Get used to seeing this phone number on Portland-area bridges and billboards and other high-profile places: 503-972-3456. Last Wednesday, September 19, city and police officials joined suicide-response nonprofit Lines for Life in unveiling a new suicide hotline for Portland. City council handed Lines for Life $150,000 last month to add extra call-takers, part of an ongoing push to keep cops and 911 dispatchers out of the suicide response business. The first hotline sign is going up on the Vista Bridge. Other bridges will follow in the coming weeks, along with a word-of mouth campaign relying on ministers and leaders in the queer community. Anyone in crisis—or anyone just worried about someone else in crisis—can call. DENIS C. THERIAULT

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Last month, the city's rank-and-file police union, the Portland Police Association (PPA), quietly agreed to settle a labor grievance meant to shut down the region's computer-assisted public-safety dispatch system, which is now more than a year old. The union had loudly complained last year about the dangers of the new system's technical difficulties (flaws that were largely fixed soon after rollout). The issue was big enough that State Representative Mary Nolan, endorsed by the PPA, used it to bludgeon City Commissioner Amanda Fritz, who oversaw the system, in their primary race this spring. So what changed? Not much, according to settlement documents obtained by the Mercury. The PPA agreed the city was working hard to fix problems. And the city told the PPA it wouldn't punish officers if the system's new GPS tracker showed cops in places they weren't supposed to be. That might be of some comfort for Fritz, who could face renewed attacks over the 911 system this fall. DCT