A few months ago, in the hot blur of August,

while walking past parked cars in downtown Portland.

It hasn’t faded. Everywhere I look, I still see blue disabled placards hanging from rearview mirrors.

On Thursday, I once again faced block after block after block lined with vehicles – hundreds of them, from beaters to BMWs – whose owners still get unlimited free parking in the city’s most desirable metered spaces.

But it appears that my disorder, along with the unshakeable feeling that able-bodied commuters are scamming the city out of millions of dollars in parking revenue each year, is about to be rectified.

This week, Portland Commissioner Steve Novick gave the city’s

a proposal that it doesn’t feel it can refuse.

Finally.

The task force really isn’t in a position to test City Hall’s patience any longer. This issue has been festering in the laboratory of political correctness for too long.

For four years, the task force has stalled in its efforts to fix Portland’s placard problem. Some members say they were given the impossible task of coming up with a remedy that nobody could object to. So, basically, from the very beginning, they were paralyzed by the fear of offending the city’s disabled community.

“I came to them and said, ‘This is going to change, so let’s talk about how it’s going to change,’” said Novick, a renowned champion of the disadvantaged who was born without a left hand.

“There was never any logic to the idea that if you have a disabled placard, you don’t have to pay," he said. "It makes as much sense as giving them free gasoline.”

Novick oversees the

, whose staff pieced together what appears to be a fair proposal.

Certainly, Portland must

, which requires cities to offer free street parking to vehicles displaying a special wheelchair user permit. About 2,000 Portland drivers have the light blue permits with a bold white "W."

However, Novick’s plan would force people with a the general dark blue placard, which amazingly can be acquired with just a doctor’s note, to pay for parking starting next July 1. (About 39,000 Portland drivers now have those generic badges, while the city manages 7,800 metered parking spaces in downtown and 2,200 in other districts.)

When drivers with a standard disabled permit park on the street, they’d be allowed to stay in the same spot for up to three hours, the draft plan says. But they would still need to pay the maximum time allowed by the meter.

That's not a bad deal.

Ostensibly, someone with a mobility issue who parks in a one-hour spot would still get two extra hours for free. They just wouldn’t be able to leave their car there all day.

The task force appears ready to sign off on the proposal, said Nickole Cheron, the city’s disability coordinator and a member of the group.

“PBOT staff went through every possible scenario,” Cheron said, “and put a lot of consideration in the fairest way to make the changes work.”

Of course, “they thought of everything” apparently would require a new -- and somewhat-Byzantine -- permitting system for certain documented hardships.

Consider these cases:

A downtown worker who can prove that she can’t use TriMet, and that existing parking garages don’t meet her needs. Under Novick’s plan, a city “employment access” permit would be issued, allowing all-day street parking only within three blocks of her specified workplace. The driver would also have to pay the city a monthly fee comparable to the price charged by the nearest parking garage.

A downtown resident who can’t park in nearby garages. Again, he would be able to purchase an unlimited on-street permit at a price comparable to that charged by nearby garages.

People with a placard who either don’t have the dexterity to operate a parking meter because a disability; or need to park on the street for longer than three hours. The city would offer a mobile app and in-vehicle meters to allow them to pay for their time remotely.

In downtown, PBOT would also reserve 30 free on-street, right-side spaces for drivers with wheelchair-user permits and 50 paid spots specifically for those with the basic placard.

Let's not get distracted here. No one is accusing disabled drivers of being parking scammers. No one is saying that scores of people with placards in their cars don't need them.

But unfortunately, what started as compassion has become corrupt. In the end, it is the cynical, widespread cheating that's hurting the hobbled war vet, the grandmother battling debilitating arthritis in her legs or anyone else who truly needs better access. It's also potentially devastating to business owners who need on-street parking for customers to stay afloat.

Since my last column on this topic, I've listened to all kinds of opinions. Still, I'm waiting to hear a convincing, or logical, argument as to why every disabled placard should come with the added perk of free, inexhaustible parking.

Maybe one of Novick’s fellow commissioners will present that defense when they review his reforms in the coming weeks. But with the city losing an estimated $2.4 million a year to disabled placard abuse, I'm not betting on it.

-- Joseph Rose