Like Wacom at the end of 2024, Adobe plans to close its downtown Portland office in August 2025. 56 Portland employees can continue working remotely, but 47 must move to either Washington or California, and another two will be laid off.
Yet another string of companies moving out of Portland and leaving it with the highest commercial vacancy rate of any major US city.
Did you know if your landlord raises your rent more than 10% in a year or issues a no-cause eviction that you’re entitled to $2,900 for a studio single room occupancy unit, $3,300 for a one-bedroom unit, $4,200 for a two-bedroom unit, and $4,500 for a three-bedroom or larger dwelling unit?
If they enter your unit without 24 hours notice, you are entitled to an entire month’s rent?
Here’s some collected resources and info that I’ve collected over time:
A recent audit report delivered a scathing report of mismanagement and high taxes.
Specific items they unearthed: Lawmakers and voters have enacted at least 20 major taxes that hit Portlanders since 2009. Local taxes on city businesses rose 82% from 2019 to 2023. People leaving Portland have higher incomes than new arrivals. About 40% of transportation assets are in bad shape.
Metro’s supportive housing services tax and Multnomah County’s Preschool for All tax, both assessed on high earners, lifted Portland into second place behind New York in terms of the top marginal tax rate. Portland’s is 13.9%, compared with 14.8% for New York. And: Portland’s homelessness rate is four times the U.S. average.
But fear not, the taxes are slated to go higher as both the Preschool for All income tax and Homeless services tax are slated to increase every few years. By 2027, Portlanders making over $125,000/year will pay a higher tax rate than New York millionaires.
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If you get a chance to see Brit Floyd, I can 100% recommend it to any Pink Floyd fan. It’s not a cover band – Pink Floyd officially licensed and let them play their songs under the condition they are exactly as they played them. And boy do they deliver.
Interesting reddit thread from a potential buyer ‘What do you wish you knew about owning a house in Portland‘
The Willamette Valley has long been known for being one of the worst allergy locations in the world.
Oregon Allergy Associates have a website that reports the regular pollen counts – and types. Hopefully it can help determine when to take allergy meds.
“Something has to change in Oregon schools,” Marguerite Roza, the director of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University told the Joint Ways and Means Subcommittee on Education last month. “More money did not produce any kind of bumper increase in student outcomes. ”
Despite passing record taxes and that nearly doubled school funding to some of the highest per-student funding (from $9,543 per student to $17,161 per student), Oregon has had 10 years of continually declining student outcomes across all metrics.
The cherry on top came from the National Report Card. It was a damning report for Oregon. Oregon student achievement has declined for 10 straight years until it is now nearly dead last. It’s a sad continuation of one of the most dysfunctional school systems in the country despite over 20 years of completely Democratically controlled policies.
How bad are these scores in real terms?
Oregon fourth graders who were tested in early 2024 ranked second worst in the country in math and tied with 10 other states for third worst in reading. Eighth graders tested in the same time period, who are now halfway through their first year in high school, performed far below the national average in math but close to the middle of the pack in reading.
A full third of Oregon’s then-fourth graders who took the federal test scored “below basic” on the math section, meaning that they could not complete foundational tasks like identifying whole numbers on a number line or locate the lines of symmetry in shapes like triangles and rhombuses.
Forty-eight percent scored “below basic” in reading, meaning that they could not yet determine the sequence of events described in a passage, nor could they fully determine the meaning of a familiar word using context clues. The national average was 41%.
It drew silence from countless Oregon school and government leaders that have been doubling down on supposedly progressive policies – policies that we now have over 10 years of data show are failing dramatically.
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A sad side effect of a very permissive city-wide camping policy means that public sanitation has reached dangerous levels. To the level that we’re having outbreaks of communicable diseases related to feces.
Bans on urban camping and home codes have been a thing since Hooverville days. Public sanitation can become life and death health concern for urban residents. Sadly, it appears Portland has reached that tipping point, despite spending $75,000 a month on 130 public toilets (that were all destroyed or stolen)
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The estate of Paul Allen has decided to close the Living Computer Museum and Labs mid 2024. All the equipment was sold off at during several high profile Christies auctions.
It’s a terrible loss to computing history in my opinion.
Update: check out the links below if you want to look at some of the amazing items that were sold.
Links: