October 16, 2026 - Portland News

Portland Parking Fees Are Rising: What Eastside Drivers Should Know

Portland News Staff 2 on October 16, 2026

Portland parking fees will apply to more Central Eastside spaces as the city updates street signs in November and December 2026. The Portland Bureau of Transportation says 11% of spaces in its study area will receive new rules. The changes affect customers, employees and residents, while a separate event-parking proposal remains under review near Moda Center.

Key Takeaways

PBOT plans to change signage for 11% of spaces in its Central Eastside study area, but not all will become paid parking.
Installation is scheduled for November and December 2026, with different rules depending on the block.
The existing Central Eastside meter rate is $2.20 per hour where the designated meter rules apply.
A separate proposal would raise event parking on selected Eliot blocks from $5.40 to $8 an hour.

Some Central Eastside spaces currently used for free, time-limited visits will become paid parking under changes PBOT announced October 14. Others will be designated for disability parking or employee permits, with two-hour visitor access at selected locations. The bureau has not specified how many spaces fall into each group.

The 11% figure describes spaces receiving new signage, not the percentage becoming paid. The announcement also does not establish an $8 rate across Portland’s Eastside. That higher price is under consideration for a separate event-parking area.

New Parking Rules Will Affect 11% of Central Eastside Spaces

The Central Eastside Industrial District includes industrial workplaces alongside restaurants, stores and homes. PBOT says different uses create competing demands for curbside space, especially when employees need longer stays and customers make shorter visits.

PBOT reviewed parking occupancy and existing signs before announcing the changes. It also worked with the Central Eastside Transportation and Parking Advisory Committee and conducted door-to-door business outreach during the summers of 2025 and 2026.

The bureau said its approach depends on land use. In commercial areas, PBOT explained, “the priority user is the visitor/customer.” Near industrial properties, employee permits are one way to manage demand without requiring the same restrictions on every block.

Some newly signed spaces will require payment. Others will allow permitted employees to park while giving visitors two hours without a permit. PBOT also plans additional disability parking spaces, although its announcement does not provide a final number.

An interactive city map identifies the affected blocks and can be searched by address. PBOT expects signs to be installed throughout November and December, rather than on one districtwide start date. Drivers will need to follow the posted rules for the specific space.

Portland Parking Fees Remain $2.20 at Existing Eastside Meters

PBOT’s current parking guide lists the Central Eastside meter rate at $2.20 per hour. The designated meter district covers Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, Grand Avenue and streets between them, from Interstate 84 south to Clay Street. Standard paid hours are 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., Monday through Saturday.

The October announcement changes categories of parking spaces, not the posted hourly rate for every meter. A driver accustomed to a free spot may need to pay once that block receives new signs. PBOT has not published a separate rate for each newly converted space.

The city also lists a 25-cent transaction fee, along with additional charges depending on payment method and applicable rules. Pay stations and Parking Kitty display the amount due. Payment does not override time limits, and some free spaces still have two-hour or other posted restrictions.

For the 2026-27 permit year, Zone G and Zone N resident and business permits are listed at $405 each. Qualifying residents may receive a $110 discounted annual permit. PBOT manages applications digitally using license plate numbers, and permit eligibility and availability depend on the zone.

The city’s broader Portland transportation funding challenges provide context for discussions about road fees. PBOT’s October announcement, however, attributes the Central Eastside sign changes to parking analysis and business outreach, not to a new districtwide hourly-rate increase.

A Separate $8 Moda Center Event Rate Remains a Proposal

Near Moda Center, PBOT has proposed raising event parking from $5.40 to $8 per hour on selected high-demand streets in the Eliot neighborhood’s Zone V permit area. The increase would be limited to identified blocks while the Lloyd Event District is active. It would not apply across the Central Eastside or the entire Lloyd district.

A March 2026 city study recorded peak parking occupancy of 96% in Zone V. PBOT cited the findings when proposing higher event rates to manage demand from arena and convention visitors. Zone V permit holders would continue parking without paying the hourly event charge, and their permits would not change under the proposal.

The Lloyd Event District activates when events at Moda Center, Veterans Memorial Coliseum or the Oregon Convention Center are expected to attract more than 10,000 people, including overlapping events. PBOT’s posted calendar lists Saturday, October 17, as an evening activation from 5 to 10 p.m., although the schedule is subject to change.

The event parking discussion is separate from the Rose Quarter highway repairs that disrupted southbound Interstate 5 this fall. The proposed event rate responds to demand for neighborhood street parking rather than highway construction.

The Public Works Committee referred the proposal to City Council on October 13. As of October 16, the city’s published records showed no final approval of the $8 charge. Motorists can check PBOT’s event calendar, street signs, pay stations and Parking Kitty to confirm which rates and hours apply.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will all Central Eastside parking become paid?

No. PBOT says 11% of spaces in its study area will receive new signs, covering a mix of paid, permit and disability parking. The agency has not said all those spaces will become meters.

How much are Portland parking fees in the Central Eastside?

Portland parking fees at existing Central Eastside meters are listed at $2.20 per hour, generally from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Drivers should follow the sign and payment instructions at each location.

When will the new signs appear?

PBOT plans to install the Central Eastside signs during November and December 2026. No single changeover date has been announced for every block.

Is $8 event parking already in effect near Moda Center?

No. As of October 16, the $8 hourly charge was a proposal for selected Zone V blocks during active event-parking periods. Existing posted rules remain in effect unless the city approves and implements a change.

Funding Scams by Phone, Text, and Social Media and How Fraudsters Reach Business Owners

Portland News Staff on October 16, 2026

Business funding scams rarely begin with a stranger walking through the door. They begin with a text message promising pre-approval, a direct message on Instagram from a “funding specialist,” a voicemail claiming your application is ready, or a polished ad promising same-day capital with no credit check. The channels have changed, and fraudsters have adapted faster than many business owners realize.

Below is a look at how funding scams reach business owners through phone calls, texts, email and social media, the specific warning signs on each channel, how to verify a company before you engage, and how MCA Directory helps fight back against these schemes.

Why Scammers Love Direct Channels

Phone, text and social media give fraudsters everything they need: cheap reach, anonymity and the ability to create urgency. A single operator can send thousands of texts a day, spoof a local phone number, or create a new social media profile in minutes. When one account is reported, another appears.

These channels also bypass the natural pause that comes with searching for a lender yourself. When an offer arrives unprompted, it feels personal and timely, especially if it lands on a day when cash is tight.

Phone Scams

How they work: A caller claims to represent a funder or broker and says you have been pre-approved, often for a surprisingly large amount. Some callers spoof real company names or local numbers. The conversation moves quickly to collecting documents, then to a fee that must be paid before funding.

Warning signs:

An unsolicited call claiming pre-approval before you have shared any statements.
Pressure to decide on the call or within hours.
A request for payment by wire, Zelle, crypto or gift cards.
Reluctance to send anything in writing or to name the actual funder.
A callback number that does not match the company’s verified website.

What to do: Hang up and contact the company through details you have verified independently. Never pay anything over the phone to release funding.

Text Message Scams

How they work: Texts announce approvals, “final notices” or limited-time offers with a link to an application page. Some links lead to lookalike websites designed to capture your banking login, identification and Social Security number.

Warning signs:

Messages from unknown numbers referencing approvals you never applied for.
Shortened or misspelled links.
Urgent language like “expires today” or “final attempt.”
Requests to reply with personal or banking information.

What to do: Do not click links in unsolicited texts. If you think the offer may be real, find the company’s website yourself and contact it directly.

Email Scams

How they work: Emails impersonate real funders, sometimes copying logos and signatures. They may include a fake approval letter or contract and instructions to pay a fee. Some come from addresses that differ from the real company domain by a single character.

Warning signs:

Free email accounts or domains that look almost right.
Attachments asking you to enable macros or sign in to view a document.
Payment instructions that differ from the contract or arrive in a separate email.
Approval letters with no funder name, address or verifiable contact.

What to do: Check the sender’s domain carefully. Call the funder using a number from its verified website before acting on any payment instruction.

Social Media Scams

How they work: Fraudsters create profiles posing as funders, brokers or “funding coaches,” often with photos of cash, luxury cars and screenshots of supposed approvals. They message owners directly or comment on posts in business groups. Some use stolen images of real funded-deal announcements to look credible.

Warning signs:

New accounts with few genuine followers and recycled images.
Direct messages offering guaranteed approval.
Requests to move the conversation to an encrypted messaging app.
“Proof” that cannot be traced to a real business or funder.
Fees requested to “unlock” funding or pay for insurance.

What to do: Treat social media as a starting point, never as verification. Confirm any company through independent sources before sharing documents.

Ads and Lookalike Websites

Search ads and social media ads are a growing source of fraud. A scammer can pay to place an ad above legitimate funders, link it to a professional-looking website, and collect applications within hours. Some sites copy the design, logo and wording of a real funder, with a domain that differs by a letter or uses a different ending.

Warning signs:

A website registered only weeks ago.
No physical address, or an address that turns out to be a mailbox or shared office.
Stock photos of a “team” with no names you can verify.
Testimonials that cannot be traced to real businesses.
An application form that asks for your online banking login.

What to do: Type the funder’s address yourself rather than clicking an ad, and confirm the domain matches the one listed in independent sources.

Protect Your Information Everywhere

Whatever the channel, protect the details scammers want most. Never share online banking passwords, one-time security codes or your full Social Security number with someone who contacted you first. Use a secure upload portal when you submit documents, and keep a record of who received your statements and when. If you share documents with a company you later doubt, tell your bank so it can watch your account for unusual activity.

Using Social Proof the Right Way

Social media can be useful when the source is credible. The FundedUSA Instagram page posts confirmations of businesses funded through reliable lenders and brokers, giving owners visible proof of work. The difference between that and a scammer’s feed is traceability: a funded deal you can connect to a real broker or funder you can verify elsewhere.

Use any social proof as one input among several. Check whether the company appears in independent records, read signed reviews, and confirm that the people contacting you really work for the company they name.

The One Rule That Defeats Every Channel

Whatever channel a scam uses, almost all of them end the same way: a request for money before funding. That is why one rule stops most of them. No legitimate working capital provider requires you to send money before you have a signed agreement and the funds are in your account. Real costs are deducted from the funded amount or built into the payback.

If anyone asks for a security deposit, insurance payment, escrow payment, processing fee or release fee before funding, by any channel, stop.

Verify Before You Engage

Before you share a single document with a company that contacted you, run three checks:

Footprint. A website on its own domain, a verifiable address, and a name that appears in state business records and matches every email and contract.
Independent sources. Verified listings, signed reviews and complaint records from more than one place.
Secure process. A secure upload portal rather than requests for statements by text or social media message.

How MCA Directory Fights These Scams

MCA Directory addresses scams at their source by making legitimate capital easy to find and bad actors easier to spot. It lists working capital funders with their real criteria, and verified funders are hand-vetted and confirmed to be actively funding. When brokers can reach real funders quickly, owners have less reason to respond to an unsolicited text or direct message.

Its two-way reviews make behavior visible across the industry, and every review requires a company email and supporting documents. It also publishes a guide to the advance-fee scam and the red flags for owners, brokers and funders.

When something goes wrong, its private fraud reporting form lets owners report a company without being identified to it. Attachments such as screenshots of texts, emails and social media messages go directly to the team rather than being stored on the website. Each report helps reveal which phone numbers, domains and profile names scammers are using.

How Funders and Brokers Can Get Involved

Funders that want to appear in a vetted directory can apply to become a verified funder. Verified listings carry a badge and rank at the top of matching search results, which helps brokers reach active funding partners faster.

Brokers can sign up through the MCA Directory Marketplace to get started. The marketplace also lists CRMs, underwriting tools, lead vendors and other services that brokers and funders use every day, and the directory is free for brokers.

If You Have Already Responded

If you shared documents or sent money, act quickly. Call your bank about a recall or chargeback, change any passwords you shared, and ask whether your account should be monitored or replaced. Report the scam to the FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov, the FBI’s IC3 at ic3.gov and your state attorney general. Keep every message, number and screenshot, and file a private report with MCA Directory.

The Bottom Line

Scammers meet business owners where they are: on their phones. Treat every unsolicited offer with suspicion, verify through independent sources, never pay before funding, and report what you see. A real funding partner will still be there after you have taken a day to check its record. A scammer is counting on you not to look.

Disclaimer: This article is provided for general informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial, legal, lending, cybersecurity, identity-theft, or fraud-prevention advice. Business financing practices, lender requirements, payment methods, regulatory obligations, and fraud risks vary by provider, jurisdiction, and individual circumstances and may change over time. The warning signs and verification practices discussed are general guidance and cannot guarantee that a lender, broker, communication, website, offer, or transaction is legitimate or that fraud will be prevented. Business owners should independently verify the identity and legitimacy of any company before sharing financial or personal information or entering into a financing agreement. References to MCA Directory, FundedUSA, the FTC, the FBI, state agencies, or other third-party resources are provided for informational purposes and do not constitute an endorsement or guarantee of their services, accuracy, security, or results. Anyone who believes they have experienced fraud should consider contacting their financial institution and appropriate authorities and obtaining professional advice based on their circumstances.

Rain, Restlessness and Redemption, Cello’s Singing to Serpents Finds Its Soul in Portland’s Beautiful Contradictions

Portland News Staff on October 16, 2026

By: Nathaniel Brooks

Portland, Oregon, has always had a complicated relationship with perfection. This is a city where musicians can build devoted followings playing in cramped rooms, where vulnerability often carries more currency than celebrity, and where the gray skies seem to encourage a particular kind of introspection. From the indie-rock experimentation of the Pacific Northwest to the intimate confessions of its singer-songwriters, Portland has long celebrated artists willing to expose their imperfections.

That makes Pittsburgh artist Cello’s Singing to Serpents a surprisingly natural fit for the Rose City.

Across nine emotionally charged tracks, Cello constructs a musical landscape where anxiety, desire, spirituality, resentment, and hope coexist without the luxury of easy resolution. It’s a record that doesn’t ask listeners to admire its creator from a distance. Instead, it invites them into the uncomfortable spaces where identity is questioned, relationships unravel, and faith becomes less about certainty than survival.

In Portland, where authenticity has practically become a cultural expectation, that approach feels particularly resonant.

The album opens with “Stay Here,” a song that captures the desperation lurking beneath romantic attachment. Cello approaches longing not as some beautifully choreographed emotional experience but as something repetitive, consuming, and occasionally irrational. The sentiment is familiar, yet the emotional exposure makes it compelling.

Imagine hearing the song while walking along Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard beneath a steady November drizzle. The storefront lights blur against wet pavement, and the city feels simultaneously intimate and impossibly distant. That’s the emotional territory Cello inhabits: the space between wanting connection and fearing its disappearance.

“Elevate” shifts the mood toward ambition and self-assertion. But unlike conventional empowerment anthems, Cello’s confidence doesn’t arrive completely free of doubt. His delivery suggests someone attempting to convince himself as much as his audience.

It’s an interesting contradiction, and one that gives the album much of its character.

Portland’s independent music culture has historically embraced artists who resist conventional expectations. From the atmospheric songwriting associated with Elliott Smith to the genre-bending experimentation of contemporary alternative music, the city’s musical identity has frequently rewarded individuality over commercial predictability.

Cello belongs somewhere within that philosophical tradition, even if his musical vocabulary is considerably different.

His sound incorporates alternative pop, melodic hip-hop influences, atmospheric textures and spoken-word sensibilities. Rather than remaining comfortably within one genre, he allows the emotional demands of individual songs to influence their presentation.

On “Sucks to Be Used,” that approach becomes particularly effective.

The song examines betrayal and resentment without pretending that emotional injury automatically makes someone morally superior. Cello’s willingness to expose anger alongside vulnerability prevents the material from becoming overly sentimental. He understands that people can be hurt and hurtful, sometimes simultaneously.

That complexity continues through “Full Moon,” “So Long” and “Cravings,” songs that explore attraction, separation, and the often-destructive power of wanting something, or someone, too intensely.

These are the album’s late-night conversations with itself.

One can imagine them unfolding against Portland’s illuminated bridges, with the Willamette River reflecting the city’s restless energy. There’s something cinematic about Cello’s emotional landscapes, but the drama rarely feels manufactured. His background in poetry and performance emerges through his attention to language, repetition, and the psychological weight of seemingly simple statements.

The album’s title becomes increasingly meaningful as these songs accumulate.

Serpents have traditionally symbolized temptation, danger, transformation, and forbidden knowledge. Cello’s decision to sing to them rather than destroy them suggests an artist more interested in understanding his internal conflicts than pretending he has conquered them.

It’s a distinction that separates Singing to Serpents from more conventional narratives of personal triumph.

Cello is also autistic and has ADHD, and his openness about neurodivergence adds another dimension to the record’s emotional intensity. His music frequently returns to recurring thoughts, complicated feelings, and the difficulty of communicating experiences that resist straightforward explanation.

Yet reducing the album to his diagnoses would miss its larger artistic purpose.

Neurodivergence informs Cello’s perspective, but it doesn’t confine his creativity. His work explores experiences that extend far beyond any single identity: loneliness, longing, disappointment, hope, and the universal desire to be understood.

His commitment to autism advocacy further distinguishes his artistic journey. Cello has expressed a goal of becoming a certified peer support professional in the autism field, hoping to transform his lived experiences into meaningful assistance for others.

In a city like Portland, where conversations surrounding mental health, inclusion and alternative approaches to community support occupy an important cultural space, that ambition feels especially relevant.

Then comes the album’s spiritual turning point.

“Pray” and “Faith” move beyond romantic conflict and personal frustration toward questions of belief, surrender and perseverance.

Cello doesn’t present spirituality as a convenient solution. Instead, faith emerges as something that must coexist with uncertainty. These songs suggest that believing doesn’t necessarily eliminate struggle; sometimes it simply provides the strength to continue through it.

There’s a quiet power in that distinction.

The record concludes with “Sleeping,” a fitting final chapter that feels less like a grand resolution than an exhausted moment of stillness.

Picture Portland just before sunrise. The streets are nearly empty. Rainwater gathers beneath streetlights. The first coffee shops are preparing to open, and Mount Hood remains hidden somewhere beyond the clouds.

Nothing extraordinary has happened.

And yet, something has shifted.

That’s the feeling Singing to Serpents leaves behind.

The album doesn’t offer a miraculous transformation or pretend that emotional wounds disappear when the final song ends. Cello remains complicated, uncertain and deeply human. The serpents are still present, but perhaps their power has diminished simply because he has acknowledged them.

For listeners accustomed to polished pop narratives and carefully managed vulnerability, that honesty may initially feel uncomfortable.

But Portland has never been a city particularly frightened by discomfort.

Its most compelling musical traditions have often emerged from artists willing to embrace melancholy, challenge expectations, and find beauty in experiences others might prefer to conceal.

Cello’s Singing to Serpents operates within that same emotional territory.

It’s an album about living with contradictions rather than escaping them, about discovering strength without denying weakness, and about recognizing that personal growth rarely follows a straight line.

Like a rainy Portland afternoon, the record can feel gray, unsettled, and strangely beautiful.

And sometimes, the most meaningful music doesn’t arrive to brighten the darkness.

Sometimes it simply reminds us that we’re not alone inside it.