Borrowing from the “teach a man to fish” philosophy, the Portland City Council vows to invest a half BILLION dollars in public works projects this year. That will create 5,000 jobs before the ball drops on 2010 (the local unemployment rate is over 8% and is targeted to hit 10% before dropping again).
Better than the overall job creation is that the projects are not one or two month gigs. The 84 tasks on the cities “to-do list” are scheduled to roll out over a 5-year span which means job stability for those 5,000 families.
Guess that’s why they call it the “City that Works.”
