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The City of Portland has gone from thinking about a possible lawsuit against gun makers to actually hunting for ammunition. Two weeks ago the City Council told city lawyers to find out if a case could be based on Oregon's product-liability law. Roughly modeling their case after anti-tobacco lawsuits filed by 46 states, two cities have already launched legal battles against gun manufacturers ("Where There's Smoke, There's Firearms," WW, Dec. 2, 1998). Last month, the cities of Chicago and New Orleans filed complaints claiming that the proliferation of guns on their streets had cost taxpayers millions in police emergency services, police pensions and medical care. When it comes to legal details, however, the Chicago and New Orleans suits are as different as deep dish pizza and jambalaya. The Chicago suit is based on the city's strict gun-control laws and the fact that criminals can easily import guns bought in suburban stores. The New Orleans suit is based on product-liability law and alleges that guns are unreasonably dangerous in design because they fail to incorporate "smart gun" safety systems, such as personalized gun locks that would allow only the owner of a weapon to fire it. To better understand the double-barreled attack on gun makers, City Attorney Jeff Rogers and city lobbyist Marge Kafoury went to Chicago two weeks ago for a special briefing by the U.S. Conference of Mayors. It became clear, according to Kafoury, that Portland would have to follow New Orleans' lead because Portland doesn't have the extraordinary gun controls that drive the Chicago suit. New Orleans' suit doesn't list exact damages but says the city has been "obligated to pay...millions of dollars in the past to enhance police protection, emergency services, police pension benefits, medical care, facilities and services due to the threat of use of defendants' products." Kafoury says it's likely that Portland would file its own lawsuit rather than join a class action with other cities. Last week The New York Times reported that Bridgeport, Conn., Gary, Ind., Newark, Miami and Boston are likely to file suits, and other cities such as Philadelphia, Atlanta, San Francisco and Tampa are considering suits. Mayor Vera Katz says she'd rather not file a suit. Instead, Katz hopes the threat of multiple legal actions will coerce the gun industry back to the negotiating table. Gun industry representatives had been bargaining with mayors about ways they could make guns safer and harder for criminals to get. But when those negotiations stalled in the fall, the mayors in Chicago and New Orleans opened fire with their suits. --Bob Young Danger Signs
Shilo Inn: Every year traffic reporters lament what they call a "rapid slowdown" on the Sunset Highway from commuters overcome with wonder at Mark Hemstreet's seasonal eruption of excess at the hotel chain's headquarters. The solution: Move the display to the Portland International Airport where the lighted Santas, reindeer and other luminaries can guide the modern-day sleighs and welcome visitors to Portland. Portlandia: The lack of foresight in putting this eye-catching statue on a major downtown thoroughfare is dismaying. The trees blocking her partially clad front only make matters worse. Motorists on Madison Street can't help but crane their necks while trying to catch a glimpse of our city symbol. The solution: Mayor Vera Katz is right. Portlandia must be moved. Or at least the city seamstress should put a shirt on her. Mount Hood: When the weather is clear, the mountain glows. Sure it makes for a great postcard, but it's also a massive distraction for drivers on Interstate 5, the Banfield Freeway and Powell Boulevard. The solution: Paul Allen. We propose that the Microsoft mogul take the money he had set aside for his scuttled amphitheater and buy a Blazer Blimp to block out the view. He could also use it for traffic reports on his new radio station. El Sol: Every morning, it's the same old thing--the sun rises in the east. Most days in cloudy Portland this isn't a problem, but occasionally the orb blinds east-bound commuters. The solution: Density. If we just hold the line on the urban growth boundary and grow up instead of out, we'll eventually have a skyline tall enough to shade our light-sensitive eyes. Future CopsPleasing the citizenry nowadays is not only more difficult than it used to be for the Portland Police Bureau, it's also more expensive. The bureau has almost completed a $150,000 marketing-research project that it believes will help determine what Portland wants from its men and women in blue. The bureau's community policing efforts have now been in effect for 10 years. "We feel things are going well," says officer Steve Morrow, "but...an organization needs always to be open to doing some introspection." The bureau hired the Institute for Law and Justice to conduct focus groups--with participants including religious leaders, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, business leaders and others--to answer the simple question: Where should the Portland Police Bureau be in 20 years? The idea, says Morrow, who is organizing the effort, is to "pause, reflect and look forward to the future." But now that the bureau has almost completed its scheduled 38 focus groups, including one weekend-long retreat at Salishan Lodge, it's unclear how many new ideas have been generated. A preliminary report issued by the ILJ after the first round of focus groups--which included civilians and police employed by the bureau--was short on radical ideas. Most participants suggested things like hiring more officers, giving them better training in community policing and giving incentives to officers who do a good job. A few of the more unusual ideas--installing cameras on street corners and letting officers do DNA testing in their cars--had the ring of Big Brother. A focus group conducted in November with members of the local media didn't push the envelope, either. The journalists brilliant idea? Hire a spin doctor to give the bureau a better image--something the police union did earlier this year. --Maureen O'Hagan Cheers!It took four years, but Beaverton resident Paul Paz has finally been vindicated. Since 1994, Paz, head of the National Waiters Association, had waged a lonely and seemingly fruitless battle with the Oregon Liquor Control Commission. Paz was trying to get back money that individual alcohol servers overpaid to the commission. Each new bartender and waiter who serves alcohol in Oregon pays a $13 fee to the OLCC for server education. Servers must renew their training and pay the fee again, every five years. The money is used for a state-run program that teaches them about liquor laws. During the past four years, however, the server education fund has run at a surplus as high as $327,000. Along with other OLCC receipts, that surplus was plowed straight into
the Oregon general fund, which meant waiters--many of whom get paid
minimum wage--were subsidizing Paz was particularly miffed that the OLCC cut staffing in server education in 1994, citing budgetary constraints. Since then, Paz says, new servers have often received inadequate training or slipped by without attending classes at all. Paz badgered the OLCC with constant letters and phone calls suggesting that the surplus be returned to bartenders, or that fees be cut for the roughly 37,000 servers expected to pay them in the next biennium. He recently enlisted the aid of state Sen. Randy Miller and state Rep. Jane Lokan to try to resolve the overpayment. Finally, his persistence has paid off. Karen Gregory, administrator of the server education program, admits that the program did run up a surplus. She's not about to return any cash or cut the fees, but she says the program has recently increased staffing to four full-time employees from its low of one half-time employee. That's fine with Paz; he just wonders why it has taken so long. "I'm just really upset that the OLCC lied when they said they were cutting service because there was no money," he says. --Nigel Jaquiss Here Come the
Feds In the next few months, the City Council will consider whether to label a large chunk of residential North and Northeast Portland a drug-free zone. Such zones aren't new--Portland already has four. What makes this zone different from the rest is its sweeping scope. While the four existing zones each have a narrow geographic focus, the proposed zone includes parts of 13 neighborhoods, their characteristics ranging from open-air crack markets to manicured lawns. The proposed zone encompasses four square miles, nearly four times the next-largest zone, which includes Old Town and the downtown bus mall. A drug-free zone is a tool to target repeat drug offenders. When a person is arrested on drug charges in one of the zones, he is not only punished for the crime, but he is also excluded from the area for a year. If he's caught in the zone during the exclusion period, he's subject to search and arrest on criminal trespass charges. Without the zones, police have to wait until they have evidence of a crime before they can make an arrest. In the past, drug-free zones have been criticized by a vocal minority. There was some dissension in the Eliot Neighborhood Association, where the board chairperson cast a tie-breaking vote of support for the proposed zone. In general, though, the new zone has been winning the support of neighborhood groups. Deputy District Attorney Jim Hayden, who is in charge of the project, says the new zone is needed. "You have people that have been selling drugs in Northeast Portland from the same spots for years," he says. He believes that other zones have been effective. The one in Washington Park was so successful in combating marijuana dealing that the zone was later eliminated. In the Beech Street zone and the Alberta zone, drug arrests have declined. "The area is on the rise," he says. "Property values are going up. There are more businesses, more housing. Crime rates are going down. Is the drug-free zone responsible? Does it contribute? I think so." The zones certainly ensnare large numbers of offenders: 3,259 people were under current exclusion orders for the existing four zones as of Sept. 1. There are those, however, who worry about giving the police additional powers of arrest. "Certainly it would need to work very well to balance out the general loss of constitutional rights or freedoms," says Jon Kart, an Eliot board member who voted against the proposal. "It's easy to give them away and impossible to get them back. I think what needs to be done is [something] more labor-intensive, like neighborhood block watches." The issue will be discussed at the Chief's Forum, a twice-monthly public meeting, next Monday morning before moving toward City Council consideration. --Maureen O'Hagan correctionIn the "Rogue of the Week" column in our Dec. 16 issue, we should have identified Harlan Zeek as the owner of Economy Towing, and we should have said that it was Economy--while still under Zeek's control--that towed Jalil Shamsud-Din's car. WW regrets the error.
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