All week long, I’ve been considering whether or not I’d write a long, heartfelt goodbye post on Blogtown. Now that the time has come to write that post, I just can’t. It would be impossible to sum up the three years I’ve spent here—and the many years at the Stranger prior to that—in a blog […]
Amy J. Ruiz
Posted inNews
Building a Bridge
Meet the Columbia River Crossing Coalition
The big bridge gets a fan club.
Posted inNews
Smoke ‘Em While You’ve Got ‘Em
Everything You Need to Know About the Forthcoming Smoking Ban
The 101 on Oregon’s new smoking ban.
Posted inMedia
Make it Stop, Please
KATU’s Brian Wood has a plea: “We love seeing your pictures. We can only get so many reporters out into so many different locations in our region,” he says, begging people to upload photos to katu.com. “Then we can get, literally, a picture of what the conditions are like throughout the area.” Because that is […]
Posted inCity Hall
Santa Visits City Council
I’m not at city hall today—technically I’m on vacation, can’t you tell?—but that doesn’t stop me from watching it on Channel 30. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Santa is attending this morning’s city council meeting: But Santa better be careful, lest he end up on city hall security’s naughty list. The sign outside […]
Posted inMedia
A Survey of This Morning’s OMGSNOW TV News
Because the news reports are far more entertaining than the white stuff falling from the sky… KGW is running with a graphic screaming “ARCTIC BLAST,” as anchor Brenda Braxton talks about being a “city girl” who needs four wheel drive AND chains on all four tires just to survive. They keep checking in with a […]
Posted inDrunk
Sneak Peek at This Week’s Feature
I wrote a piece for the forthcoming issue on the forthcoming smoking ban, which goes into effect January 1. I had to share this last minute addition to the piece—which is a Q&A addressing all of your smoking ban questions. Question: How the hell is the Horse Brass going to get the nicotine off of […]
Posted inCity Hall
Mayor-elect Adams’ Strategic Plan
Check out Mayor-elect Sam Adams’ and the rest of the council’s city reorganization memo to all Portlanders (“RE: Improving ‘The City that Works’”) right here. Now is our time to build upon the City of Portland’s successes with an intensified focus in key areas through strategic planning, structural reform, and establishment of clear roles for […]
Posted inCity Hall
Meet Your New City Government
The Oregonian has the scoop on Mayor-elect Sam Adam’s shakeup of city bureaus. As long rumored, the Bureau of Planning’s Gil Kelley is out, because his bureau’s merging with the Office of Sustainable Development (OSD) to make a super-bureau, the Bureau of Sustainable Planning & Development. It’s a smart move—I’ve often asked city staffers why […]
Posted inMedia
Portland Tribune Lays Off Phil Stanford
Via Oregon Media Insiders, comes bad news at the Portland Tribune: Columnist Phil Stanford’s been laid off. (So has “Denise Szott, the paper’s top designer and copy editor,” the Business Journal reports.) Stanford—previously a columnist at the Oregonian—was known for his curmudgeonly columns and his “Portland Confidential” pieces that dug into old-school “Sex, Crime, and […]