Where, you ask? Where else but Portland (as you will see from the excerpts I selected)?
Stop us if you’ve heard this one: A bureaucrat, a preacher and The New York Times walk into a bar.
The punch line? The Times’ glowing story Jan. 20 revealing that the Portland Development Commission had given a minister more than $50,000 in grants to open a nonprofit bar in North Portland’s Dekum Triangle...
Where does the PDC get off, giving $50,000 to a bar?
Actually, it’s $56,403. And not all of it went to the bar. The PDC, a city agency, gave the Oregon Public House $34,810 of public money from its storefront improvement program.
It added another $21,593 in public funds from the green features grant program to rehabilitate the 1909 building that contains the bar, a second-floor ballroom and a day-care center...
How much did this bar’s owners chip in?
Their 2011 Oregon Liquor Control Commission application shows Ryan Saari, one of three partners in the business, paid $4,500.
How much money has the bar raised from other donors?
Saari says it’s between $100,000 and $150,000. He’s not exactly sure. “This is my lack of ability to keep track of these things,” he says...
How will the PDC monitor whether proceeds go to charity?
It won’t. “What they spend their profits on is not really a criterion in our approval,” says John Jackley, director of business and social equity at PDC. “I expect the community will be watching.”
http://www.wweek.com/portland/article-20208-strange_brew.html
I clicked on the link for the church itself and dsicovered sadly the site is not designed for c&p'ing so therefore I am unable to bring you their view of themselves. But, if interested: http://www.theoregoncommunity.com/
I do wonder, however, as to whatever happened to that wall of separation Progressives such as completely infest Portland will otherwise proclaim loudly and longly.
