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Friendly
Fire
If Fox executives need an idea for a new
prime-time series, they should consider a trip to Portland
to shoot an episode of When Activists Attack Each Other!
They'd find plenty of drama in the coalition trying to fit
the city's toothless police-oversight committee with dentures.
Flying under the name of Citizens for Police Accountability,
a loose association of socialists, anti-cop activists, progressives
and African-Americans met Feb. 15 to talk about a proposed
ballot initiative to overhaul the Portland Internal Investigations
Auditing Committee, or PIIAC. But instead of serving up
a surefire plan to rein in rogue cops, the 60-some activists
damn near fed on one another.
One faction, led by lawyer Alan Graf and NAACP member Bruce
Broussard, is urging pragmatism. Craft a plan that will
get the backing of state legislators and the League of Women
Voters, they say, even if it means cutting back on the power
of a citizen oversight panel.
On the other side are representatives from groups such
as Radical Women and Copwatch, which want any new panel
to have broad disciplinary powers.
When the shouting ended, the more moderate voices walked
away from the process, leaving the more radical activists
to approve language that would allow PIIAC to review police
shootings and set police policy, among other things. "This
is a fight worth fighting" on principle alone, said Jordana
Sardo of Radical Women. "Let's get the cops off our backs."
Graf says he doubts such a measure would get enough support
to qualify for the fall ballot. "I have my doubts about
an initiative for this November," says Graf. "I'd like more
work putting together something that'll really fly with
voters."
Graf favors language that will give PIIAC the ability to
recommend police discipline and policy but that will still
give the chief final say in disciplinary matters while holding
him politically accountable.
Elements of Citizens for Police Accountability spent the
end of last week attempting to stitch back together a frayed
coalition.
It won't be easy. Both Rep. JoAnn Bowman and Margaret Carter
of the Urban League told WW last week that the aggressive
language adopted at the Feb. 15 meeting was unacceptable
to them.
--Philip Dawdy
OOPS! and OUCH! at City Hall
A hard budget year just got harder for the Portland City
Council.
Struggling to make $5 million worth of cuts to pay for
new programs, city commissioners now must wrestle with an
unexpected $1.5 million hit to next year's budget, thanks
to two big unforeseen expenses.
First, while reviewing the cost of the city's police-pay
offer last week, city analysts found a glitch that translates
to added costs of $500,000 for the coming year. Turns out
an error in spreadsheet design had downplayed the impact
of the Police Bureau's cost-of-living raises.
Then, on Feb. 18, the federal government's new consumer
price index came in at 3.7 percent, a half-percent higher
than forecasted. This will cost the city $990,000 a year
in employee salaries, which are pegged to the CPI.
All this, and the city firefighters still haven't gotten
a contract. When they do, that could mean even less money
for the council to work with. "The bottom line," says city
financial manager Ken Rust, "is that all of these things
make a tight situation tighter." --Nick Budnick
A Darker Shade of
Gray
With a big house, glamorous connections and high
name recognition, Jeff Gianola is the ideal person to hold
a fund-raiser for a political candidate. There is one pesky
problem, though. As a journalist, he's supposed to be covering
politicians, not shilling for them.
But the KOIN anchor isn't letting that stop him. Next weekend
he is hosting a $100-per-head fund-raiser for his former
colleague Mark Hass, who's running for the state Legislature.
"I think that's a bad idea all the way around," says professor
Tom Bivins, who teaches journalism ethics at the University
of Oregon. "It's a standard tradition for news media people
to be completely uninvolved in politics."
Gianola says he isn't involved in politics, he's just helping
a friend he's known for 14 years. Once Hass announced his
political ambitions, Gianola excused himself from reporting
on the House District 8 race. Still, he concedes there is
at least an appearance of impropriety. "I admit, it's kind
of a gray area," he says. "Some people could say, 'Well,
now we know how Gianola feels,' but at the same time, I'm
not an automaton, either."
His boss, news director Kerry Oslund, has no problem with
the anchor's political proclivities. Gianola will not be
reporting on Hass' race, so Oslund figures viewers won't
care. "We're not in business to please journalism schools,"
Oslund says. "We're in the business of informing the customers."
Hass, who until last fall was the political reporter for
KATU, says that in his old job he wouldn't have held a fund-raiser
for a candidate. But, he adds, "I was in a different position.
I actually covered politics."
--Patty Wentz
400 Rubber Batons?
How much did
it cost to party like it was 1999? A half-million bucks almost
covered the bill in Portland.
As was well reported in late December, the city kicked
in $150,000 to help defray expenses at the Pioneer Courthouse
Square millennium party. But it didn't stop there.
According to police bureau records obtained by WW,
the millennium party cost the city an additional $126,285
in straight-time and overtime pay for police who were working
in the barricaded party area downtown.
On top of that, the bureau spent $231,369 in preparation
for Y2K. That amount includes everything that could be construed
as relating to Y2K: overtime pay for officers patrolling
away from the party zone as well as a checkup of the computer
systems.
While some local activists suspected that the cops might
use Y2K as an excuse to buy the latest in high-tech crime-fighting
vehicles, the police seemed to keep their shopping impulses
fairly well in check. According to bureau records, the bureau's
December purchases included basic party supplies: 100 rubber
grenades, 200 "stingball" grenades with pellets, 400 "low-energy"
rubber batons, 12 barricade penetrators and, of course,
15 grenade launchers. --Philip Dawdy
Murmurs
SCUTTLEBUTT
WITH AN EDGE
Only weeks after joining the high-tech ranks, Phil Keisling
maybe also be stepping backward towards his earlier
career in journalism. Keisling is mulling over an offer
to co-host a weekly talk show about education and related
topics on KPAM, Bob Pamplin's soon-to-be AM colossus. If
he takes the job, Keisling will team up with Rob Kremer,
head of the Oregon Education Coalition and one of the prime
movers in the local charter school movement.
If he signs on, Keisling won't be the only familiar voice
on KPAM. Longtime KEX radio reporters Bob Chase and
Bill Cooper have signed on with the news/talk station
and word is that KATU's Sheila Hamilton will be jumping
ship soon.
The new planetarium for New York's Museum of Natural History
just opened last Sunday but may already have a remodel in
store. The museum was designed to hold the 15-ton Willamette
Meteor, which was formerly a sacred icon for Oregon's
Grand Ronde tribe. Tribal leaders have filed for return
of the rock, and the museum has until Feb. 29 to shoot back
a response.
McElroy Field? Lynn Lashbrook's Portland Baseball
Group this week furthered its crusade to bring Major League
Baseball to town by hiring Game Plan LLC, a leading sports
deal maker. Lashbrook told WW that his group has
identified a potential eastside site for a new ball park:
the Portland Public Schools administration building. He's
serious enough to have made informal contacts with superintendent
Ben Canada and Eliot neighborhood activists about
that possibility.
This just in! The Oregon Fryer Commission (no, that's not
the group working to preserve capital punishment) reminds
us that Gov. John Kitzhaber has proclaimed March to be "Oregon
Grown Chicken Month." No word on when the guv plans
to honor Oregon's juvenile poultry.
Good news for Geminis: WW has a strong feeling that
astrologer and novelist Rob Brezsny will hit town
June 8. All signs point to Powell's bookstore on Hawthorne.
Local props:
*OPB's reception area is getting a few more bronze statues.
Executive producer Steve Amen won second-place honors
in the national Telly Awards for "Kids Who Kill: A Second
Chance," a documentary on three youths at MacLaren School,
and "The Missoula Floods," a program about a 17,000-year-old
ice-age flood that aired on Oregon Field Guide.
*Pink Martini was just nominated in France's Victoires
de la Musique awards for New Artist of the Year and Song
of the Year. The group will go to Paris on March 11 to perform
the song "Sympathique" at the awards ceremony.
.
Want
Some Cheese with That Whine?
It's that time of year again. Time to vent, grouse,
piss and moan. WW is gearing up for its annual Kvetchfest
and is looking for your local pet peeves. Here are some
guidelines:
1. Keep your bitchin' to 50 words or less.
2. Complaints should be specific to the Portland area.
3. Send e-mail to kvetch@wweek.com,
go postal at Kvetch, 822 SW 10th Ave., Portland, OR, 97205,
or fax us at 243-1115.
4. If we publish your entry we'll send you a $5 coupon
for Pasta Veloce.
P.S. Last year's Kvetches and readers' responses are available
online: Kvetchfest
'99.
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Willamette Week | originally
published February 23,
2000
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