The place to chase your Mardi Gras hangover

[March 1st, 2006] Multnomah County Commissioner Maria Rojo de Steffey 's right-hand woman has left the building. The commissioner's well-liked chief of staff, Shelli Romero , has abruptly ended her four-and-a-half-year tenure amid swirling speculation that the parting was less amicable than Rojo de Steffey portrayed it in her email to county staffers last Wednesday. "I will always treasure our time together and our relationship," wrote Rojo de Steffey, who was out of town when Murmurs tried to contact her Monday. Romero, reached on vacation, wouldn't comment or even say whether she'd resigned or been asked to leave.

Don't expect Gov. Ted Kulongoski at the City Club of Portland's Democratic gubernatorial debate Friday, March 17. The incumbent Dem told Murmurs after the deadline for print that he's just too busy. "We have to evaluate each request when it comes in, and frankly, at this point, all campaign events come second to his job as governor," says his campaign manager, Cameron Johnson. But Kulongoski was happy to show up at the club's Friday forum last week for his annual "State of the State" speech, where he didn't have to face his oh-so-troubling challengers in the May 16 primary. Those two Democratic candidates, Jim Hill and Pete Sorenson , will both attend the club forum at the Governor Hotel (614 SW 11th Ave.), sure to relish their free chance to point out the guv's flaws.

Former KPDX/KPTV employee Cindy Bennington is suing her ex-employer's parent company. Bennington, an account executive for more than four years, says in her wrongful-termination lawsuit against Iowa-based Meredith Corporation that she was fired a year ago because she objected to "fraudulent billing" by the sister TV stations. Bennington's suit filed Feb. 21 in Multnomah County Circuit Court alleges Meredith engaged in "deceptive accounting practices that involved under-reporting" and "artificially inflated corporate quarterly earnings." Bennington's attorney, Richard Busse, wouldn't elaborate when Murmurs telephoned. KPDX general manager Kieran Clark also declined to comment on the lawsuit.

If part of the idea behind publicly financed city elections is engaging new faces in the political process, Emilie Boyles is achieving that goal in spades. Boyles, a community activist challenging Commissioner Erik Sten, recently became the second City Hall candidate to qualify for public financing by raising $5 contributions from 1,000 donors (Amanda Fritz, running against Commissioner Dan Saltzman, was the first). Boyles did that by turning her experience at east Portland's New Life Slavic Services Center into gold: More than 950 of her contributors originally hail from behind the old Iron Curtain. "I'm very popular in the Slavic community," Boyles says, adding that she doesn't know how many of her supporters are registered to vote (contributors need not be registered but must live in Portland).

The expansion of a Portland nonprofit that helps street kids has ruffled feathers among other youth-service providers. New Avenues for Youth will soon move from a smaller space into the former Salvation Army Greenhouse building, which an anonymous donor bought for the nonprofit late last summer. Soon after the purchase, another agency in the Salvation Army space at 820 SW Oak St., Janus Youth Programs, got a letter saying its lease would end this June. The letter certainly resembled an eviction. But New Avenues executive director Ken Cowdery says Janus will stay in the building, at the same rent or lower. Janus' director, Dennis Morrow, says the notice initially confused and surprised him, but that ongoing negotiations are expected to smooth over the rift.

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From Murmurs' Department of Irony: Some lucky Oregon middle-schooler is going to come up with triple cherries in a Department of Human Services promotion announced last week. The department is asking students to design anti-gambling posters targeting their peers and families. The jackpots: $100 gift cards from Target (or similar stores) for the student who designs the best poster and for the classroom submitting the most entries. State lottery proceeds fund the program.

Marchers, mark your calendars for Saturday, March 4. The Workers' Rights Education Project, a nonprofit coalition of immigrant labor and community groups, has organized a protest march downtown, starting at noon from Pioneer Square. The cause: to protest a bill sponsored by U.S. Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.) that would crack down on illegal immigrants. The bill is now in the Senate after it passed the House in December. In prep for the protest, an immigration forum will take place at 7 pm today, Wednesday, March 1, at SEIU Local 49, 3536 SE 26th Ave.Rojo de SteffeyEmilie Boyles