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WINNERS 1. There's nothing like being found honest by a jury of your peers. Last week, University of Oregon president Dave Frohnmayer (who served as Oregon's attorney general for 10 years) was chosen by the National Association of Attorneys General to lead a three-member panel that will decide how to divvy up $8.6 billion of the $206 billion multi-state tobacco settlement. 2. Local abortion doctors won again last week when U.S. District Judge Robert E. Jones issued an injunction barring anti-abortion activists from threatening them in the future. The doctors had already taken round one with a $109 million judgment following a lengthy jury trial. Still, the doctors are unlikely to see any money--or even much tactical change--from the protesters, who have other ways of getting their message out. 3. The city may have failed in its court attempt to block electronic billboards, but Mayor Vera Katz still has the bully pulpit. The mayor recently appealed directly to advertisers, which include United Way and Coliseum Ford, to stop paying to have their messages flashed at passing motorists. According to Katz, Shilo Inns has already jerked its ads. |
LOSERS 1. Portland city officials who have been working for years on a comprehensive approach to dealing with the Endangered Species Act got dissed big time last week when Gov. John Kitzhaber insisted that city slickers will have do their share to save Willamette River salmon. The guv, speaking at a timber conference, failed to note that agricultural runoff and stream-bank destruction mess up the river long before it crosses the city line. 2. After 70 years of digging up rocks in the middle of the city with barely any criticism, Ross Island Sand & Gravel now faces strong opposition to its operation. State Rep. Randy "Bulldog" Leonard rallied environmental critics at a public meeting last week, making it clear he wants the place shut down. 3. Impoverished transsexuals failed in their bid to get the Oregon Health Plan to pay for sex-change surgery. A state panel ruled there was no evidence that the Big Snip--or, for that matter, the Big Addition--actually makes for happier gender-benders.
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Willamette Week | originally
published March 3,
1999