CAMPING on private property is no longer a no-go in Portland.
In an abrupt-but-unsurprising move, City Commissioner Chloe Eudaly announced earlier this week she’ll ensure the city no longer prioritizes complaints about people living in RVs, campers, and tiny homes (on wheels) near houses, businesses, and churches.
Eudaly, who oversees the city’s code enforcement bureau, also announced she’ll work on “code language to permanently allow tiny homes.” Mayor Ted Wheeler is supportive.
“Housing is a basic need and human right,” Eudaly said in an official statement on the move, first reported by Willamette Week. “We have failed to keep up with demand for affordable housing for decades.”
The policy change comes shortly after Portland City Council extended the city’s housing state of emergency for 18 months. Eudaly’s office says the Bureau of Development Services will overlook violations of its “illegal residential occupancy” code for the duration of that emergency, so long as RVs, campers, and tiny homes (no tents!) are limited to three per business or place of worship, and one per single-family home or duplex. DIRK VANDERHART
THE PORTLAND THORNS are good at soccer.
The squad captured its second National Women’s Soccer League title in five years on Sunday, thanks to midfielder Lindsey Horan’s goal against the North Carolina Courage in the championship game in Orlando. The Thorns now have 40 percent of all NWSL championships in the five-year-old league.
Not only are the Thorns good, but they’re a big deal. A day before the win, the New York Times published a story arguing the team—due to popularity, profitability, and winning—may be “the most successful professional women’s sports team in the world.” They draw nearly 18,000 fans per home game, the NY Times points out, which is more than 15 NBA teams and 13 NHL teams. DOUG BROWN
RUSSELL COURTIER confessed to detectives—and later on a jailhouse phone call—that he ran down Larnell Bruce, a 19-year-old Black man, in August 2016. Courtier’s also an unabashed member of the European Kindred (EK), a white supremacist gang.
Courtier’s attorney wants both of those facts out the February trial aiming to prove the man murdered Bruce in a hate crime.
Defense lawyer Kevin Sali argues a Gresham detective improperly pushed his client to talk after Courtier first said he wanted a lawyer. Sali also claims there’s no evidence Courtier—a documented member of EK since at least 2003, who has an EK tattoo, and wore an EK hat the night he killed Bruce—“bore any animus toward any particular racial group.”
Prosecutors will respond by November 3 and a judge will rule on November 29 on whether the facts are admissible. DB