The Portland City Council has to make significant changes to the 2018 Portland Clean Energy Fund. Voters approved the measure 65 percent to 35 percent last year, agreeing to impose a new tax on retailers that have sales of more than $500,000 in Portland and more than $1 billion nationally. The definition of “retailers” in the measure was vague and, after passage, city officials determined it would include large construction companies and companies that pick up garbage and recycling.
That infuriated those industries and led to negotiations between the Portland Business Alliance and City Hall. PBA pushed for exemptions of those industries and revenues from the sale of qualified retirement plans. In a letter to city council, PBA President and CEO Andrew Hoan said his organization could live with the proposed changes that emerged from negotiations. “By explicitly exempting the construction industry, the sale of retirement plans and residential garbage service—industries that are not retail by any definition—the amendments take an important step toward aligning the PCES with what the community was informed, in both campaign materials and official measure documents, was a tax only on large retail businesses,” Hoan wrote.