This seems like a helluva good reason to stand up and do a slow clap for Commissioner Dan Saltzman’s re-election campaign. Because they’ve got a damned fine sense of humor over there. As you well remember, the Mercury has decided not to endorse the four-term commissioner’s bid for a fifth term—backing his main challenger, Nick […]
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.
Posted inNewsblast!
Good Morning, News!
Gas, bullets, a noose, or the electric chair? Odds are, you don’t care! If the government can’t figure out which concoction of injected chemicals most humanely murders a prisoner, most Americans say they’d still want the death penalty, but with a return to more old-fashioned means of execution. Progress! War has returned to Libya for […]
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Pride Before the Fall
Oregon’s Gay Rights Activists Just Quietly Scored a Major Win
Oregon’s gay rights campaign just quietly scored a major win.
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Hall Monitor
The Very Interesting Losers
Politics complicate the mayor’s budget as much as math.
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Declaration of Independence
Cops Flubbed a Retaliation Probe—So Police Watchdog Stepped In
When the cops flubbed a retaliation probe, the Independent Police Review stepped in.
Posted inNewsblast!
Good Morning, News!
Doctor Governor John Kitzhaber was being driven to dinner in downtown Portland last night when he saw a woman on the ground, in distress, unconscious, possibly after having overdosed. He bolted from his car and personally performed CPR until paramedics could take the woman to a hospital. “My job was embarrassing—I had to have a […]
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Chief Changes His Mind on Disciplining Cop in Domestic Violence Case; Cop Quits
After several months of contemplation, Police Chief Mike Reese has changed his mind and decided to side with a citizen oversight panel that unanimously urged him to discipline a controversial police officer accused of menacing his ex-wife and her new husband in 2012. But days before Reese memorialized his change of heart, sending an April […]
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Hales Announces Urban Renewal Compromise with Portland State
Mayor Charlie Hales felt fine enough about talks with Portland State over the demise of a promised “education urban renewal district”—one of the linchpins in a vast proposal to shrink the city’s urban renewal footprint—that he cooked the resulting cash windfall into the budget draft he released last week. But even he explained his budget […]
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Campaign Arises to Snuff Out Anti-LGBTQ Ballot Measure
With the fight for marriage equality in Oregon firmly in the hands of a federal court—and looking like it might turn out favorably—the advocates who’d been ready to hit the ballot on same-sex marriage this fall announced plans today for a fresh effort. They’ll be taking on the Protect Religious Freedom Initiative—a measure that would […]
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May Day in Portland was a vivacious, uplifting, affirming affair for a few, permitted hours yesterday. That was not the case in Seattle. Deep into the evening, and well after that city’s permitted march had ended, packs of youthful anti-capitalists went off script and toured downtown, sometimes with flame, sometimes getting into it with riot […]
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After Mayor’s Budget, Fire Union President Assails “the Priorities of City Hall”
As we reported earlier today, Mayor Charlie Hales faced some difficult decisions when figuring out which of the $32 million in city spending requests would get the nod in a budget that contemplates, at best, a $9 million to $11 million surplus. Money spent improving crosswalks, say, in East Portland would have amounted to less […]
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First Look at Mayor’s Budget: New Urban Renewal Cash, Big Money for Housing, No Money for Firefighters
Mayor Charlie Hales has unveiled his preferred draft of Portland’s next operating budget this morning—counting on urban renewal clawbacks to further stretch a $9.3 million surplus up to $11.3 million and help him shower millions on the priorities he laid out last year, including homelessness and the city’s ability to withstand a major earthquake. (Hales […]