I once lived near Children’s, and if I still did, I would have formed a counter group to make it clear that not everyone in the neighborhood supported what the LCC was doing. Some people believe that getting good medical care for children is far more important than how fast their property values are rising. Greed isn’t everyone’s core value.

These were the actions of a group of people with big mouths and little hearts. They remind me of a Laurelhurst neighbor who always voted Democratic because she believed that legalized abortion got rid of Asian immigrant children who’d otherwise be competing with her unambitious son for the better jobs. Anything to get ahead. Anything to put more money in the bank. Anything for to appear more successful. As playwright Oscar Wilde put it, they are people who “know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”

The actions of city officials has also been less that impressive–particularly that hearing examiner. There were similar and perhaps more justified reactions to an enormous Safeway expansion in my Greenwood neighborhood, but they came to naught. Why?

Perhaps it was because Safeway pays commercial real estate taxes and collects a fortune in sales taxes. Children’s pays the far lower non-profit tax rate and collects very little in sales taxes. More and more, government policy is being driven by tax growth policies. When there’s tax money in it, they’ll level a neighborhood. (That was what the Supreme Court eminent domain case, Kelo v. City of New London, was all about.) When more tax money isn’t a major factor, they’ll pander to to the niggling, whining “my property values” crowd.

Sorry to be so blunt, but I know enough medicine to realize that these restrictions mean that over the next few decades some children will die and others suffer needlessly. If you want to point fingers, point them at the Laurelhurst Community Club.