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I LIKE LIZ David Bragdon shipped Nikes from Asia before joining the Port of Portland to wring his hands while de-icer is being dumped into the Columbia and toxins are buried in the Willamette. Metro's just another bureaucracy for him and his land speculator, developer and contractor backers after his last unsuccessful campaign for Legislature. Liz Callison knows water and wildlife-habitat issues better than most downtown enviros. She's experienced and savvy about Metro and city land-use politics after working on their committees and serving in elective office. Liz knows how to mobilize popular support for regional planning to control growth, helping lead southwest's community-plan process. What Liz Callison and Bragdon have DONE--not who they know--shows the real difference. Can't Willamette Week tell the difference between a hands-on advocate for environment and community like Liz and one more "green-paint" environmentalist? Peter Donahue DO YOUR HOMEWORK! In particular, I am appalled by the article's transparent reliance on the opinions of Mr. Greg Bowman, whose own shoddy experiences taint the story in only the ugliest of ways. Mr. Seigel's article emphatically charges both Portland's doormen and town cars in general with violating the "service by reservation only" criteria. While I concede that a few individually owned town-car drivers attempt to solicit airport-bound guests, it is the very exact system criticized (doormen receiving a "nice kickback") that thwarts this (as it is in the doorman's best financial interest to keep watch for such culprits). The standard and most common course for airport "runs" does not involve doormen "steering hotel guests into waiting town cars," as Mr. Seigel maintains, but rather doormen calling a town-car driver's cellular number (to see if they are nearby) several or more minutes in advance when a guest arrives at the door asking for airport transportation. In the language of the Taxi Board of Review, "The revisions to the existing criteria for reservation are consistent with the common understanding of that word as meaning 'engaging in advance an accommodation or service,' as defined in standard dictionaries." While it may serve Mr. Seigel's purpose of attracting the reader's attention early in the article, it is distasteful and inappropriate (both on the part of Mr. Bowman and Mr. Siegel for its inclusion) to compare a doorman to a pimp, a town-car driver to a whore and a traveler to a john. Before his stint as a willing "whore" (when he drove a town car under the name of Personal Town Car), it was well known that Broadway Cab driver Greg Bowman would give Portland doormen a $5 kickback in return for airport runs. But with an increased overhead (instead of leasing a cab, he bought and maintained his town car), Mr. Bowman found, in contrast to Mr. Seigel's "no sweat" characterization of "luxury transportation," that times were difficult indeed. Mr. Bowman found himself burning bridges, most notably with the doormen at the Governor Hotel, a place he used to tout to others as his home base. It is especially curious, then, Mr. Seigel, and obviously more than coincidental, that you include Mr. Bowman's comments about Portland's doormen at the outset of your article, while later making the wry observation that "according to industry insiders, the main culprits of town-car abuse are doormen at the 5th Ave. Suites and the Governor Hotel." It is also clearly obvious that you left out the fact that the two hotels you mentioned are not serviced by RAZ and have only two options. And many times--you would have discovered if you had done your research--there is no form of public transportation in the area of these hotels. Mr. Seigel, do you homework before making categorical statements and generalizations about violations and violators, balance your tips and colored sources, and at least make some attempt to include the other side/constituents of a given issue. On behalf of all town-car/limousine services, reputable hotels and ALPHA & OMEGA Limousine, Inc., thank you. (The WW refused to print my entire rebuttal, so anyone wanting to read its full contents should please phone 449-LIMO for a copy.) David Worley Southeast Ash Street MOMS FOR TRUTH I am the birth mother of a son born Jan. 26, 1964, in Portland, Ore. He was adopted out of the White Shield Home. I am currently trying to get my information from the home, including the name of the hospital where he was born (I was high risk), the doctor's name and the name and address of the adoption agency. I have also mailed the state my waiver of confidentiality. I hope he has also. Everyone seems to be worried about my privacy. In 1965 I would have worried. But that was a different time and world. Today I am an adult who is NOT AFRAID OF THE TRUTH OR KNOWLEDGE. From all of the other birth mothers I have met on the Internet, I believe I am not in the minority. My son has a right to know his biological background. He has a right to know his genetic background. Because of the secrecy involved with the records, I told both of my daughters about my son when they were 16. What if he had moved to California and met my daughters and dated them? What if they fell in love? Got married? There is more damage done with secrecy than with truth. Stanlie Wykoff ONE MAD BASTARD Current sealed adoption records laws throughout the country were enacted in the 1950s, not to protect the identities of birth parents from their grown children, but to protect adopted minors from the then stigma of illegitimacy and to keep the general public from accessing the birth records of these minors. At no time was the intention to seal these records from the adult adoptee nor could anonymity be promised legally to birth parents. Adoption records, in fact, have always been available through the courts for "just cause," and the names of birth parents are routinely published in legal advertisements. Birth records of those who are relinquished, but never adopted, are not sealed. Some social workers and other "adoption professionals," in fact, assured birth parents that records would be made available to their relinquished child when he or she reached the age of majority. If promises of confidentiality or anonymity were made, they were made by people who knew full well that they were lying. Mr. Deras' opposition to Measure 58 begs several questions: Does Mr. Deras hold his own adopted children in such low esteem that he believes they should not enjoy equal protection under the Constitution? Does Mr. Deras believe that family bonds created through adoption are so fragile that the access to one's own original birth certificate--a right that all non-adopted persons possess--would destroy those bonds? And finally, just whom do Mr. Deras and his Concerned Adopted Professionals really want to protect? Marley Elizabeth Greiner, Mad Ohio Bastards/Bastard
originally published September 23 , 1998
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