Thoughts from Candidates of the 2012 Election on the Greenway Trail

The 2012 elections are not far off. There are a number of Council positions at the city of Portland, Mayor of Portland and Metro Council that are open and have drawn considerable interest. Of significance for the construction of the Willamette River Greenway Trail is how these candidates view the trail and what kind of support will they provide in seeing that it will get constructed. The npGreenway Core Group has not and does not intend on formulating a position on these candidates. We felt it most important for our followers and supporters to formulate their own positions based on information they can gather.

Accordingly, the npGreenway Core Group (Board) developed six questions that were emailed to each of the candidates below and asked them to respond to them. We offered to meet with them and some, at this writing, have taken us up on the offer. Included is an offer to tour the proposed route. We will post the responses as they are received.

Below are the questions along with the candidate’s responses.

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• Please explain your familiarity with the Willamette River Greenway Trail between the Eastbank Esplanade and the Columbia River?
• What experience do you possess in working with a railroad company to procure use of or purchase of some property to place a multi-purpose trail on?
• ‘Taking’ is a concern for both the government entity and the private property owner when requiring the owner to construct a portion of a trail when development is proposed. Would you be willing to work to develop standards that would enable the trail to be constructed in exchange for requiring fewer parking spaces?
• What funding proposals would you propose to construct the trail?
• If a bond measure were to be submitted to the public for trails would you support the Willamette River Greenway Trail being one of the trails to be constructed? If so, would you support construction of the entire trail at one time or a portion or portions of the trail?
• How can npGreenway assist you in getting the trail constructed?