Larry Craig adopts Murmurs’ approach to critics: “Screw ’em.”

[October 10th, 2007]

Cynthia Guyer , who stepped down this spring after 10 years as the Portland Schools Foundation’s executive director, has landed in California as interim executive director of the San Francisco School Alliance. Guyer’s new employer is a private nonprofit that, like the Portland Schools Foundation, advocates for public schools. Guyer, who co-founded the Portland foundation, started this week in her new gig and will commute to San Francisco from Portland three to four days a week through next spring.

Mama don’t take no mess : One of four new appointees to Portland’s commission helping to oversee the city’s public campaign finance system is Kathryn McLaughlin. She’s the state Justice Department criminal financial investigator who aided in convicting Volodymyr Golovan for gaming the public-finance system last year. McLaughlin tells Murmurs she’ll recuse herself of any state investigations that conflict with her new role. The other new overseers on the Citizen Campaign Commission: bigshot Republican Dylan Amo, techie Pete Forsyth (whose résumé boasts 4,000-plus Wikipedia edits) and Kayse Jama of the Center for Intercultural Organizing. They’ll be busy. So far, eight of the 14 candidates who’ve filed for mayor and two council seats in 2008 intend to seek public financing.

Some mid-level staff shuffling in Gov. Ted Kulongoski’s office. The guv’s energy adviser, Peter Cogswell , leaves for the Bonneville Power Administration; Kulongoski’s general counsel, David Reese , will take a post at Portland State University. And his transportation advisor, Chris Warner , heads off to the Oregon Department of Transportation. A gubernatorial spokesperson says no replacements have been named yet.

OSPIRG, the advocacy group best known among many for its college-age panhandlers disguised on Portland’s streets as “canvassers,” can no longer suck from Portland State University’s teat. As reported Tuesday, Oct. 9, in PSU’s The Daily Vanguard newspaper, OSPIRG got $128,000 last year from a $12 million PSU kitty funded by fees from tuition-paying students. This year, advisers with PSU’s Student Activities and Leadership Programs decided the school’s OSPIRG chapter wasn’t a student-led group because it’s actually a “corporation.” As a result, it’s ineligible for the privileges extended to student groups, including access to student funds. An OSPIRG rep told the Vanguard the PSU chapter is a student group, led by students.

Nike Inc. could be in serious financial trouble if a new $50 billion (as in “billion” with a “b”) federal lawsuit against the athletic-wear giant is successful. But we aren’t selling our Nike stock just yet. As first reported on WWire, a lawsuit filed Sept. 21 in Portland’s U.S. District Court claims Nike based its Nike Shox shoes on designs Azewen-Jik Kante submitted to the company in 1992. Attached to the lawsuit, which Kante filed without an attorney, are drawings of shoes filled with tiny springs. (Go to wweek.com/wwire/?p=9507 to take a gander.) Kante, of Brooklyn, N.Y., claims Nike “did not recognize [her] artistic talent” and seeks compensation for her “creative work, pain and suffering.” Nike spokesman Bob Applegate declined to comment.

Maybe changing Interstate Avenue to César E. Chávez Boulevard is just the beginning. Consider this: Commissioner Randy Leonard stepped out of City Council chambers for a minute during the council’s Oct. 3 meeting, then darted back to his seat in the midst of a vote. “Leonard, aye,” he told the clerk without knowing what the vote was about. Commissioner Sam Adams leaned over and muttered, “You just voted to change the name of the city .” Leonard’s face turned bright red. Way to go, Randy. Welcome to Bushsucks, Oregon, Mayor Jazz Hands presiding.