And the gold medal for sprinting from reporters goes to… John Edwards.

[August 6th, 2008]

• The case of Veronica Rodriguez, the former youth counselor facing more than six years in prison for touching a boy’s head with her clothed chest (see “A Brush With Measure 11,” WW, Feb. 20, 2008), has state Rep. Chip Shields up in arms. The North Portland Democrat plans to respond with legislation next year requiring judges to tell juries the likely sentence for defendants before they deliberate. Shields says jurors might have acquitted Rodriguez if they’d known the mandatory minimum she faced for first-degree sex abuse. “It’s all about trusting juries,” he says.

• The Lowrider Tour at the Expo Center Aug. 3 seemed to rank high on Mayor Tom Potter’s worry-meter. Before the convention, the city called on extra cops to monitor the thousands of lowrider fanatics—many of whom eventually flowed in their custom cars down Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard Sunday night. Records show two reports of “shots fired” in the area. And witnesses describe cops corralling curious teens off MLK and onto buses. But police spokesman Sgt. Brian Schmautz says there were no major problems. Mike Karsting of Lowrider Magazine in California, the event’s sponsor, calls Potter’s concern overblown. “I stood at the front [of the Expo Center] and counted strollers,” Karsting says. “Every Hispanic guy wearing a sports jersey is not a gangster.”

• Feds blocking the box? Portland’s Office of Transportation had planned six new “bike boxes” citywide, but now only plans to modify three intersections to give bikes more room in front of cars. And, for the moment, the three new bike boxes won’t blare the same DayGlo green as the seven bike boxes created earlier this year. The Federal Highway Administration asked Portland’s transportation department to keep a lid on the paint at first to see whether the color improves safety. The new white-on-asphalt bike boxes will go this year at Northwest Broadway at Hoyt, Southwest Terwilliger at Taylors Ferry Boulevard and, next year, Southwest Broadway at Jefferson. For other bike news, go to wweek.com.

• Portland Public Schools’ Board of Education is taking a cue from reality TV by holding an Aug. 26 public tryout session for the five applicants to fill the vacant seat on the seven-member board. The applicants are Steve Buel, a Vancouver, Wash., middle-school teacher who served on the Portland school board from 1979-1983; Martín González, a parent activist; Rita Moore, a Winterhaven School parent; Stephen Blanton, an engineer from North Portland; and Mark Stephan, a poli-sci prof at Washington State University in Vancouver. But just like Bravo’s Project Runway, where executive producers can lean on judges to keep contestants the producers like, some insiders are already pulling for González, a frequent PPS critic and champion for Latino students.

• Coupla quick media hits: Portland Tribune Editor Dwight Jaynes, one of the founders of the seven-year-old paper, left abruptly last week. This year, the Trib has cut back from twice-weekly to once a week and laid off staff. But Jaynes rejects any notion that he was asked to leave or the paper is in trouble. Instead, Jaynes, 60, says the recent deaths of three contemporaries led him to realize it was time to do something else. Over at The O word is that the paper will look for 100 people to take buyouts when they’re finalized, including 50 people in the newsroom. For more on both stories, go to WWire.

• Bidders for Portland’s recently canceled bike-sharing program say the city’s claim that they didn’t provide enough financial info is bunk (see “A Delay In Wheel Time,” WW, July 16, 2008). “What a cop-out!” wrote Bill Burton, director of Arcata, Calif.-based nonprofit the Bike Library, in an email. He and Portland Bike Company founder Gary Duvall say the city’s criteria—including its unwillingness to subsidize the program’s start-up—were unrealistic. “Our French bikes will soon be committed to other cities, the zest of Paris will be theirs,” said Burton. “Portland will go at the speed of government, though….”