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Good morning, Portland! Today we’ve got a high of 80, with an overnight low of 52 to cool things down. Hopefully you’re enjoying the glory that is peak Portland summer. Savor it. Cherish it. Or, if you’re our dear pal Debbie Hines, go off.
IN LOCAL NEWS:
• Environmental activists and local nonprofits are denouncing what’s being dubbed a backroom deal between the city of Portland and PGE that will allow the utility company to remove more than 370 trees from Forest Park, including mature Douglas firs. PGE says it needs to rewire a 1970s-era utility line and add a second line in a swath of the park in order to prevent power blackouts as part of its Harborton Reliability Project. PGE’s land use plan was initially approved by a city hearings officer, but an appeal was later upheld by the City Council, who felt the city’s hearings officer didn’t consider all the criteria in the city’s land use code. The Oregonian reports the Council’s decision was later appealed to the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals and led to a negotiation between PGE, the city, and local nonprofit groups. Now, those nonprofits: the Bird Alliance of Oregon, Forest Park Neighborhood Association, and the Forest Park Conservancy say despite being part of the process up until now, they were left out of the last negotiating meeting where an agreement was being finalized.
That agreement stipulates PGE will pay $5.5 million for environmental mitigation to restore wetlands and enhance amphibian habitat in or near Forest Park, which is $3.1 million more than initially promised in the utility company’s application. The city has agreed to recommend approval of the project once PGE submits a revised application, though the proposal still needs to go through the city’s standard land use review process.
• An initiative petition to put a participatory budgeting measure on the November ballot is one step closer to fruition. Willamette Week reports more than 78,740 signatures were submitted for a ballot initiative that would let Portlanders decide how to spend 2 percent of the city’s budget. It’s an unprecedented amount of signatures—nearly double what’s needed to qualify for the ballot. Participatory budgeting is an emerging policy concept that’s been bubbling in Portland for at least the past five years. If voters approve the measure, it would set aside 2 percent of the city’s budget and give city residents the chance to suggest ideas for how the money gets spent. A group of citizen delegates would then work to put those ideas into project proposals or concepts, which would be voted on citywide, but as WW notes, the proposed charter amendment doesn’t specify how that vote should take place, “except that it would not be subject to city or state election laws.”
Proponents of the concept say it puts more decision making power in the hands of taxpayers, but critics are quick to note that residents already have a say in the budget via their elected representatives and the process could further constrain the city’s already tight budget by shifting money needed for ongoing city services to one-time “pet” projects that have no identified ongoing funding source. It’s also unclear whether there would be any mechanism to prevent lobbying groups or PACS from spending to promote their favored projects.
• Listen, Mercury is in retrograde (can we still use that as an excuse for things going wrong?) which is apparently extra bad news for Gemini and Virgo signs. If this sentence has made your eyes roll into the back of your head, move on to the next blurb. But if it tickles your curiosity, or if you’re just a person who likes to read horoscopes for funsies, check out the latest edition of Anthony Hudson’s The Faults in Our Stars to find out which awful politician you are, based on your sign.
IN NATIONAL/WORLD NEWS:
• An appeals court dealt a blow to wormy Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor whose Stop WOKE Act aimed to restrict how colleges and universities can teach about race and gender. An appeals court, in a 2-1 decision, called the legislation “a breathtaking assertion of power to ban unpopular ideas from public discourse,” Politico reports, noting the judges found the state legislation to violate the First Amendment rights of professors.
• Look, Mitch McConnell is definitely still alive and breathing, OK? The 84-year-old Republican senator from Kentucky hasn’t emerged from his shell been seen since June 14, when he was reportedly treated by paramedics at his home in DC for a possible cardiac arrest. The senator has been hospitalized since then, leaving speculation about his health and whether he’ll be able to return to the Senate. Apparently McConnell “had a lengthy and substantive conversation” over the phone with Senate Majority Leader John Thune earlier this week and also spoke to Senate Republican Whip John Barrasso of Wyoming. The Senate is scheduled to return next Monday, July 13. If McConnell remains absent, the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee–which has 15 Republicans and 14 Democrats, could find themselves unable to pass spending bills if Dems are able to block them while McConnell is absent.
• A lawsuit filed Tuesday alleges the Trump administration illegally shared confidential information about Iranian asylum seekers with the country they were fleeing from. The AP reports the lawsuit “depicts a coordinated campaign between the U.S. and Iranian governments to identify Iranians in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody and pressure them to return to Iran.” Federal officials in the US are allowed to work with officials from other countries to coordinate deportation logistics, but laws passed in the 1990s prohibit US from disclosing that the person being deported applied for asylum from the country they’re being deported back to.
• Aaaand, surprising no one, the US ceasefire with Iran is again “over” Trump declared, as he called Iran’s leadership “scum” during a NATO summit. The president is also threatening to cut off trade with Spain and still thinks he deserves to take over Greenland. Give this man a juice box and a nap already! The shit-talking came after the US launched more than 80 strikes on Iranian targets in the Strait of Hormuz.
