WHAT WAS DESCRIBED as a firm deadline for Right 2 Dream Too to accept Mayor Charlie Hales' offer of a warehouse in Old Town—Monday, December 16—wasn't really the deadline after all. On Friday, December 13, Hales' office told the Mercury it had mistakenly seized on that date when negotiating with the homeless rest area, currently operating at NW 4th and Burnside, about moving into a building at 320 NW Hoyt. If the rest area didn't say yes by then, officials had said, the building's owners would pull back their offer.

Why the mix-up? Spokesman Dana Haynes said that deadline wasn't actually mentioned in the proposed lease for the property. "We don't lose the rights to the building on Monday," Haynes exclusively told the Mercury in an email. "Our office thought we did, but the people representing the owners aren't going to whisk it out from underneath our offer this week."

Hales' staff now says there is no immediate deadline. Hales has proposed paying the Hoyt warehouse's owners $10,000 a month for 15 months.

"But that won't last forever," Haynes says. DENIS C. THERIAULT

_________________________________________________________________________________________

STARING DOWN big shortfalls in its share of Portland Streetcar funding, the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) is asking for some state help. PBOT has applied for $1.6 million from the ConnectOregon program, which offers grant money for rail, marine, transit, and, as of this year, bike and pedestrian transportation projects. The money would help the city purchase a streetcar unit, and install safety equipment on the entire fleet. PBOT said earlier this year it is anticipating a yearly deficit of roughly $1 million from the fiscal years of 2015 until at least 2018. DIRK VANDERHART