December 17, 2012 | oregonlive.com-- It's unusual for an editorial to emerge from a Web chat. Then again, it's not every day that a local elected official proposes a new (to us, anyway) twist on a bedeviling statewide problem. But that's what happened Wednesday, when incoming Portland Commissioner Steve Novick dropped in, digitally speaking, with a way to address property tax compression, which has become the hottest tax issue in Oregon that doesn't involve Nike.

Compression was a matter of significant local concern this fall, of course, because of the revenue hit various levies and governments -- most notably Portland -- faced if voters approved a permanent tax base for Multnomah County libraries. More than a month has passed since the election, and the problem is, if anything, more conspicuous.

The library district's passage has created compression-related concerns in Gresham, which may ask voters in a couple of years to approve a levy for core services. Potential compression-related losses, meanwhile, have CONTINUE