NEARLY SIX YEARS after a 19-year-old woman reported she was raped in downtown Portland, the Portland Police Bureau (PPB) finally arrested the suspect, 63-year-old Clint Williams.
Thatās striking, since the police knew Williams was a suspect and where he lived immediately after the September 2011 incident, according to a probable cause affidavit for his arrest filed June 9. The victim reported that information immediately after the rape. A sexual assault examination was done at a local hospital.
But the rape kit sat unprocessed until 2016, when it was sent to a lab in Utah. This year, it was finally tested, and DNA from the kit allegedly matched Williams, who the victim told police had raped in her in 2011.
Williams, a registered sex offender, was previously convicted of rape in 1986, records show. Heās now charged with eight felonies stemming from 2011: first degree rape, two counts of first degree sodomy, two counts of unlawful sexual penetration, and three counts of first degree sexual abuse. DOUG BROWN
BY THE TIME the Portland City Council adopted its $4.7 billion final budget for the coming fiscal year on June 8, Mayor Ted Wheelerās outlook on homelessness funding had shifted.
In unveiling a proposed budget on May 1, Wheeler prominently touted the $25 million heād allocated to the city/county Joint Office of Homeless Services. But Wheeler soon bristled when county Chair Deborah Kafoury suggested it wasnāt enoughāshe thought the city should pony up millions more.
After a tense public appearance and meetings in private, the city and county reached an accord. The budget that council passed last week included $1.4 million more for homelessness, and a tacit suggestion that a greater sum might be found as part of coming budget adjustments.
Homelessness spending is likely to come into focus next week, when the county plans to release the first āpoint-in-timeā homeless count Portlandās had since 2015. DIRK VANDERHART
