The Portland Development Commission is on the hot seat over its plan to give away a prime downtown property to developer Trammell Crow (see "A Suite Deal," WW, June 14, 2006). Low-income housing advocate Sam Chase says the PDC's affordable-housing rationale for providing a $1.7 million subsidy is bogus because the supposed beneficiaries aren't poor. Meanwhile, City Commissioner Randy Leonard, who grilled PDC director Bruce Warner via email about the project last week, has drafted a resolution demanding an independent audit of the deal. "I think this transaction smells," Leonard says.

Multnomah County's commissioners are scheduled to vote this Thursday, June 22, on a $120,000 settlement of a $200,000 lawsuit filed by the family of a man who was beaten to death in the county jail last June (Winners and Losers, WW, Sept. 21, 2005). Dennis Saban, who had turned himself in on drug charges, was attacked by his cellmate, Thomas Gordon, a murder suspect with a history of violent outbursts behind bars. Saban family attorney Greg Kafoury notes that Oregon's tort claims law caps claims against municipalities, a limit he says represents "one reason why our jail conditions are so disgraceful."

Meantime, another intriguing settlement agreement also is scheduled for a county board vote Thursday. But County Attorney Agnes Sowle says terms of that deal-to-be with finance director Dave Boyer (Rogue of the Week, WW, March 29, 2006) won't be public until after the vote because negotiations with Boyer are considered "ongoing." Boyer announced in March he was resigning, saying Chairwoman Diane Linn had asked him to misrepresent budget info. He then withdrew his resignation and made a request—odd for someone leaving of his own accord— for a $140,000 severance package.

Team Kulongoski has reached down south for a new campaign manager: The re-election campaign for the Democratic guv has snagged Jim Ross, a veteran San Francisco political consultant who most notably ran San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom's successful 2003 campaign; a year later, he also ran a campaign to defeat a business-tax increase Newsom backed.

Local Catholic leaders may need to pick their legislative battles more carefully next year. The Archdiocese of Portland has decided, as part of $1.9 million in budget cuts, not to fill the vacancy left by Robert Castagna's departure. Castagna is moving to Chicago for personal reasons after 21 years as executive director of the Oregon Catholic Conference, a position that made him a fixture during legislative sessions on everything from assisted suicide to consumer protection. Archdiocese spokesman Bud Bunce says private lobbyists may instead be hired on an issue-by-issue basis.

Portland State University administrators aren't laughing at Dog Bites Man, Comedy Central's often-hilarious mockumentary show features a fake local news team interacting with unwitting participants. When PSU discovered recently that its faculty and students were among the unwitting, school officials demanded all PSU segments be yanked. Oregon Attorney General spokeswoman Stephanie Soden says the fake newsies led a "wildly offensive" discussion in a PSU media class, providing such advice as, "If you want to do a story on gas prices, get a picture of a person in a turban on camera."

WW's Nigel Jaquiss won top honors last week for investigative reporting among the nation's large alternative newsweeklies. The award announced last week at the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies' annual convention came for Jaquiss' work in 2005 on the sale of Portland General Electric, which the contest judges called "dogged reporting."

WEB-ONLY MURMURS:

Multnomah County Democratic Party Chairman Gavin White may have upgraded staff, raised a lot of money ($40,000) and put in upwards of 60 hours some weeks since taking over the often-fractious organization nine months ago. But the local Dems effectively put a target on White's back when they snubbed incumbent Gov. Ted Kulongoski and endorsed both Jim Hill and Pete Sorenson in the May 16 gubernatorial primary. The result: Party insiders have dragged ex-county commissioner and current state Rep. Gary Hansen out of retirement to run against White in this week's election for county party chair. Says Hansen, "Ted carried the county overwhelmingly, and that tells you the people who endorsed Hill and Sorenson are out of sync with the party. "

One thousand down, 14,000 to go for the Oregon Bus Project's Building Votes effort. The nonprofit, which is targeting voters between the ages of 18 and 29, registered its 1,000th new young voter last Friday. And organizers say they're on track to register and turn out 15,000 new young voters in time for the November election. "Voter turnout in the May primary was abysmal by voters of all ages," says Anna Galland, director of the Building Votes program. "We're working hard to make young voters an electoral force in November." New voter No. 1,000 was registered last Friday in front of PGE Park just before the Portland Beavers baseball game. If you're keeping score at home, that new voter is Kendra Crump, 22, of Southeast Portland. For more information or to get involved, contact Building Votes at 233-3018 or go to buildingvotes.org.

Oh, those selfish cyclists wanting their own trail along the Willamette River. Portland's bicyclists have been in a fight since April with SK Northwest over a site permit sought by the sports-products company along the river. SK Northwest wants to use its riverfront property at the foot of Southeast Division Place to store, sell and service its vehicles and boats, but won't build the required public-access trail for cyclists and pedestrians. On June 9, the city Bureau of Development Services sided with the cyclists and denied a site permit to SK Northwest. Company rep Peter Fry asks, "Can the public force a marine-industrial operation to build a trail?" Well...yes, it can. According to Kate Green, the city planner who handled the decision, the city received 127 comments about the application. All but two were in opposition to SK Northwest's site proposal. An appeal by SK Northwest is scheduled for July 12.