Where Life Imitates Art.

By WW Editorial Staff


  1. Former Portland Police Chief Derrick Foxworth has gone the way of many retired cops (think what Bunny Colvin hoped to do at Johns Hopkins on The Wire) and taken a plum job with Portland Community College campus security, far from the stress of city policing. PCC spokesman Dana Haynes confirms the ex-chief last week was offered a job at a to-be-determined salary as No. 2 in charge of security at all three PCC campuses. “I’m really happy about it,” says Foxworth, who was demoted from chief in 2006 after details of an affair went public. “I’m looking forward to the new challenge. ”
  2. Fallout from the case of a former youth counselor sentenced to six-plus years for holding the back of a 13-year-old boy’s head to her clothed chest (see “A Brush with Measure 11,” WW, Feb. 20, 2008) has landed in the Legislature. With ex-counselor Veronica Rodriguez in mind, state Rep. Chip Shields (D-North Portland) is pushing Senate Bill 296, which would require courts to inform juries about mandatory minimums before they deliberate. Predictably, the Oregon District Attorneys Association plans to speak against the bill at a hearing Wednesday, April 8, in Salem.
  3. WW cover boy Morgan, the “illegal Canuck” (see “He’s an…Illegal Eh-lien,” WW, Feb. 20, 2008), is moving back to Canada after seven years in Portland. The reason? The recession, which in recent months has driven down his weekly hours working construction from 40 to 12. “Work has dried up so bad it has become close to impossible for me,” says Morgan, who agreed to let WW publish his real first name and photo, but not last name because of his immigration violations. The 28-year-old native of British Columbia plans to leave next month (just in time to renew his Canadian driver’s license).
  4. As Mayor Sam Adams pushes ahead against some business opposition on his plan to put a minor-league baseball stadium in the Rose Quarter (see “Goal Rush,” ), he faces resistance from a second group of industry insiders on another publicly funded inner-eastside project with a tight timeline. The publicly subsidized “headquarters hotel” proposal to put 600 new hotel rooms next to the Oregon Convention Center has an April 18 deadline to either advance to a $12 million design process or stop altogether. Earlier this month, Adams got a letter from the Tri-County Lodging Association, a group of hotel owners with major questions about the project’s financial feasibility. Adams spokesman Roy Kaufmann didn’t respond to Murmurs’ request for comment.
  1. WIN BIG PRIZES! The New York Times recently asked readers to take photos to capture recession images that tell stories beyond numbers like the unemployment rate. We were so taken with the results (check them out under “Picturing the Recession” at nytimes.com), we’re imitating the Gray Lady’s efforts with a new photo contest called Shuttered Portland. Go to http://wweek.com/shuttered to learn how to submit a photo or record a message on how the recession is affecting you. All submissions will appear online at wweek.com with the best entries in the newspaper and winning prizes. The deadline? April 15, tax day.
  2. More changes at The Oregonian in the wake of the paper’s announcement last month to cut pay and require staffers to take unpaid furloughs. Fifteen part-timers and four full-timers have decided to leave the daily. Among the most notable names saying bye-bye are political reporter Ed Walsh and award-winning reporter Michelle Roberts, who’s moving to St. Louis, where she plans to write a book while freelancing. And—as first reported on ex-WW columnist Byron Beck’s blog—suburban reporter Peter Zuckerman and fashion reporter Vivian McInerny are leaving. Zuckerman is going to spend at least the next 18 months on a globe-trotting book project. Readers may also know Zuckerman as Mayor Sam Adams’ boyfriend.
  3. Beware, healthcare evil-doers. Diane Lund-Muzikant, who co-founded Oregon Health News before her unceremonious departure in 2006 (see “Surgical Strike,” WW, Nov. 1, 2006), is back on the trail of overpaid hospital execs and the excesses of Big Pharma. With the help of $13,000-plus in donations, the veteran healthcare investigator has launched the lundreport.org to break news on health care—a bookmark-worthy site given reform efforts underway in the Oregon Legislature and Congress.

WWeek 2015

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