Story Published:
Dec 4, 2007 at 12:05 AM PST
Story Updated:
Dec 4, 2007 at 11:32 PM PST
PORTLAND, Ore. - There's a lot to be happy about in the city of Portland but still much work to do according to a comprehensive report just released by the city auditor.
The report is 90 pages of detail about every city office - a snapshot of how each bureau and department has operated for the past five to 10 years.
Portland has experienced growing pains in the past decade, as the city's population increased more than 10 percent from 508,500 residents in 1997 to nearly 563,000 this year.
The audit, titled "The City of Portland: Service Efforts and Accomplishments," shows the city has coped well with the growth.
Drummond Kahn, the director of audit services, says, "The last 10 years have been quite favorable for the city of Portland, and this year's report shows a lot of those trends continuing."
The auditors found property crimes in the city are down 36 percent since 1997 and crimes against people dropped a whopping 54 percent. The drop follows a national trend, but Portland's crime rate dropped even more than six other comparable cities.
Auditors also found a reduction in per capita structure fires while fire rates in the other cities increased.
"Everything from crime to structural fires appears either comparable or better than the six other cities that we compare ourselves to," Kahn said.
People surveyed for the audit overwhelmingly reported satisfaction with the livability of the city's neighborhoods.
The report also concludes people are using mass transit more. Ridership on TriMet is up 31 percent since 1997. It also shows more people are peddling than ever before. Total daily bridge counts, a barometer for all commuting trends, shows the number of people traveling by bicycle is up 46 percent since 2002.
Water quality on the Willamette River has also improved since 2002, going from a rating of fair to good and now approaching what is considered excellent, the report said.
Companies surveyed told auditors that Portland continues to be a good place to do business - with 58 percent reporting satisfaction, up 10 percent since 2004.
But it's not all good news. At or near the top of the list of complaints are the city's major infrastructure, like roads in disrepair. The auditors say there are 627 miles of poor roads in the city, some in need of major repairs.
According to Kahn, "that number is steady and growing in terms of what you might call the unmet needs of street maintenance."
Other areas of concern in the audit, the continued increase in monthly sewer bills now averaging more than $45. That is nearly $10 a month higher than the six comparison cities. Auditors identified nearly three billion gallons of water that is simply lost through leaky pipes or some other means.
Other problems for the city include:
- Fire response times that are well above what the fire bureau sets as its own standard.
- Affordable housing continues to be a major concern, with more Portlanders than ever before reporting more than half of their income going toward rent or mortgage payments.
However, the audit found unemployment at its lowest rate in six years.
