News Here's one immediate effect of new city bureau assignments: Chinatown homeless camp Right 2 Dream Too has called off its very public feud with Commissioner Dan Saltzman. Mayor Charlie Hales announced on Monday that Amanda Fritz will be taking over Bureau of Development Services from Saltzman. A sign at the homeless camp at Northwest 4th Avenue and Burnside Street reading "COMMISSIONER DAN SALTZMAN ...   More

News A $25 million hole in the city budget isn't stopping Portland City Commissioners from seeking one-time funding for projects outside city bureaus. WW first reported yesterday that the city's budget shortfall doesn't include $6.4 million in one-time funds doled out by City Council last year. Mayor Charlie Hales has asked all 27 city bureaus to cut 10 percent out of their budget requests. The deadline ...   More

News This week's WW cover story on new Portland Mayor Charlie Hales takes a closer look at how most of the real deal-making in City Hall takes place in an improvised dance of one-on-one office meetings between commissioners and their staff.Those handshake deals have led to predictable results this winter: A wave of vicious head colds—coughing, followed by fever—has laid low dozens of City Hall staffers ...   More

Cover Story Portland Fire & Rescue’s newest ladder truck is one of the most sophisticated machines of its kind, a 78,000-pound, gleaming red...   More

News Rob Ingram, director of Portland's Office of Youth Violence Prevention under three City Commissioners, died today of a heart attack, according to a friend. He was 38. In that position, created under Mayor Tom Potter, Ingram played a key civilian role in the city's gang counter-recruitment efforts, supervising a team of outreach workers who met with "disconnected" youth around the city. A self-described ...   More

News Portland City Hall is taking steps that will likely accelerate a confrontation with the Occupy Portland camp one block away. ---Yesterday, the Bureau of Development Services, which is responsible for building code enforcement and answers to Commissioner Dan Saltzman, sent a notice of code violations to Portland Parks & Recreation, which is responsible for maintaining the land on which Occupy Portland ...   More

News Members of local civil rights organizations turned out by the dozens to support the proposed Portland Office of Equity at Wednesday night’s City Council meeting.In public testimony, advocates called out numerous areas of social and racial disparity in Portland, citing statistics and disparity studies as evidence of the city’s need to move forward with the ordinance.Supporters told the council that ...   More

News Last week's print edition of WW looked at 10 earmarks Mayor Sam Adams and city commissioners wanted in the mayor's upcoming budget. Today Adams unveiled his $400-plus million spending proposal for the fiscal year that starts July 1. Here are the winners and losers from among the 10 groups we highlighted last week.Winners:Oregon Food Bank: Adams upped Commissioner Randy Leonard's $75,000 request for ...   More

News The political musings of a local elected official about a federal lawmaker's future in Congress aren't automatically newsworthy.But having gone on the record today to say U.S. Rep. David Wu should not run again, Portland City Commissioner Dan Saltzman became the first, if not the only, local elected leader to openly criticize Wu.Saltzman, a fellow Democrat who lives in Wu's district, says he has no ...   More

News A seemingly mundane discussion today at Portland City Hall about bonds related to a $72.4 million fire-equipment measure morphed into a verbal tussle over the planned purchase of four emergency vehicles.Those four emergency vehicles were part of the ballot measure that city voters narrowly approved last year to beef up emergency-response infrastructure in Portland. But, as Commissioners Amanda Fritz ...   More