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Curtain CALLS
Portland Repertory Theater's biggest corporate donor is causing the theater a huge financial headache. Minneapolis-basedFirst Bank Systems, which bought US Bank last summer for $8.8 billion, is cutting off Portland Repertory Theater's estimated $200,000 line of credit. The theater traditionally relies on the loan to kick off the season, paying the money back with ongoing ticket sales. Theater backers say the timing of the bank's decision is odd. PRT, which struggled financially in recent years, seemed to be getting on track. The new management, which inherited a sizable debt, has reduced overhead by nearly $100,000 and had a profitable 1996-97 season. US Bank's decision has created a new fiscal crisis. In an emergency fund-raising letter to subscribers, PRT artistic director Dennis Bigelow warned theatergoers that "seemingly long-term financial obligations have become due much sooner than expected." The letter didn't name US Bank, whose $20,000 donation is the theater's largest corporate contribution, but bank officials confirmed that they cut off the credit line. "We are exploring other vehicles to address the theater's changing financial needs," says Craig Christenson, a senior VP at US Bank. "Providing a lines of credit isn't the only way to help the theater." But Christenson, a PRT board member, wouldn't explain why the bank was canceling the line of credit. Theater officials were similarly mum to WW, although a longtime PRT subscriber from Lake Oswego says a theater spokesperson told him "the theater had a close relationship with US Bank's local people, but the big boys back in Minneapolis just looked at the financials and decided this was something they no longer wanted to do." --JF |
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RAIL TALES
When The Oregonian reported last week that rival Latino gangs are battling to claim the westside light rail as their turf, phones in the Portland Police Bureau's Gang Unit started ringing. If the report was true, why wasn't the bureau's Gang Enforcement Team on top of it? There is little doubt that Latino gangs are active in Washington County. What has disturbed residents and police alike, however, is The Oregonian's leap in logic to a theory that rival gangs, including some Portland-based groups, are fighting for the right to sell drugs along the westside light-rail line when service begins in late 1998. "It's a preposterous idea that gangs would take over and that they would be fighting for control a year before the line opens," says Portland Police Officer Rafael J. Cancio, president of the Northwest Gang Investigators Association. "What's there to gain?" Cancio, considered a West Coast expert on Latino gangs, says he doubts gang members are concerned about claiming the new rail line as turf. For starters, he says, there are plenty of other ways into Washington County aside from light rail--methods gangsters are already using quite successfully. Second, the logistics of a MAX takeover defy logic: "You would have to put a member of the organization on every car to make sure you had control," he says. Finally, Cancio says, few gangsters would commit a crime, then wait 10 or 15 minutes on a platform for the next train to arrive before they could make their getaway. Gangs haven't taken over eastside light rail, according to Cancio, nor have they even tried. Oregonian reporter Holly Danks did not return WW's calls. Washington County Sheriff's Sgt. John Landon, who has been with the gang unit for eight months, says he thought the story--which relied heavily on an unnamed source--painted an alarmist picture, but he didn't call The Oregonian to complain. "My hope is that the article would make people aware that we are having an increase in gang activity," he says. If so, the timing couldn't have been better. The Washington County Sheriff's department has a $22.5 million, five-year tax levy on the November ballot. If it isn't approved, the department might have to reduce gang enforcement, according to the measure's explanatory statement. The county sent out a press release Thursday urging voters to come to the polls in support of the measure, which needs a 50 percent turnout rate to pass. Landon, however, denies that his department pushed the gangs-on-light rail story. "That's absolutely not true," he says. According to Landon, when Danks told him about her theory, his response was, "It's news to me." --MO |
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Green Banking
If you visit Portland's first environmental bank, don't ask about free checking or car loans--even for an electric car. ShoreBank Pacific's sole function is to lend some $14 million to sustainable or socially conscious business ventures. Possible loan recipients might be a building owner installing energy-efficient heating, a factory switching over to cleaner technology or a nonprofit retirement home. ShoreBank Pacific, which opened a Portland loan office last week, will also try to connect urban dwellers to rural products. For example, the bank might loan a Portland grocery store money to market seafood or cranberries harvested sustainably in Willapa Bay, Wash. But lender Nancy Wilkin doesn't want the bank to get pigeon-holed. "I don't think we know the realm of possibilities yet," Wilkin says. "We're anxious to start talking to people." ShoreBank Pacific is a subsidiary of ShoreBank Corp., a Chicago-based bank founded in 1972 to revitalize inner-city neighborhoods. The Pacific version has the same basic structure--a holding company with a venture-capital fund, a for-profit bank and a nonprofit community-development group. That structure allows the company to subsidize risky ventures by earning money through more traditional loans. ShoreBank Pacific's main branch is based in Ilwaco, Wash., a rural area that Ecotrust, the bank's partner, has targeted for help. Another loan office will open soon in Seattle. The new loan office in Portland, located on Northwest Front Street, belongs to the for-profit bank. Its deposits are federally insured, and while it strives to do good, its bottom line is the dollar. "We become profitable by making good loans," says Wilkin. To learn about EcoDeposits, the bank's CDs, call the Ilwaco branch at 888-ECO-BANK. To apply for a loan in Portland, call Nancy Wilkin or John Haines at 916-1552. --EM |
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HEIST and RUN
Both sides in the debate over physician-assisted suicide have accused the other of lies, chicanery and hyperbole. Now add one more to that list of sins--thievery. Scores of "Yes on 51" signs have disappeared from Northwest Portland in the past two weeks, says Heather Kmetz, a spokeswoman for Catholic Charities. Kmetz says someone entered her fenced yard and nabbed a sign--and, she says, seven co-workers have reported similar thefts. "I have always considered Northwest Portland to be one of the most open neighborhoods in Portland," says Kmetz. "Personal property is supposed to be a place where people can speak their minds. I'm appalled that someone has quashed my voice." Supporters of physician-assisted suicide say they don't know who's taking the signs, or why Northwest Portland seems particularly hard hit. "We have no way of controlling it," says Oregon Right to Die staffer Kelli Watanabe, adding that a few "No on 51" signs have disappeared, too. Veteran political consultant Julie Williamson says trashing campaign signs is nothing new in Stumptown. "Signs always get stolen," says Williamson. She concedes, however, that strong feelings about the Legislature's decision to send the measure back to voters may have made the signs a particularly enticing target for opponents. "I think a lot of people are angry it was referred," she says. Kmetz has been urging pro-51 supporters to replace the pilfered placards. "The timing couldn't be worse," she says. "The signs disappeared just as the ballots arrived. People are voting now." --EM |
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Less Than Zero
Wondering what the UGB expansion means to you? Not much, according to one of Portland's leading real-estate analysts. The 4,500-acre expansion of the urban growth boundary approved by Metro last week will neither cause the economic downturn predicted by Councilor Don Morissette nor alleviate rising costs of housing, says Jerry Johnson of Hobson Johnson & Associates, a Portland firm that analyzes real-estate economics for banks, developers and government agencies. "The amount approved is inconsequential and will have a negligible impact on the area's real-estate markets," says Johnson. When Morissette--who wanted a 10,000-acre expansion--predicted that the council's decision would cause an economic slump within three years, Johnson says he laughed. "That's a safe prediction. The economy is cyclical and we're going to have a downturn sometime within five years," he says. "But in and of itself, the expansion is an irrelevancy." Johnson says the idea that 4,500 acres of land will slow housing costs is just as misguided. Median home prices have been increasing 9 percent a year since 1987 in the metro Portland area, he says, and a little additional land supply will not slow that trend. Johnson does acknowledge that there may be other benefits and drawbacks to the 4,500-acre expansion. It may well protect farm land and bolster inner-city neighborhoods, he says; it may also cause lower-middle-class people to move further away from Portland in search of affordable homes, which would increase the distance of their commutes and the amount of pollution they create. "There are a billion positions, and they're probably all valid in their own way," Johnson says. But when it comes to its impact on the real-estate market, he says the expansion "doesn't do a damn thing." --BY |
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Go Postal!
Listed below are WW's recommendations for the vote-by-mail election. If you'd like to see our complete endorsements, stop by our office and pick up a free copy of our endorsement issue or visit our Web site (www. wweek.com), where you can also read the full text of the infamous Dutch study on doctor-assisted suicide. Measure 51: NO Repeals doctor-assisted suicide law Measure 52: YES Authorizes lottery-backed school bonds Measure 26-58: YES Raises taxes to pay for expanded library services Measure 26-59: YES Boosts vehicle registration fees to pay for road improvements Measure 26-60: YES Increases pet licenses fees to support county's animal control office Measure 26-61: YES Raises land-use fees to cover cost of county's planning office |
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