:
I feel like he’s missing a key plot point of Humpty Dumpty here!
And later on he literally uses a metaphor of “planting trees we’ll never get to stand under” to talk about the freeway widening project. You’re going to have to plant a lot of trees to counteract the effects of this!
I just wish they would cap the freeway and add congestion pricing. Accomplishes all the goals other than the non-goal of increasing driving.
I am personally skeptical of ODOT’s intentions on valuing the input of the Black community on this project – and feel that they are more leveraging (via some patronage style contracts) the chance to right some of the historic wrongs (via the freeway cap) in a political climate where massive freeway projects are controversial at best. I’m not trying to say that’s a bad thing – big government agencies use politics, marketing, and patronage to get things done all the time – just that it feels hard to not be skeptical of ODOT’s actual motivations then. Do they want to make things right for past wrongs, or do they need the support of the Black community in order to finish a project that they otherwise wouldn’t be able to get done? If it’s the latter, then how are they going to prevent the community from feeling like they were just an expendable part of the process? Contracts don’t last forever, and there is only so much money ODOT can reasonably spend in Portland.
On that note, the issue of who owns the land that the freeway caps would create is interesting – but not at all central to the project. If ODOT owns and leases it, then are they going to just be landlords there? If it’s to be sold, how will they determine who can buy it? Or will it be given away? I think if ODOT is genuinely interested in righting past wrongs, there’s an obvious answer (gifting land to displaced families and descendants). If it’s about maximizing profit (or minimizing losses) while still getting the project done, I imagine they will be leasing it.
“how are they going to prevent the community from feeling like they were just an expendable part of the process?”
They can’t. ODOT is using this is particular community, and at some point it’s going to become obvious even to those temporarily blinded by piles of gleaming cash.
Many commenters here are trying to look at a nuanced situation with many parties (AVT, ODOT, Holt, etc.) and trying to filter each one of them through the pro-freeway vs. anti-freeway lens. In the WW article, AVT specifically says they are neither pro- nor anti-freeway. It would be an amazing story for BikePortland to do a deep dive directly with AVT on their views about biking and transportation generally to help people understand this is not as easy a story as pro- vs. anti-freeway.
I agree Kevin. Lots of fascinating dynamics going on here. And I’ve been wanting to do a deep dive about it but it just hasn’t come together yet.
Here’s a start, Jonathan.
The different players and their motivations aren’t hard to see; their alignments and interactions flow quite naturally therefrom:
— ODOT wants to build something to address recurring congestion resulting from a combination of a geometric deficiency and too many cars.
— Many of the HAAB members (representative of much of the Black “old guard”, including Sen. Lew Frederick) want to pursue “restorative justice” through construction jobs and training for their community members.
— AVT wants to convene community members and articulate/realize a vision of “restorative justice” via Pearl District-style redevelopment that creates wealth-building opportunities for its community members through new housing, leveraging a receptive public sector to more easily get access to developable land.
— NMF/Sunrise doesn’t want more cars and their attendant greenhouse gases and air/noise pollution in the central city.
— The City of Portland wants to be seen as a good agency partner to ODOT while maintaining some of its street cred among climate, equity, and active transportation advocates.
— The state government wants to see its priorities (the rose quarter) acted upon while still being seen as supportive of racial justice.
— USDOT wants to be seen as (financially) supporting Democratic priorities such as restitution for past harms especially those perpetrated in part by the federal government and especially priorities for demographics they are hemorrhaging support from (Black men).
— Rip City Management is afraid of changes that may affect the Blazer’s relationship with Portland.
— Phil Knight wants to purchase the Blazers.
— Portland Public Schools needs a new/renovated headquarters.
These dispositions have been pretty stable over the life of this project.
Taking these orientations and winding back the clock to 2017, it wouldn’t be impossible to predict the major shifts in the saga:
— ODOT allying itself with a contingent of the Black community that wanted construction jobs – as a shield against climate and livability protests (Holt was part of the glue for this increasingly unhappy marriage);
— AVT calling their bluff and advocating for expanded caps to provide land for their emerging vision;
— PBOT’s public (but not behind the scenes) rejection of the project following climate/livability protests and AVT’s pulling of support when ODOT didn’t budge;
— Governor Brown swooping in to bring AVT and PBOT back to the project by requiring ODOT to include expanded caps;
— an influx of money from Knight to bolster AVT’s vision for the district;
— Rip City Management drawing out the design process;
— ODOT sending the $450M Rose Quarter money to the I-205 project;
— the agreement between PPS &
— AVT to acquire the Prophet site;
— a now-flush AVT winning ODOT a federal grant for cap $$$ (exactly replacing the $450M ODOT reallocated) followed by AVT becoming agnostic about the highway project.
Who wants to bet on what comes next?
Minor, but important quibble:
This isn’t so much a “combination” but one being a natural consequence of the other, i.e., “a geometric deficiency manifesting as congestion caused by too many cars”.
Sounds crazy, and I bet people will shout me down, but what if we just repaired and stabilized the freeway we have instead of expanding it? If people don’t like it they can consider other options for housing, transportation or — gasp! — even employment.
Heaven forbid we should bow to the multiple market interests that support widening freeways and expanding automobile use while allowing school districts and affordable housing to pound sand.
Better yet, let’s upend the whole idea of “downtown,” since it’s apparently dying for lack of tenants, and build more affordable housing there, with beefed-up public transit that could reduce the need for daily automobile use.
I mean, isn’t that what transportation activism is still about?
…::ducks to avoid flying debris::..
I am super confused by this comment because I think NMF and Sunrise and transportation activists have all been pretty clear that this is also the vision they share for this area with AVT (but perhaps minus the part about repairing the freeway because I’m not sure it needs repairs?).
“— The City of Portland wants to be seen as a good agency partner to ODOT while maintaining some of its street cred among climate, equity, and active transportation advocates.
The state government wants to see its priorities (the rose quarter) acted upon while still being seen as supportive of racial justice.
— USDOT wants to be seen as (financially) supporting Democratic priorities such as restitution for past harms especially those perpetrated in part by the federal government and especially priorities for demographics they are hemorrhaging support from (Black men).”
********
At some point in a future nearer than I’d like to admit, this dance between opposing theatrics will become impossible to sustain.
We can rub our hands excitedly about the dawn of an all-electric transportation landscape, but that’s a very long way off.
And even it comes about in my lifetime, it won’t solve a lack of affordable housing, equitable access to health air and water, or the need for reducing car reliance across the board and expanding government-subsidized public transportation.
We’re nowhere near finished with oil-dependent cars.
And there won’t be enough electric vehicles or charging statins in five years, or ten, as long as there are people in the world making obscene amounts of money from oil.
At what point does the climate crisis overtake all these plans and ideals and render them moot? Expanding freeways and encouraging more automobile use while refusing to take meaningful action about the climate crisis will literally kill us all — If not tomorrow, then in a decade or two at most.
(And bringing Phil Knight into the mix serves no meaningful interests but his in the end. In a future where the gap between haves and everyone else is an impassable chasm, the Blazers will be nothing but bread and circuses, if they last that long.)
Sorry to be such a downer here, but the multiple facets and levels of denial in this discussion are simply staggering.
This is a truly excellent comment.
This analysis seems to ignore the real incentives and motivators for ODOT and Frederick.
– ODOT wants to have the largest budget possible with the least amount of institutional change.
– Frederick has a career of being lobbied by highway builders and fossil fuel burners. His position on the transportation committee depends on promoting the status quo. He might care a little bit about his community. He cares a lot more about not rocking the boat and maintaining his position. He also deeply believes that single occupancy vehicles are the only reasonable mode of transportation.
I agree with your analysis, but would add that I think the most likely outcome is that the whole project will (again) be cancelled and various politicians will then scramble to spend $100+ million annually on their pet transportation projects.