With hardly a nod to the city’s squalid budget, City Council voted unanimously to ratchet up business property taxes to pay for Christmas lights and to plop an ice-skating rink in the middle of Pioneer Square. It’s estimated that the increase will earn $4.5 million over nine years–$3.5 million will be spent on stringing and […]
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Highway to the Forest Zone
Debate Over Forest Service Roads Stirs Up Hornet’s Nest
Stretching from the shorn top of Mt. St. Helens nearly to the banks of the Columbia River, the Gifford Pinchot National Forest is a primary battleground for federal environmental policies. Unlike wilderness areas where no commercial and only exceedingly limited recreational uses are allowed, national forests and parks permit everything from logging to snowmobiling. Over […]
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Picking Up Enron’s Fumbles
Could PGE Become “The People’s” Power Company?
It may be the most exciting campaign that the Portland Green Party has championed since Ralph Nader. Last week, the Pacific Green Party’s Portland chapter met to discuss the burgeoning subject du jour–creating a publicly-owned utility for the metro area. The Green Party isn’t the first group to talk about public power, but it is […]
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A Bitter Pill
HIV Drugs: Is the State Doing Enough?
Tabor Porter is a person living with AIDS in Portland. While he is able to keep the disease relatively under control with drugs, he counts on the state to supplement the monthly cost of his drugs, which run, for an average person in Oregon with HIV, about $1,600 each month. Due to state budgetary woes, […]
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Welcome To My Neighborhood
Drug and Prostitutes on the Run in NW
On Wednesday, July 17, the Northwest District Association hosted a meeting to discuss crime problems in the Northwest neighborhoods. In an attempt to address what is perceived as a recent proliferation of drug activity and prostitution in Northwest Portland, the Association is working with Portland police to expand and modify Portland’s Drug- and Prostitution-Free Zones. […]
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The Streets Want You
Nonprofits and Police Join to Curb Gang Violence
In the last month, Portland Police have counted over a dozen gang-related shootings, and six of those took place in the week following July 4th. Portland had a 34 percent rise in gang violence in 2001–this surge of activity being the highest since 1995. The shootings began with a drive-by on NE Jarrett Street, resulting […]
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And They’re Off!
The Race for City Council Begins in Earnest
Shakespeare once noted that how a character enters a scene is perhaps his greatest attribute. One would think a representative from the local theater community would instinctively understand this wisdom. But when Christian Gunther, the marketing director from Artist Repertory Theater, announced his candidacy on Monday for a vacant seat in city council, his entrance […]
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Look, But Don’t Touch
Liquor Commission Redefines Lewd
About two weeks ago, Susan, who owns a strip club in Portland, received a letter from the Oregon Liquor Control Commission (OLCC). According to the official letter, chock-full of bureaucratic speak, on August 1, the OLCC will begin enforcing a rule stating that strippers in Oregon will no longer be allowed to touch their own […]
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Support Your Local Activist
Salem’s City Council Speaks Up for Protester
On the eve of Independence Day, Chani Geigle, a Salem-based activist, boarded a plane bound for Columbus, Georgia, where she faces federal trespass charges stemming from a protest last November. Agitated by what she believes is the U.S. government-sponsored training of Central American dictators, terrorists, and spooks, Geigle took part in a vigil last November […]
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Three Cheers for Beaverton?
With Health Clinics Closing, It’s Beaverton To The Rescue
From bellyaches to ringworm to pelvic pain, Dr. George Waldmann treats Multnomah County residents for conditions he says are common to the poor. For the past four years, he has volunteered at NeighborCARE, a so-called safety-net clinic in outer Northeast Portland serving 10,000 uninsured or underinsured people annually. But next month, in spite of voiced […]
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Bumfight Tonight
Blumenauer Huffs and Puffs About the Homeless
In one scene, a homeless crack addict sets his own hair on fire. In another, a homeless man and woman swing wildly at each other in a public bathroom. A pet project of two California film students, a gratuitous shock-value video called Bumfights has attracted the condemnation of Oregon’s representative Earl Blumenauer. In fact, the […]
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All About Dick
Activists Yell and Scream About Vice-President Cheney
From outward appearances, the gathering may have been a family picnic. Under the shifting summer skies on Sunday, about 400 people gathered in the Park Blocks, just a stone’s throw away from the hotel where Vice-President Dick Cheney was lounging. Middle-aged men with pressed khaki shorts milled around with teens in crop tops. With noticeably […]