You go to press with the gossip you have.

[December 22nd, 2004] TriMet bus drivers are wearing urine-yellow pins to protest their claim that the transit company doesn't give them enough bathroom breaks. And though TriMet claims drivers have ample opportunities during an average shift to use one of 131 designated pitstops, the state's Bureau of Labor and Industries isn't so sure. With driver outrage peaking after a driver was run over and killed by her own bus last month--when, union officials say, she may have been rushing to use the bathroom--BOLI is launching an investigation into whether TriMet meets legal mandates on break time.

Ever since a jury whacked him with a multimillion-dollar racketeering judgment in September 2002, conservative ballot-initiative kingpin Bill Sizemore has been trying to avoid paying it. The jury in the case found that Sizemore committed fraud and forgery in two 2000 ballot campaigns, and it slapped the anti-tax zealot's PAC, Oregon Taxpayers United, with $2.5 million in damages to teachers' unions that spent money to fight the measures. Sizemore declared his political action committee bankrupt and set up a new one. Last week, a Multnomah County judge said tough nails, ruling that Sizemore's new group, Oregon Taxpayers Union, is liable for the judgment.

If fans of Portland mega-author Ursula K. Le Guin have been wondering why she let the Sci Fi Channel butcher her Earthsea series of books in a recent miniseries, her answer is simple: She didn't. Last week on Slate.com she described the experience of writing a series of thoughtful books about race and young people coming of age, only to have TV filmmakers turn it into a lily-white "generic McMagic movie with a meaningless plot based on sex and violence."

Ty Kovatch made this column on Dec. 1 for his attaboy email to his boss, Commissioner Randy Leonard, calling him a "lion" and other city commissioners "lazy fuckers." Well, apparently he knows what he's doing, because Kovatch, Leonard's 26-year-old chief of staff, is taking over as interim director of the Bureau of Development Services until a replacement for departing Ray Kerridge can be found.

Portland lawyer Scott D. Caplan showed up in a Dec. 9 Boston Globe article about a jet alleged to have transported al Qaeda suspects to Egypt so they could be tortured. The Globe reported that the jet was recently sold between two possible U.S. government front companies--with the new owner headquartered in Caplan's downtown law office. The state lists Caplan as the registered agent for the company, Bayard Foreign Marketing, a company whose only listed officer is "Leonard T. Bayard." A nationwide public-records database search comes up with no such name, though there is a painting contractor in Helena, Mont., who is listed both as Leonard Bayard--no middle initial--and as Bayard B. Leonard. Hmm....

The Portland Development Commission got a pleasant holiday surprise this week when a group including the Schlesinger Companies offered up a three-block parcel of land adjacent to the convention center for a much-needed convention hotel. The offering could allow PDC to drop its costly legal battle to take over land owned by developer Barry Menashe for a hotel.