Jasun Wurster, the volunteer spokesman for RecallSamAdams.Com, spoke to council this morning. WURSTER: Pointed critique… You can read more about the disparate branches of the recall effort in my feature from earlier this month. Here’s Wurster’s speech: I am Jasun Wurster, volunteer spokesperson for Recall SamAdams.com. During the next nine months as the recall of […]
City Hall
Posted inNews
What’s With All The Applause?
I’m sitting in a council hearing about arts funding, this afternoon. Storm Large is here, wearing some stripy socks with biker boots. Another chap just addressed council wearing a suit with Birkenstocks. Extraordinary. Needless to say, the arts community is telling city council how important it is to fund the arts. They’re all wearing stickers […]
Posted inNews
Nick Fish, 1. Cynicism, 0.
That’s the last time I try to predict which way a city hall vote is going to go, or worse still, try to look inside Nick Fish’s head… In this week’s newslede, which is about to sit on the street being wrong all week, I made an effort to predict which way Fish would vote, […]
Posted inCity Hall
Today in $4.1 Billion Commuter Bridge News
Another official step in the march toward a 12 lane Columbia River Crossing: this morning, the Project Sponsors Council (the twelve regional transit and government leaders guiding the bridge) voted unanimously in favor of approving the 12 lane option Mayor Adams proposed to Portland’s City Council last week. The vote to go ahead with the […]
Posted inNews
Fritz Calls Foul on MLS
One council member who now seems pretty certain to say “no” to the idea of Major League soccer in Portland is Amanda Fritz. The city’s task force on major league soccer recommended council say “yes” to the idea on Tuesday, albeit with strings attached. But Fritz emailed the reporters from the Mercury, Willamette Week and […]
Posted inNews
This Week’s Anti Adams Protester…
…was sexual assault survivor Rondine Ghiselline: “As a concerned citizen and a sexual assault survivor I am sickened that you have not forced Mayor Adams to resign,” she began her 3 minute testimony this morning. I’ve posted the whole thing after the jump, in case you’re interested. “I am deeply ashamed and saddened to be […]
Posted inBikes
Sam Promises to Save Bike Budget
City Club sold out today for Mayor Sam Adam’s State of the City speech. The crowd was a lot of city planners and gray haired types (actual fur coat spotted in the audience) and Matt will post later about how the speech went. But I wanted to get up real quickly one of the questions […]
Posted inNews
Green Center: Architects Present Designs
Four teams of architects and developers have been pitching tonight to design and build the Oregon Sustainability Center, which it’s hoped will be built near PSU over the coming years. Oddly, because it’s his idea, Mayor Sam Adams has been absent this evening, even though city hall is packed to the rafters. Instead, Adams’ chief […]
Posted inCity Hall
Bridge: Adams’ Office Defends Green Reputation
70% of Blogtown readers in our lunchtime poll say they expected more from Mayor Sam Adams on the Columbia River Crossing. Can a mayor who travels all the way to China to preach about ‘green practices’ support a 12-lane freeway in his own backyard? Can he now still be considered a “green mayor”? “Sam is […]
Posted inArtsy
Leonard Wants Revived Visitor Center
Randy Leonard wants to renovate a historic architectural building in Waterfront Park and lease it to the Rose Festival for offices for $1 a year. The building was originally designed by the modernist Oregon architect John Yeon, and showcased at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. YEON BUILDING: Back in the ’50s, and […]
Posted inPortland
This Week’s Adams Protesters…
Four more protesters used the slots for 3-minute open testimony in council yesterday to make the case against Mayor Sam Adams, over the Breedlove scandal. You can watch their testimony on Youtube here and here. In the first clip: Gaye Harris said Adams had hurt the reputation of gays and lesbians. Larry Crowley spoke about […]
Posted inPortland
Council Approves 12 Lane Bridge
Council has voted this afternoon to accept a 12 lane bridge across the Columbia River, with a committee created by the CRC project sponsors’ council that will look at tolling and management of the bridge—as reported on Blogtown this morning. The resolution passed despite fierce opposition from City Commissioner Amanda Fritz: FRITZ: Stuck the knife […]