Getty Images Cue up your Buster Poindexter, everybody, the Heat Miser’s coming to call. Pretty much anyone can talk about locally is the three consecutive 100-plus days that we might be suffering through starting tomorrow. The National Weather Service has issued an excessive heat warning as a result, and you can plan on hearing about […]
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
As Portland Considers Two New Water Treatment Plants, Some Worry About “Rushed Process”
The Bull Run Watershed, source of most of Portland’s water. City of Portland As Portland City Council nears a vote that could result in not one but two brand new water treatment plants, some wonder what the rush is. In a move that surprised no one, the Portland Water Bureau last week filed a resolution […]
Posted inUncategorized
A New Citizen Board Charged With Police Oversight Might Have Less Power than the One It’s Replacing
As we noted yesterday, Portland City Council is on the verge finally replacing the COAB. You might remember the COAB, or Community Oversight Advisory Board, as the citizen body created via the city’s settlement with the US Department of Justice over police abuses. It was a first-of-its-kind invention, designed to bring community members in on […]
Posted inNewsblast!
Good Morning, News: GOP Health Care Efforts Implode, The Mooch Gets Raw, and City Hall Gets Less Accessible
That long walk of defeat. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Hey, the Democrats won something (with help from three GOP senators)! In a dramatic vote early Friday morning, Mitch McConnell’s “skinny repeal”—a Hail Mary for ditching Obamacare that McConnell was urging senators to pass with assurances it wouldn’t ultimately become law—fell short by one vote. […]
Posted inUncategorized
Mayor Ted Wheeler is About to Reinstall Turnstiles at City Hall
See that “X” in the foreground? It’s a turnstile (back in 2010), and it’s coming back to City Hall. Turnstiles are coming back to City Hall, and that’s just the beginning. As Portland City Council shakes off a period of unprecedented citizen acrimony, Mayor Ted Wheeler is ramping up security at Portland’s civic heart. Beginning […]
Posted inNews
Transcripts Suggest 24-Year-Old Terrell Johnson Was In Crisis When He Was Killed May 10
The MAX bridge where Terell Johnson was shot on May 10. Google Samson Ajir was expecting Terrell Johnson to be armed well before he encountered, then killed, the man on May 10. The officer testified before a grand jury that as he was heading to the call about Johnson threatening people at an East Portland […]
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City Staffers Who Investigate Cops Might Finally Be Able to Recommend Discipline
It’s another quirk of Portland’s slapped-together system for police accountability: When internal affairs investigators at the Portland Police Bureau or staffers for the city’s Independent Police Review (IPR) conduct an investigation into alleged officer misdeeds, they’re not actually allowed to make a conclusion. Instead, the responsibility to recommend discipline in a case falls to the […]
Posted inNews
Why Didn’t Ted Wheeler Think to Mention that the Despised 48-Hour Rule for Cops Had Returned?
Dirk Vanderhart Let’s all take a minute to give it up for the Albina Ministerial Alliance Coalition (AMA). For more than a decade, the group has scrutinized the Portland Police Bureau (PPB), digging down into the minutiae of police policies and cranking out treatises on them with some regularity. And last week, coalition member Portland […]
Posted inNews
Oregon’s Mental Hospital is Being Flooded with Criminal Defendants (Which Isn’t Much Good for Anyone)
RYAN F. JOHNSON Lynne Saxton came to Oregon lawmakers in late May with a calm but urgent plea. For years, the state’s top health official had watched as the mental health beds she controls at the Oregon State Hospital (OSH) were increasingly filled with a tricky population—criminal defendants charged with minor crimes, who are not […]
Posted inNews
Hall Monitor: The Secret, Zombie 48-Hour Rule Lives!
Why Didn’t Ted Wheeler Think to Mention that a Despised Practice Had Returned?
Why didn’t Ted Wheeler think to mention that a despised practice had returned?
Posted inCounseling/Mental Health
Oregon’s Mental Hospital is Being Flooded with Criminal Defendants
It’s Incredibly Expensive, and Critics Say It’s Making Things Worse
It’s incredibly expensive, and critics say it’s making things worse.
Posted inNewsblast!
Good Morning, News: Senate Health Care Plan Dies, Walmart Gets Racist, and Seattle’s CHEAP Bikeshare
(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) The Obamacare replacement is dead. For now. Two Republican senators—Jerry Moran of Kansas and Mike Lee of Utah—announced last night they won’t support the bill in its current form. That makes four GOP senators opposed to the bill, which is more than the Republicans can lose. Delicious. So what’s Senate […]