Read this while waiting for Bush's October surprise.

[October 11th, 2006] Impasse alert at the top of the city's development agency: The fifth seat on the Portland Development Commission has now been vacant for 72 days , not that anyone is counting. Mayor Tom Potter informed City Council weeks ago that the two finalists for the opening are architect Don Stastny and John Mohlis, executive secretary-treasurer of the Columbia-Pacific Building and Construction Trades Council. The position is Potter's to appoint, but the five-person City Council must ratify his choice. Three city commissioners—Sam Adams, Randy Leonard and Erik Sten—support Mohlis. But PDC, battling with union leaders over whether developers who do business with PDC should pay union wages, would prefer anybody but Mohlis. That leaves Potter caught between increasingly independent council mates and the hot-button agency he oversees. Potter aide Austin Raglione says the mayor's decision will come no sooner than the end of next week.

At least two staffers at McCormick and Schmick are feeling left out in the cold about the filming of Into the Wild at the restaurant in Beaverton. The seafood franchise was closed Oct. 3 and 4 when director Sean Penn and his crew came in to film a scene for the movie based on the Jon Krakauer bestseller. But some restaurant staff are unhappy they didn't get compensated with pay for those two days. General manager Mike Davis says several employees were paid as extras, and kitchen staff were also paid to feed the actors and crew. Davis wouldn't say how much McCormick and Schmick received for the shoot, but he did say senior management is still deciding whether to compensate employees who couldn't work during filming.

Two former employees of Portland-based Flossin' Magazine have filed complaints with the state against their ex-employer, claiming they're owed $10,500 in unpaid wages . One of those who complained to the Bureau of Labor and Industries, an ex-employee who goes by the name Buko, worked as a photographer and Web designer at the upscale magazine. The other complainant, Tim Davis, worked as the mag's vice president of marketing. The state labor bureau is investigating the claims and hopes to resolve them by the end of this month against Flossin', which has a mission statement of hoping to "bring to light an existing formula for good living ." Officials didn't immediately return calls seeking comment.

While the latest Congressional scandal takes its toll on Republicans and President Bush remains a highly unpopular figure in Oregon, there's a new poll with good news for the state's top Republican, U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith. The poll to be released later this week by Portland pollster Bob Moore shows Smith with a 63 percent "very favorable" rating among Oregonians—23 percentage points higher than Bush's.

Last week's exceptionally rare move by The Oregonian reversing its earlier endorsement of a candidate was blasted by the daily's country cousin, the far more conservative twice-weekly Hillsboro Argus (both are owned by the New York-based Newhouse family). The Hillsboro paper says the O was "hoodwinked—had and played" when it withdrew its support of Democrat David Edwards in House District 30 because Edwards' campaign made an issue of Republican Everett Curry's being a Baptist minister. "You see what you want to see, and you hear what you want to hear," Argus publisher Clark Gallagher wrote of the Big O.

^WEB-ONLY MURMURS:

Project Return is opening two new resource centers in Madison and Jefferson high schools to serve those schools' homeless students. The project sponsored by Portland Public Schools already has offices at Roosevelt and Marshall high schools. But officials hope that opening new centers this month will help district employees identity more students who could benefit from the intensive services Project Return offers for teens who are couch-surfing, doubling up in someone else's home, or living in a car, a shelter or on the streets. Services include everything from help with homework to providing food and clothing.

After five dry years, the casting pond at Westmoreland Park is slowly filling with water again. Since Sept. 29, Portland Parks and Recreation has pumped 100,000 gallons per day into the pond. That will continue over the next month to revive the once-popular sailing pond for toy boats. The pond, which dates to the 1930s when citizens dug it out by hand, had been drained in 2001 due to leaks in the pipes that draw water from nearby Crystal Springs. Rod Wojtanik, project manager for Portland Parks and Rec, says the leaky pipes haven't been fixed but that the pond has gotten the OK to draw water through a different set of pipes further downstream.