illustration by ashley-renee cribbins Yesterday’s announcement pushing back a vote on Mayor Charlie Hales and Commissioner Steve Novick’s residential street fee until November 12, joining the previously delayed non-residential portion of the fee, wasn’t quite the last of the 11th-hour tweaks by the Portland City Council. Hales’ proposal to amend the city’s charter, meant to […]
Denis C. Theriault
Denis C. Theriault is the Portland Mercury's News Editor. He writes stories about City Hall and the Portland Police Bureau, focusing on issues like homelessness, police oversight, insider politics, and civil liberties. Before arriving in Portland, Denis wrote and edited for the San Jose Mercury News, covering the California Legislature and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, as well as the city of San Jose—a real-live million-person town.
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UPDATED: Street Fee Delayed… New Vote Maybe by November
Commissioner Steve Novick has confirmed rumors flying through city hall yesterday and first put into print last night by the Oregonian: The residential part of his and Mayor Charlie Hales’ proposed street maintenance and safety fee is on hold “indefinitely.” Novick’s comments came during a spot on Jefferson Smith’s “Thank You Democracy” radio program on […]
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Fritz’s Parks Bond Proposal Polls Way Better than Street Fee
Here’s more proof that voters are more willing to embrace something familiar over something new and different (and expensive). A telephone poll (pdf) commissioned by the parks bureau last month has found nearly supermajority support—up to 68 percent—for Commissioner Amanda Fritz’s plan to replace an expiring parks bond this fall with another bond measure that […]
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Novick Answers Captain Renault’s Fish’s Questions on Street Fee
Last week’s lengthy Portland City Council hearing on a proposed “transportation user fee,” AKA “TUF,” turned extra tense sometime in the middle of its fifth hour. That’s when Commissioner Nick Fish pressed the fee’s sponsors—Commissioner Steve Novick and Mayor Charlie Hales—on how he might offer some suggested changes before this Wednesday’s vote, only to find […]
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Street Fee: Novick Willing to Weigh Low-Income Discount for Businesses, Too
denis c. theriault Activist Joe Walsh, before yesterday’s hearing on the street fee: “Et tu, Novick!” With flashbacks from yesterday’s tense, six-hour hearing on a citywide road safety and maintenance fee still dancing through his head (he was reading our live blog when I phoned him), Commissioner Steve Novick this afternoon still managed to speak […]
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Good Morning, News!
Good morning, measles! The dolts afraid of vaccinating their children against terrible and pernicious diseases once feared and rued as tragic reapers of souls are helping bring about a revival of terrible and pernicious diseases once feared and rued as tragic reapers of souls. Measles cases are at a 20-year high, just a few years […]
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LIVE BLOG: The Very Controversial Street Fee Comes to City Council
illustration by shawn dicriscio For the third time in 13 years, Portland City Council—this afternoon—is debating some form of a street fee—a way to raise millions meant to ease the city’s nearly billion-dollar, 10-year backlog of road maintenance. And for the third time in 13 years, Portlanders from all kinds of backgrounds and political stripes—business […]
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Novick Offers November Deadline to Firm Up Street Fee for Businesses
illustration by shawn dicriscio Commissioner Steve Novick announced this morning he supports Mayor Charlie Hales’ plan to split up their proposed “transportation user fee”—moving forward on an $11.56 monthly fee for most homeowners, but pulling back on a fee for businesses—but with a pledge to scrap the whole idea if both pieces aren’t in place […]
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Good Morning, News!
Edward Snowden, the exile who leaked the National Security Agency’s domestic espionage secrets, some 1.7 million documents, explained himself a bit more in an interview with NBC last night. “Sometimes to do the right thing,” he said, “you have to break a law.” He also said he’d like to leave Russia, where he’s found asylum, […]
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Hall Monitor
A “Pitched Battle” After All
Novick, Hales may be risking their careers over a street fee.
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Novick Makes One Last Play to Cut Cops’ Drugs Unit: “I Would Rather Preserve Firefighter Jobs”
In the midst of this morning’s vote to approve Portland’s next operating budget, due to take effect July 1, City Commissioner Steve Novick revived his controversial push to cut the Portland Police Bureau’s Drugs and Vice Division—issuing an 11th-hour amendment asking his colleagues to phase out the unit starting in summer of 2015. Novick’s motion—written […]
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There Might Be E. Coli in Your Tap Water. Boil It Before You Drink It.
Portland’s water bureau has begun urging its customers all across Portland, and beyond, not to drink tap water unless its been boiled—after state officials, doing routine tests, discovered E. Coli in water samples taken from two reservoirs on Mount Tabor and elsewhere in the system over the past few days. The city’s got a website […]