CRACKS
IN THE THIN BLUE LINE
Everyone's heard about the "code of silence" in which police
can speak no ill of each other. Now Portland gets to watch
it in action.
On May 10, after the controversy over the police handling
of the May Day protest, union official Tom Mack was quoted
critiquing aspects of the Police Bureau's response. Now
he finds himself targeted for recall by some of his own
members, who are circulating a petition accusing him of
"reckless and unjustifiable comments to the media" and other
alleged misdeeds.
Mack was quoted in The Oregonian and WW saying
that some officers did not appear to be reacting the way
they were trained to deal with crowd control. The Oregonian
article attributed his statements to "the union," although
Mack says some of his comments were spoken on his own behalf.
In an interview for WW's May 10 story, Mack stressed
that he was speaking out because he feared officers featured
in news footage might face excessive discipline when, in
his view, the problems appeared to stem from a lack of leadership
and training.
"I don't believe that I've tarnished the image of our membership,"
Mack told WW earlier this week. "I'm a zealot when
it comes to protecting the police and watching over them.
Members should know that about me, after all the years that
I've been doing this."
Supporters of the petition reportedly include officers
Lori Sharp, Liz Cruthers and Sgt. Doug Justus, a PPA board
member. Cruthers and Justus did not return calls. Sharp
declined comment, but in a recent letter to the union newspaper,
she accused Mack of being overly negative and of placing
his own agenda above the union's.
Mack says that overall the police handled May Day "pretty
well." But the petition says the quotes that appeared in
print gave credibility to police critics. The petition also
says Mack could be called as an expert witness in lawsuits
against officers.
This view was dismissed by Mack ally Jim McCausland, another
board member, who said, "I don't think he pointed out anything
that wasn't obvious if you saw the videos."
McCausland worries that the recall sends the wrong message
to the public--that members did something wrong and the
union is covering up for them.
The recall requires signatures of one-third of the members
who voted in the last union election. If the petition gets
enough signatures (roughly 250), it will force a special
election. The squabble comes at a time when Mack plans to
challenge incumbent Greg Pluchos for the PPA presidency
in October.
Pluchos declined to comment. "This is an internal matter,"
he says. "I'm not going to second-guess my members that
have decided to exercise their constitutional right."
--Nick Budnick
May
Day Fallout
City Hall isn't exactly filled with hotheads. But in the
two weeks since the police crackdown on the May Day March,
a chorus of "we're not going to get used to it" has echoed
throughout the building's marble-columned halls.
The backlash was predictable.
On May 2, mayor and police commissioner Vera Katz said
police had performed admirably during the previous day.
That view ran counter to what anyone saw on the streets
or the evening news.
Almost immediately, commissioners Erik Sten and Charlie
Hales publicly criticized Katz's blanket endorsement, creating
a serious political problem for the mayor.
The first sign that she was backtracking came in a May
10 memo to city commissioners in which she said she was
pressing police to account for their tactics and the breakdown
in communications in the bureau's "after-action" report,
which is due to the council within the next three weeks.
Some saw the memo as an admission that Katz knows mistakes
were made.
The memo, however, wasn't enough. On May 11, Sten wrote
the mayor and argued that the City Council had to review
evidence other than the police's report to be credible with
the public. "Policy makers need to step up to the plate,"
Sten told WW.
Hales is ready to take a swing. "The more I ponder May
Day, the more concerned I am," he says. "It's not just going
to go away."
Commissioners Dan Saltzman and Jim Francesconi are being
more careful, saying they don't want to prejudge the cops
until they see the report, but both are leaving themselves
an opening to up the ante. Saltzman says if he's not satisfied
he'll demand further inquiry.
Francesconi, meanwhile, is using May Day to raise the issue
of reforming the city's citizen police-review panel, which
two citizen groups are pressing for.
Katz is clearly frustrated, in her dispassionate public
way, with how May Day was handled. In an interview with
WW, she emphasized her concern over use of beanbag
shotguns for crowd control. "I have clearly flagged that
as an issue," she said, her tone and words miles from where
they were just two weeks before.
--Philip Dawdy
Bored
meeting? Don't bet on it.
School board meetings seldom promise much drama, but Portland's
May 22 proceedings will be different. Members of the Education
Crisis Team, a rapidly expanding coalition of minority and
low-income activists, have vowed to disrupt the board's
scheduled business.
"They'll try to have a meeting, but we're not going to
let them," says Tony Hopson, CEO of Self-Enhancement Inc.
and a Crisis Team leader. Hopson and Ron Herndon promised
that next Monday's demonstration will be only the beginning
of a series of actions.
At a press conference Tuesday, Hopson and Herndon brought
out more than a dozen representatives of additional organizations
that are backing Crisis Team's demands.
More than a month ago, the organization presented Superintendent
Ben Canada with specific remedies to lagging minority achievement;
Canada responded that his hands were tied pending completion
of the district's strategic planning process.
Hammering away at the district's shortcomings, Herndon rejected
the notion that parents are equally culpable for lousy results.
"This system always blames the victim," he says. "That's inaccurate
and insulting."
--Nigel Jaquiss
Vera
vs. The Mailman
Every two years we're reminded of a big pitfall of publishing
on Wednesdays: Ballots are counted on Tuesday night.
This year, to make matters worse, the Blazers will most likely
advance to the Western Conference finals while our paper is
being printed. In an effort to get in on some of the fun,
we polled some local pols and pundits and asked them to predict
the outcome of two of tonight's big contests: The race between
veteran Mayor Vera Katz and upstart challenger Jake Oken-Berg
and the game between the veteran Utah Jazz and the surging
Portland Trail Blazers. Here's what they said.
| Expert |
Vera
|
Jake |
Blazers |
Jazz |
MARC WIENER
M&R CONSULTANTS
|
64% |
15% |
103 pts |
92 pts |
|
KEN BODDIE
KOIN-TV
|
65 |
30 |
97 |
85 |
RICH RODGERS
ERIK STEN AIDE |
65 |
23 |
104 |
89 |
STEVE DUIN
THE OREGONIAN |
58 |
28 |
98 |
88 |
DIANE LINN
COUNTY COMMISSIONER |
73 |
17 |
97 |
92 |
JULIE WILLIAMSON
CONSULTANT |
64 |
23 |
98 |
90 |
DWIGHT JAYNES
KPAM |
55 |
15 |
99 |
77 |
REBECCA
107.5 THE BEAT |
52 |
30 |
96 |
86 |
JON CHANDLER
LOBBYIST FOR THE
DARK SIDE (DEVELOPERS) |
55 |
23 |
105 |
87 |
Murmurs
Hearsay and Idol Gossip
Itchy Feet? Murmurs hears that Oregon Ballet Theatre artistic
director James Canfield is on a monthlong sabbatical--which
is odd, considering that the ballet is still in season and
is poised to move its digs to Portland's east side. Far
from being the time to take a breather, wouldn't this be
the month to put in the major OT at the OBT? Ballet officials
concede that this is the first time Canfield has taken a
break during the season, but they insist that nothing is
amiss: The "well-deserved" hiatus is possible, they say,
because Canfield's own work is not included in the ballet's
upcoming performances.
State Sen. Avel Gordly blasted the Portland School
Board last week for ignoring the Education Crisis Team,
a group of minority activists who demanded a response from
the board to their proposals for improving minority achievement.
"That lack of reference or comment was amazingly disrespectful,"
Gordly wrote in a May 11 letter to the board.
Delectable irony: At least Al Gore's staffers were
willing to take a stand on salmon during His Woodenness'
recent swing through Portland. They proclaimed it delicious
after enjoying the icon of the Northwest during their catered
lunch at Portland Community College last Friday.
Good news for women with multiple sclerosis: Researchers
on Pill Hill demonstrated that a combination of estrogen
and a Made-in-Oregon vaccine known as TCR completely blocked
nerve deterioration in female mice. Neurologist Halina Offner
and microbiologist Arthur Vandenbark published their results
in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
The local chapter of the League of Women Voters
is throwing its weight behind the NAACP's campaign for police
accountability. The league will call for the City Council
to hold public hearings on the issue of reforming the city's
wheezing watchdog agency, the Police Internal Investigations
Auditing Committee.
Outraged residents in the Richmond neighborhood say it's
a shitty deal; so do officials at Cleveland High
School who are cutting off canine access to the school's
playing fields May 26. The fields, located at Southeast
33rd Avenue and Powell Boulevard, are among the few open
spaces in the neighborhood, but officials say kids shouldn't
have to cut through so much crap while recreating.
Truth in fund-raising: Throughout the primary election,
the tort reformers supporting Measure 81 boasted
that they would amass a hefty war chest of $3 million. But
as of April 6, Yes on 81 had raised just $700,000. One possible
motive for the campaign to exaggerate its support was to
placate donors reluctant to throw good money after bad.
Says one consultant, "If I were a contributor to that campaign,
I'd be looking for someone to sue."
Downtown retail giant Nordstrom has dropped a hallmark
of its business philosophy, the "At Your Service" retail
concierge, which for many years was the only retail concierge
in town. From validating parking slips to making reservations
at Jake's, the Nordstrom concierge was endowed with the
same magic powers possessed by hotel counterparts. The service
will continue to make an appearance during big sales and
at Christmastime.
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