News UPDATE, 6:25 pm: Several procrastinating readers have alerted WW that the arts tax website—the city's preferred method of payment—has crashed. It could not handle the volume of people trying to pay on the last day before a promised $20 penalty.
"At this ...   More

News Last week, the Hon. Paul J. De Muniz, recently retired chief justice of the Oregon Supreme Court, strode into a state capitol hearing room to offer his legal opinion on a bill being debated by l   More

News As we enter the final week of the May election cycle, the big money continues to flow into the "yes" side of Measure 26-151, which calls for the fluoridation of Portland's water supply.Healthy Kids, Healthy Portland reported two contributions totaling $68,000 from the Dentists of Oregon PAC, bringing that group's total giving to the campaign to $98,000. The anti-fluoridation c...   More

News An Oregon State Bar panel has found (PDF) two prominent lawyers guilty of conflicts of interest and misrepresentation in a long-running case that dates to 2000.The three-member trial panel ruled that Barnes Ellis and Lois Rosenbaum violated Bar ethics rules governing conflic...   More

News The bulk commodities giant Kinder Morgan has announced it won't pursue a coal export terminal it hoped to build at Port Westward in Columbia County."Kinder Morgan’s terminal would have exported up to 30 million tons of Wyoming and Montana coal a year to Asia. The company projected its investment at $150 million to $200 million with 80 permanent jobs at the terminal," The Oreg...   More

News Workers at a downtown hotel owned and operated by Portland State University say they have faced extortion, lost wages to ghost employees and had their tips stolen by supervisors. IMAGE: Kurt Arm   More

News Two of the biggest supporters of Measure 26-151, which calls for the fluoridation of Portland's water supply have kicked in more cash to the Healthy Kids, Healthy Portland campaign.State filings for today show that the Northwest Health Foundation, the biggest contributor to the campaign, has given another $20,000, bringing its total to $235,000. The Dentists of Oregon PAC kick...   More

News The star-crossed, $35-per-head arts tax Portlanders approved last November continues to sow confusion in the populace. For the second time, the city is having to issue guidance about who should and should not have to pay the tax—and this time, it's offering a refund.Mayor Charlie Hales, whose exasperation with the flawed measure is obvious, announced this morning that the ci...   More

News Margaret Groening, the mother of the mother of Matt Groening, the Portlander who created of The Simpsons has died in Portland at age 94. The names of Margaret "Marge" Groening and her husband, Homer, who died in 1996, will live on forever as part of American culture, and in Simpsons reruns. (Although at least in the photo in her obit, Marge did not re...   More

News Mayor Charlie Hales clashed with firefighters when, as a city commissioner, he oversaw Portland Fire & Rescue in the late 1990s. Hales pushed hard for the bureau to diversify its hiring practices, which, to some degree, it has done.
Not surprisingly, when Hales ran for mayor last year, after a decade in the private sector, Firefighters Local 43 threw its support to his riv...   More