This week, City Commissioner Nick Fish told the Mercury he intends to file for reelection to his council seat on Wednesday morning, February 3. The move, which is not surprising, comes as Fish focuses his attention on merging city and county services for homeless individuals and families. He says he hopes to learn from Seattle, which recently passed a levy to pay for affordable housing. He'll also focus on passing a long-planned bond measure for parks. He is running essentially unopposed, with none of his rival candidates seeking public financing. "I'm old school," says Fish. "I let my work speak for itself." MATT DAVIS

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The first of Portland-based Mercy Corps' 24 relief workers in Haiti has returned to Oregon to discuss what life looked like on the ground during the days following the quake. Cassandra Nelson has responded to emergencies in Afghanistan and Sri Lanka but says her first days in Port-au-Prince were "the worst devastation I have ever seen." As other aid agencies coped with digging their own workers out of rubble, Nelson's team first focused on getting 15 tons of food into Haiti's hospitals. "The banks were closed, the stores were closed, if you were a millionaire you still didn't have anything to eat," says Nelson. With $9.5 million in donations, Mercy Corps is distributing food, purifying water, and starting up a cash-for-work program, giving local Haitians jobs to help rebuild their country. SARAH MIRK