A new union representing Portland City Council aides and operations staff filed an unfair labor practice (ULP) complaint against the city for alleged anti-union conduct from Councilor Loretta Smith’s office. The complaint, filed January 13, alleges Smith retaliated against and fired a former aide due to his role in organizing the Council staff union. 

The aide, Adam Murray, worked as a policy staffer in Smith’s office for about nine months until he was fired last week. The termination came less than a month after Portland City Council staff announced they were organizing a union, called the Council Alliance of Workers (CAW) with the Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 7901. The Council Alliance of Workers includes staff members from the majority of City Council offices.  The ULP complaint describes Murray as a “key union supporter.” 

State labor law, overseen by the Oregon Employee Relations Board, bars public sector employers from interfering with employees’ rights to organize a union, including by discriminating against or firing people who support a union effort. Smith currently serves as the chair of the Portland City Council’s Labor and Workforce Development Committee. 

I am a 45-year-old femme-presenting genderqueer AFAB person. When I have romantic relationships with cis het men, I’ve noticed two general types: They either enjoy sex and prioritize pleasure and making things fun for their partners and themselves, but make no special big deal about it, and we usually have frequent enough sex and that’s enjoyable and good. Or the sex starts out pretty good but — at some point — they make it known to me that they need to have sex regularly, that they can’t tolerate a lack of sex, that they get grumpy if they don’t have sex, that they’ve been in sexless relationships before — blah blah blah — and soon the relationship starts to revolve around how much sex we’re having. Usually around this time the sex either gets worse or I realize that it wasn’t that good to begin with and then we start having less sex and then it slowly becomes so terrible that I barely want to have sex with them anymore at all and then the relationship ends. I wonder if anyone else has had this experience, and if you have any comments.

Help Explain This Male Entitlement Nonsense

Updated at 2:30 pm January 13

As Portland city councilors engaged in a tense discussion about entrenched racism and changing power dynamics, an influential real estate broker was simultaneously exchanging texts with multiple people who used discriminatory language about councilors of color.

The Mercury has obtained a series of images of group messages that show racist, sexist, and homophobic tropes used by local developer Brian Owendoff and other local conservative political activists. The group messages were exchanged on January 7, while the Portland City Council debated who should become its next president, and the language was used exclusively against progressive city councilors of color. Owendoff, present in the council chambers that day, is known for his role in the downtown’s Block 216 Ritz-Carlton project, his influence over the Darcelle XV Plaza, and his consistent involvement in local politics.

“And now burrito playing race card,” Owendoff wrote in one message.

The message came as Councilor Angelita Morillo, a Paraguayan immigrant, spoke about her experience on a City Council that long excluded people of color from service.

If you’re reading this, you probably know the value of the Mercury’s news reporting, arts and culture coverage, event calendar, and the bevy of events we host throughout the year. The work we do helps our city shine, but we can’t do it without your support. If you believe Portland benefits from smart, local journalism and arts coverage, please consider making a small monthly contribution, because without you, there is no us. Thanks for your support!

Good morning, Portland! It’s Tuesday, January 13.  Today we're in for a mostly sunny day with a high of 52 degrees and a low of 35. 

More of these sunny winters, please!

IN LOCAL NEWS: 

• Today, Portland's Community and Public Safety Committee will consider an ordinance that would require all law enforcement officers (including the feds!) to wear clear identification such as a badge at all times, and prohibit them from wearing masks to hide their faces (again, looking at you, feds). The ordinance was introduced by Councilor Sameer Kanal, who co-chairs the Committee. The meeting starts at 2:30 pm. You can read more about the ordinance and watch a livestream here.

The news is bleak, the nights are long. Yet somehow... the calendar is still stacked. January is when culture gets weird in the best way; this week, medieval manuscripts emerge from the vault, and camp horror and queer literature come out to play. Plus, artist Elizabeth Knight presents her dog embroideries, and local hardcore shows up to shred. Don't say we didn't warn you!

[This profile originally appeared in our sister pub The Stranger. -eds]

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore takes long and meandering walks through Capitol Hill most days. From the height of summer to the depths of winter, if the sun is out, she’s soaking in it. On these walks during the pandemic lockdown, Terry Dactyl came to her. She couldn’t write it immediately because she was working on her memoir, Touching the Art, which came out in 2023. Before that, there was The Freezer Door, Sketchtasy, So Many Ways to Sleep Badly, among other novels and memoirs, plus six anthologies and another currently in the works. She’s a prolific queen because writing is survival, she says.

“Writing is my process of staying alive,” Sycamore says. “It is embedded in how I live. Specifically, writing everything that I dream of, and everything that fails me, all of the emotional reality. Often, there are things I’m afraid to say, and then I put them in my writing, and they’re said. Then I can say it! I can read it in the book, and people aren’t that shocked by it. Often, what people are shocked by has nothing to do with what I’m afraid of. When I write the things that I think, ‘If I write it, I might die,’ and then I write it and I don’t die, that’s part of the process of staying alive.” Sycamore goes deeper still about this question of life or death, how it has been quite literal for her, and how writing has shown her how to live differently in the world.

“When I was a teenager, growing up in a world that wanted me to die or disappear, I had to project invulnerability in order to survive. There was no other way. That was just reality, you know? I needed that invulnerability.” Once upon a time, The Stranger’s Homosexual Agenda column described Sycamore as a “gender-fucking tower of pure pulsing purple fabulous,” and I’d say that description stands, in case you need context for why she grew up thinking the thickest of skins was a way to stay alive.

But that’s changed for her. “Now, vulnerability is how I connect with people and my work,” Sycamore says. “I’m always writing toward the gaps, the moments of failure or frights or fear, anxiety, loneliness, and the moments that allow us to survive. Those sudden moments of connection in the world, when we move deeper into breath, whatever creates that. I think often what creates that [breath] is being honest about all the depth of everything that weighs us down.”

Terry Dactyl is filled with these moments, one after another, and it’s what makes the novel powerful and compulsively readable, especially as she essentially restarts the story halfway through. But we’ll come back to that.

Are you in love? In lust? In a complicated situationship that started because of a drunken and convenient New Year's Eve kiss, but now you're ready to take things to the next level by publicly declaring your adoration in the permanency of newsprint?

Good news, the Mercury's reader Valentines are back, and NOW is the time to submit your valentine online!

That's right, we are currently accepting your tiny, heartfelt love notes—150 characters max—and will publish the first 200 submissions in our upcoming print issue, hitting the streets on February 11 and available at 500 spots citywide. BUT! Even if you miss the boat to be in our print issue, don't fret... ALL your valentines—as long as they aren't mean or nonsense—will appear online at portlandmercury.com throughout the Valentine season.

💘 So what are you waiting for? Declare your love in the Mercury now! 💘

Hi babies! Welcome to the first new Trash Report for 2026. As always, I am your best friend, Elinor Jones. I don't know about you, but I am not bothering with Dryuary this year. I learned from the events of January 6, 2021 that January is always going to give us a reason to toss a few back, and this year has certainly been no different. So pour yourself a glass (or not, if you're reading this in the morning or you're at work—you can have a wet January, but not a you-need-help January) and let's freaking gossip. 

National Trash

Fucking yikes, you guys—it's bad out there. I hope you are okay. This is feeling like the start of the movies in new theaters when they show off their sound systems and make the GONG sounds, and increase the volume at a slow pace, and you think it can't get any louder, but it just keeps getting louder until your eardrums are getting blown out—right now is like that, but with all the levels of fear and anxiety a populace can carry and still function. They keep turning it up, and we just keeping walking around, doing our jobs, unloading our dishwashers, assuming that either at some point it will stop or at some point we will explode, because this relentless horror is surely unsustainable, right? Like, we can't actually live like this? 

But we can! If the last decade has taught us anything, it's that we can. So I'm going to go on and write about a bunch of dumb shit, because we're not dead yet. And while the collapse of America is certainly scary, it can also be very, very funny. Take, for example, the recent kidnapping of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro. While photos of him with his wrists bound and eyes covered circulated in the media, the reaction wasn't only one of shock at this unlawful power grab, but also: cute outfit! Maduro was snapped in a gray Nike Tech Fleece set and I, for one, have so many questions. Since the raid happened at night, is this what he was sleeping in? Seems hot, right? Or was he wearing something else, but was permitted to grab other clothes and this is what he picked? Why not something more formal? Or, if he was told what to put on, why give him branded clothes, and not something more resembling prison clothes? So many questions!! If I am ever to talk to Nicolás Maduro, this is what I will ask him. Either this or if he met Luigi Mangione at the fancy jail. Hard to decide.

UPDATE, Jan 15: The application process for this position is now closed. Thank you for your interest!

Original post:

Whoopee-doo, great news: The Portland Mercury continues to grow like gang-busters, and we're hiring a MANAGING EDITOR to join our smart, scrappy, kick-ass editorial team. Are YOU an organized person, with newsroom and preferably managerial experience (or perhaps its someone you know)? Then check out the following job posting—apply online, and applications are due by January 14, 2026!

Title: Managing Editor

Reports to: Editor in Chief 
Salary: $95K-$105K

Application deadline: Wednesday, January 14, 2026

The Portland Mercury—a scrappy, independent, alternative source of news and information located in Portland, Oregon—is looking for a smart, dedicated Managing Editor to help oversee day-to-day operations in our editorial department, which is committed to bringing top-notch news and culture reporting to our community, amplifying underrepresented voices, and showing the city a good time. 

This position will primarily focus on assisting the editor-in-chief (EIC) with the execution of the Mercury’s vision, including managing workflow and the editorial budget, supporting staff with daily practical needs, organizing production flow of print products, handling internal issues and performance assessments, while also assisting with editing and proofreading. The position also includes many opportunities for general assignment reporting and writing.

If you’re reading this, you probably know the value of the Mercury’s news reporting, arts and culture coverage, event calendar, and the bevy of events we host throughout the year. The work we do helps our city shine, but we can’t do it without your support. If you believe Portland benefits from smart, local journalism and arts coverage, please consider making a small monthly contribution, because without you, there is no us. Thanks for your support!

GOOD MORNING, PORTLAND! 👋

If you hate thinking about the weather, I HAVE GOOD NEWS. Because this week, it's going to be "dry and mild" with a high temperature of around 52 degrees every damn day through the weekend! With everything else in the world going "ker-blooey," at least we can count on Portland weather being delightfully boring. And now, let's read some not-so-boring and occasionally "ker-blooey" NEWS.

IN LOCAL NEWS:

• Just when you thought... "Jeez, maybe not all cops are bastards (better known as NACAB)," this happens: Two Portland Police officers are facing major scrutiny after one was caught on camera repeatedly punching a helpless protester, while yet another was filmed defending the deadly shooting of Renée Nicole Good by ICE agents in Minnesota. (He callously said that “Sometimes criminals get shot... it happens.” 👀😡) Even more embarrassing (at least for the Portland Police Bureau), the actions came at the same time Portland's police chief was encouraging residents to exercise their right to protest and speak out against injustice in the wake of violence by federal agents. The officer who made the remarks on camera has since been pulled from protest policing for now and reassigned, while the other officer (the puncher) will undergo a use of force review. Find out more with this great (and infuriating) story from our Courtney Vaughn!

Hundreds of Portlanders gathered at Terry Schrunk Plaza this afternoon for a vigil honoring the victims and survivors of ICE and Border Patrol violence.

[image or embed]

— Portland Mercury (@portlandmercury.com) January 10, 2026 at 7:12 PM

ICE needs to be taken apart, brick by brick, and we need to salt the earth.

— Councilor Sameer Kanal (@councilorkanal.bsky.social) January 8, 2026 at 4:31 PM

While Portland’s police chief has encouraged residents to exercise their First Amendment rights in response to recent shootings by federal agents, videos show his own officers exhibiting violence against a protester and justifying the shooting of Renee Good in Minnesota.

Now, the actions of two Portland Police Bureau (PPB) officers are under internal review.

On Saturday, video surfaced of a PPB bike officer defending the deadly shooting of Good in Minneapolis by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent last week. The officer was part of a squad monitoring a protest at the ICE facility in South Portland.

That video was captured the day after another PPB officer was filmed repeatedly punching a protester on the ground who was already subdued.

GOOD MORNING, SUNDAY! It's the perfect time to catch up on some of the great reporting and stories the Mercury churned out this week! (PRO TIP: If you despise being "the last to know," then be one of the first to know by signing up for Mercury newsletters! All the latest stories shipped directly to your email's in-box... and then... YOUR HEAD.)

Police: Two People in East Portland Shot by Federal Agents

US Border Patrol agents shot and injured two people in Portland on Thursday, one day after a woman in Minneapolis was shot and killed by federal agents prompting national protests.

• New Lawsuit Seeks $1.18 Million For Man Imprisoned For an Overdose Death That Never Happened 

A Portland man is suing several government entities, alleging he served prison time for causing a fatal overdose that never happened.

• POP QUIZ PDX

In this week’s entertaining local trivia quiz: realistic fake IDs, questionable New Year’s resolutions, and Donald Trump’s Parade of Ding-Dongs and Door Knobs ! (AKA the parade that never ends. 😑) See how well YOU score!

This story has been updated with additional reporting. 

Updated: 8:30 pm January 9; Originally published: 3:56 pm January 8

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has identified the man and woman shot Thursday by a US Border Patrol agent. According to DHS, Luis David Nino-Moncada was driving the vehicle that agents tried to conduct a traffic stop on. Nino-Moncada and his passenger, Yorlenys Betzabeth Zambrano-Contreras, were both shot and injured during the traffic stop.

According to the federal agency, Nino-Moncada was hit in the arm and Zambrano-Contreras was hit in the chest. The Mercury has not independently verified the victims' injuries, but local police have said the victims are in "stable" condition.

Sources close to the families of both victims confirmed that both are currently alive, but their families have had very limited contact with them and haven't been given much information about the situation or status of their loved ones. 

DHS claims Nino-Moncada entered the US in 2022 and Zambrano-Contreras entered in 2023. 

Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield says his office will open a formal investigation into the shooting that took place in East Portland Thursday afternoon. 

According to the Portland Police Bureau, the shooting occurred at 2:18 pm near the Adventist Health Primary Care Portland campus on Southeast Main Street just east of I-205, but the victims were found at 146th and East Burnside minutes later.

The condition of the victims and severity of their injuries is unknown. Both were taken to area hospitals for immediate care following the incident. 

Rayfield’s office said the investigation will examine whether any federal officers involved in Thursday’s incident acted outside the scope of their legal authority. 

It's been an insane week, y'all. If you're looking for some escapism this weekend, find community at events from the First Ever Gigantic Hot Dish & Casserole Competition to an N/A Fest at John's Marketplace and from Into the Night: A Twin Peaks Prom to the Radical Harvest Craft Faire and Clothing Swap. For more suggestions, check out our weekly top picks guide.

FRIDAY

COMEDY

Dog People
Portland is full of dog people. We are a city filled with dog parks, dog-friendly patios, pet behaviorists and psychics, dog masseuses, artisanal dog food brands, fancy pet treat stores, businesses named after dogs, and even dog-specific menus at bars. So it only follows that the local comedy scene has fetched us a canine-centric sketch show. Extended after a sold-out run, this “dog show about people” created by Michael Zimmer and Sofia Sullivan explores the most laugh-out-loud hilarious aspects of man’s besties and the sometimes outrageous lengths we go to for our furry friends. A portion of ticket sales will be donated to local nonprofit One Tail at a Time (the folks behind the foster-based pup rescue have a pretty playful sense of humor themselves). BRI BREY
(Kickstand Comedy, Ladd's Addition, $15)