Ballots are due in less than three weeks for the primary election, and the candidates for city council are working overtime to get their messages out. Which means mailboxes across the city are stuffed with glossy flyers, touting the records and agendas of everyone from State Senator Ginny Burdick—gunning for Erik Sten’s seat—to neighborhood activist […]
Amy Jenniges
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Worse in LA?
Revisiting Portland’s Anti-Homeless Laws
On April 14, homeless advocates in Los Angeles scored a huge victory: The US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals lambasted a city law—used to harass LA’s huge homeless population—that prohibits sitting, lying, or sleeping “in or upon any street, sidewalk, or public way.” Police in LA have used the law to arrest homeless people during […]
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Fear of Heights
Mississippi NIMBYs Fight Proposed Lofts
On North Mississippi Avenue, a few blocks up the street from the neighborhood’s newer crop of businesses—a brewery, a pizza shop, a pet food store, a plant nursery, a few bars—an old, beige cinder-block warehouse has become a center of controversy. Last year, three developers bought the rundown, bland building and announced plans to build […]
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Citizen’s Arrest
Bicyclists Take Dangerous Drivers to Court
On a warm Thursday evening last fall, Mike Rueter hopped on his bike downtown after work, and headed toward the Hawthorne Bridge, which he crosses on the way to his Northeast Portland home. That night, however, Rueter took a detour to the ICU at Legacy Emanuel Hospital. He doesn’t remember what happened—”That whole day is […]
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Put That in Your Crack Pipe
SE Portland Neighborhood Fights Crack Pipes
Last year, the Lents Neighborhood Association (LNA)—which represents the neighborhood that straddles I-205, from Powell Boulevard to Portland’s southern border—elected a spunky slate of board members. “We have a lot of new ideas,” explains the group’s new communications chair, Jeffrey Rose. They want to revitalize buildings in the neighborhood’s historic center, uncouple busy Foster Road […]
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The Fur’s Flying!
Protesters and Schumachers Bring the Drama
The situation outside of downtown’s Schumacher Fur Co. has gotten even, uh, hairier in the past few weeks: Every Saturday since Thanksgiving, anti-fur activists—loosely organized by the group In Defense of Animals (IDA)—have staged a protest in front of the downtown fur store. Last month, two activists were arrested after Schumacher Fur taped anti-activist signs […]
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Critical Review
Resignation Spells Trouble for Police Review Board
Marsha Anderson, a petite and feisty 57-year-old, refuses to back down. Two years ago, the North Portland resident filed a complaint with the city’s Independent Police Review (IPR) division, alleging—among other things—that a police detective threatened her and her ex-boyfriend’s lives. Anderson, who happens to work for the city, has been struggling with the police […]
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Costumes, Cocktails… CHAOS!
Guerrilla Masquerade Party is Coming to a Bar Near You
Bust out that old box of Halloween costumes, dust off your craziest make-up, and hit the thrift stores to stock up on accessories. October 31 may be months away, but the Guerrilla Masquerade Party is about to hit Portland—and woe be you, if you’re not ready. One night a month, “people will be getting together […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Lazy Sunday
Pizza, Ducks, Other Non-Sequiturs
Two teenage boys are home alone on a Sunday afternoon, with cola, chips, and videogames helping them battle the tedium of being 14. Of course, they’ve also pestered mom to leave them with a few hundred pesos—this film’s set in ultra-urban Mexico, where the boys are sequestered in a high-rise apartment—and they order pizza. And […]
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Anniversary Party
Activists Protest Iraq War with Sit-in, Peace March
On Monday morning, March 20, antiwar activists scrambled around Terry Shrunk Plaza—across the street from SW 3rd’s Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building—trying to assemble a press conference. One activist attempted to corral reporters under a tree, while another fiddled with her cell phone and scanned the streets, impatiently waiting for a red minivan to pull […]
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The Eastside Guy
Dave Lister Makes the Candidate Short List
On Friday afternoon, March 24, Dave Lister will climb onto the Governor Hotel’s ballroom stage for his very first political debate. “To be truthful, I’ve never debated anybody,” says Lister, who jumped into the race on February 2 in a bid to unseat City Commissioner Erik Sten. Lister, a 51-year-old Northeast Portland resident and a […]
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CHURCH PULLS OUT OF PUBLIC SCHOOL PLAN
Plans for a taxpayer supported, anti-gay school have gone kaput, according to the pastor behind the deal.