Cops’ spokesman Brian Schmautz is retiring from the
Portland Police Bureau on January 30, having taken a job coordinating
crime scene investigations for the district attorney’s office in
Clackamas. “While I will not get to choose my replacement, I have told
Chief [Rosie] Sizer that the person must be grumpy, willing to laugh at
you to your face instead of behind your back, in a 12-step program for
something or willing to join one after they have the pager for a few
months, and concerned about the carbon footprint of the media,”
Schmautz wrote, in an email to local media on Monday, January 5,
announcing the move. MD

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City Commissioner Amanda Fritz is now, officially, City
Commissioner Amanda Fritz, having been sworn in at a
community-focused ceremony in Southwest Portland on Saturday, January
3. “I feel like I have 150,000 new friends,” said Fritz, relating to
the crowd a conversation she had with a well-wisher, shortly after
Election Day. “And he said, ‘Yeah, until you mess up.’ So please,
everyone, help me not to mess up.” Former City Commissioner Gretchen
Kafoury introduced Fritz, describing her election as contributing
to an atmosphere of “unbridled hope” at city hall. “I can honestly say
that Portland got its money’s worth,” said Fritz’s former campaign
manager, Ellen Miyo Ino Klaastad, in reference to Fritz’s status as the
first city commissioner elected under Portland’s controversial
voter-owned elections program. MD

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Defense Attorney Spencer Hahn has been told it will cost
$3,773.40 for the Portland Police Bureau to review and redact 20 boxes
of information relating to the city’s controversial secret list of
downtown offenders, before the contents of the boxes can be
disclosed to the public [“Officer Pandora’s Boxes,” News, Dec 25].
Hahn, along with two other defense attorneys, is still trying to pursue
the information through the courts, with a hearing before Judge Dale
Koch scheduled in the coming weeks. Hahn’s client has been charged
with a felony, instead of a standard misdemeanor for drug
possession—a result, it is presumed, of being on the list. The
list is part of the city’s controversial Neighborhood Livability Crime
Enforcement Program, which effectively replaced the city’s Drug-Free
Zones after Mayor Tom Potter abolished them in September
2007. MD