Portland’s cash-strapped leaders are looking to divert dollars from the city’s lucrative voter-approved climate tax to prop up a public financing deal deemed essential to keep the Trail Blazers from leaving town.
So “climate” never did matter – it was merely a pre-text for more taxes to create a slush fund to spend on random projects that would have zero impact on climate.
Money from the climate tax is intended to finance projects that aim to reduce carbon emissions, create jobs, promote workforce training in the clean energy sector and help vulnerable residents who face some of the most severe impacts from climate change.
But they want to spend it now on welfare for a billionaire buyer of a sports entertainment business.
The Moda Center facility was built in 1995 and in 2023, 21 private suites were overhauled and 12 “studio suites” were added, plus upgrades to the Club Level, Rose Room and adding a new bar.
Now, the Portland Trailblazers entertainment business wants taxpayers to spend $600 million on more renovations. Imagine Nike demanding that the government spend $600 million on Nike business facilities.
Climate Slush Funds
Everything climate related has turned into a scam the past 24 months.
- In 2024, we contracted with a solar PV and battery installer, to add a battery backup to our solar PV system. We paid our down payment, only to find they just discontinued serving our area. Fortunately, got our money back.
- Months later, contracted with another installer to add a battery to our existing grid-intertied (required by code) PV system. Site survey, engineering work complete, permits applied for and received, paid in full for installation in a few weeks. Then the December date was bumped to January, which was bumped to March, which was bumped to spring, which was bumped to “we can’t get a battery from Tesla”, bumped to you’ll have a firm date by October of 2025. Our permits expired and had to be re-applied for. By November, no date. Tesla announced recall of over 10,500 PW2s, just in the US (unknown number internationally). Clearly, we were never going to get the Powerwall battery we’d ordered in 2024. We canceled the contract. Took until mid-January to get refunded (we were lucky, many people don’t get their money back). As of 2026, we have no battery and have given up on adding one to our system.
- In March of 2025, while driving, we took a rock through the windshield of our Tesla Model 3 under suspicious circumstances. This was the height of the left “anti-Musk” campaign and routinely damaging Tesla vehicles. Worse, I did not know it until hours later, but the burping and fatigue I was having when this occurred was the onset of a heart attack (2 and 1/2 hours later I was on a medevac helicopter to a regional medical center).
- These experiences left us disillusioned to the point of no longer giving a damn about climate scams.
Everything climate devolved into fraud. We fell for it and had spent a lot to cut our carbon emissions to 1/10th that of the average American home – installing solar PV, replacing old home insulation with R-60, LED lighting, driving old economical cars like my old Honda Fit, eventually getting an EV, doing composting on site./
In retrospect, it feels like we fell for a giant scam that lined the pockets of grifters.
