Fresh from his election victory last night, City Commissioner Dan Saltzman has slammed fellow Commissioner Randy Leonard's budget request for a $5million loan from the city's general fund to pay for a new computer system at Leonard's permitting bureau. Saltzman said he didn't see how it could be justified.

"We're not so much in a recession as we are, in the middle of a downside in the business cycle," said Leonard.

"While I accept that we do operate in cycles, there may never be another building boom like we witnessed over the last four or five years in Portland," said Saltzman. We need a thorough, independent analysis of this loan, he added.

"And we agree to that," said Leonard. "But people who come in to get permits deserve to have a modernized permit system. This will allow us to do that."

The police bureau just took $3million in cuts, remember.