Skip to main contentWant to report to nearly 20,000 of Portland's most influential people? The Multnomah Athletic Club needs a new general manager after Steven Tidrick, who'd been with the MAC for 21 years, resigned abruptly last week over "philosophical differences with the board." Tidrick and club president Dan McNeil both declined to comment. But one of the 20,000, financial adviser Bill Parish, says, "The abruptness of this change one week before the annual meeting clearly warrants a full accounting by the board to members like myself who greatly appreciated Steve's fine work.''
U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) has earned a bad name in the geekosphere for draft legislation he's circulating. Smith's proposal would "limit the unauthorized copying and indiscriminate redistribution of digital audio and video broadcast content over digital networks." But he Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit group that lobbies and litigates on behalf of free speech, says there "never would have been a VCR," TiVo or iPod" if the idea had been law previously. Opponents also note that Smith has received $50,000 in the 2006 fundraising cycle (when he's not even up for re-election) from a major beneficiary of the proposal, the entertainment industry. That ranks him 12th among the 535 members of Congress.
And here come the lawsuits. Less than a week after news surfaced that 365,000 Providence Health Systems patients' records were stolen from a hospital employee's car in December see Winners & Losers, page 7), one of those patients filed suit Tuesday in Multnomah County Circuit Court. Laurie Paul's lawsuit contends the hospital should be on the hook for protecting patient identities, paying to monitor the affected patients' credit reports and to fix any compromised reports. The suit seeks to be a class action on behalf of everyone whose Social Security numbers and other confidential records were nabbed.
Wild Oats Market will close its Southeast Division Street location on Feb. 18. The store at 30th Avenue was the original Nature's and one of eight in that local chain to be gobbled up in 1999 by Boulder, Colo.-based Wild Oats. Employees disgruntled with the takeover then started New Seasons, opening a site just 10 blocks away from Wild Oats in 2004. Wild Oats spokeswoman Sonja Tuitele insists Friday's closure announcement isn't a byproduct of that New Seasons competitor down the street. Tuitele says the chain prefers larger stores than the 21,000-square-foot site on Division and that about a dozen of the store's 46 employees have been relocated.
Tre Arrow's small chance of getting the Canadian justice minister to refuse a U.S. demand for his extradition is shrinking. Why? Because Canadians last week elected a more conservative government with a "law and order" agenda that's even less likely to be sympathetic to Arrow. The FBI wants Arrow back in Oregon to stand trial in connection with a pair of arsons that caused $260,000 in damage to logging and cement trucks. A B.C. Supreme Court ruled last year that Arrow could be extradited. Arrow appealed the decision to the justice minister, but history shows those extradition appeals have very rarely succeeded. The new minister's ruling is due by April 4.
Who says Portland isn't kid-friendly? According to the upcoming issue of Fit Pregnancy magazine, Portland is America's Best City to Have a Baby. Some of the bun-in-the-oven mag's numbers: Portland has the second-highest percentage (88) of mothers who try breastfeeding and also scores high for the percentage (27) of moms who nurse six months or longer, as recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics.
WEB-ONLY MURMURS!
The Multnomah County District Attorney's Office won't appeal a circuit-court ruling in December that validated a novel new defense for suspects who run from police ("Running Free," WW, Jan. 4, 2006). That December ruling by Judge Jan Wyers concluded that charging fleeing suspects with escape in the third degree violates the Oregon Constitution. If prosecutors had appealed Wyers' ruling and lost, it would have set a statewide precedent costing police the authority to charge fleeing suspects. But defense lawyer Bear Wilner-Nugent, who successfully argued the case before Wyers, says the decision will inspire similar arguments from others that could one day take it to a higher court.
And now some bad health news. Children First for Oregon released statewide numbers Tuesday that show 19 percent of eighth-graders in Multnomah County are overweight or at risk of being overweight. And while that's better than the state rate of 24 percent, it's nothing we should celebrate with cake and ice cream. "This generation will be the first to be less healthy and have a shorter life expectancy than their parents" because of the child obesity epidemic, says Robin Christian, executive director of the nonprofit children's advocacy group. The report calls for schools to help improve students' health by not selling them junk food and increasing physical-education requirements.
If you're mad about TriMet recently raising your fare by 15 cents, perhaps you can toss some ire Richard Barnett's way. The 41-year-old money-room worker counted riders' change and bills—until he got caught pocketing some of them in August. Barnett pleaded guilty in October to theft and must now repay $20,000 to TriMet, serve 30 days in jail and spend the next five years on probation, according to a Jan. 19 sentencing report. Court records say TriMet officials believe Barnett stole even more money but couldn't provide an exact amount.
WWeek 2015