Here’s what our friends at Portland Police Bureau public relations have been whipping up today. I’m not even being judgmental. This pleases me.
Dirk VanderHart
I'm a news reporter for the Mercury. I've spent a lot of the last decade in journalism — covering tragedy and chicanery in the hills of southwest Missouri, politics in Washington, D.C., and other matters elsewhere.
I've been in Portland three years, love it and want to help make it better. Let's keep it amicable!
Posted inNews
Good Morning, News!
President Obama’s sort of mucking things up, lately, everybody. A rundown: –Obama’s Justice Department, it turns out, surveilled the phone records of more than 100 Associated Press reporters last year, an attempt to identify a leak. –We’re pretty conservative here at GMN, and it boils the blood to learn guys like us have been disproportionately […]
Posted inNews
City Employee Sues Over Scented Lotion
Two years after the city enacted policy restricting its employees from wearing perfumes, colognes and other scented products to work, it’s facing a lawsuit alleging it has refused to enforce the rule. On Friday, Bureau of Transportation employee Julee Reynolds filed suit [PDF] in US District Court under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Reynolds alleges […]
Posted inNews
Good Morning, News!
This is playing in the coffee shop while I write this. I’ll leave it to all of you to decide what that augurs for the day. Personally, I’m optimistic. Pakistanis are voting today, and voting well. Despite a bombing and gun skirmishes with Taliban fighters, turnout is looking like it’ll be high. No big surprise, […]
Posted inNews
Revealed at Last: The Vast Sums We Made Off of Fluoride
Alex Despain It’s been a reliable refrain since the Mercury came out in favor of water fluoridation: anti-fluoride folks insist we must’ve been paid off. “Maybe you are on HKHP’s list of people and orgs who were bought? Disgusted with you and I will boycott you forever and a day,” said commenter CleanWaterMan. “It is […]
Posted inNews
The Much-Maligned Parking-Free Era Ends Today
Dirk VanderHart Speculation developers might overwhelm the city with a flurry of apartment-free parking proposals in the run-up to Portland’s new parking minimums did not come to pass. Today marks the end of Portland’s progressive parking policy for large developments—something many decry as a step back for the city. As of noon, when the Bureau […]
Posted inNews
Good Morning, News!
How’d you like to be the lawyer arguing a low bail’s appropriate for the Cleveland man who (allegedly) kept three abducted women captive in his home for a decade? You wouldn’t, because you’d lose. Bail for 52-year-old Ariel Castro’s set at a cool $8 million. His two brothers were released. The tales emerging from the […]
Posted inNews
Savings or Loan?
Budget Relies on Dubious Pension Savings
Portland’s happy to take pension savings—but might have to pay them back.
Posted inDrunk
Hales Wants to Extend Old Town’s Entertainment District, Despite Push Back.
The most popular person in the house after a “town hall” style meeting this evening to determine the fate of the city’s new “entertainment district” might have been Paul van Orden. As the meeting dispersed, Portland’s noise control officer was ringed with Old Town residents, all inquiring what types of sticks he could wield that […]
Posted inFood and Drink
Multnomah County: Fashioning Makeshift Tamale Carts Since 2013
Wilder Schmaltz In the delicate balance of public services split between the City of Portland, the county and Metro, file “experimental tamale cart purveyance” squarely under Multnomah County. A perceived uptick in the number of tamale vendors plying their delicious, if technically illegal, wares in recent years has Multnomah County Health Department officials toying with […]
Posted inNews
Good Morning, News!
It’s gorgeous outside, everybody, and I am feeling, shall we say, less than up to enjoying the gifts the day has bestowed. But the News keeps rolling. Israel has bombed Syria, in a still-sketchy operation apparently aimed at disrupting missile shipments from Iran to government loyalists. Everything else is terrible in Syria, too. An unscrupulous […]
Posted inNews
Former Powell’s Union Treasurer Faces Embezzlement Charges
Thomas James A former treasurer for the Powell’s employee union has been formally indicted on federal embezzlement charges, more than a year after members of International Longshore Warehouse Union Local 5 noticed accounting irregularities. In late March, Britta Duncan was charged [PDF] in US District Court with embezzlement and theft, falsification of records and failure […]