City Hall A new audit questions recent decisions by the Portland City Council to spend funds collected from water and sewer users on city programs    More

News City Auditor Lavonne Griffin-Valade has taken on a controversial topic a few weeks into her term: investigating Taser use by the Portland Police Bureau. Griffin-Valade tells WW she kicked off the audit Monday with a conference in Police Chief Rosie Sizer's office among Sizer, city audit staff, and Leslie Stevens, director of accountability and professional standards at the Police Bureau. The ...   More

News With a 5-0 vote, City Council tonight approved the new ordinance from Commissioner Randy Leonard and Auditor LaVonne Griffin-Valade on strengthening police oversight. That decision followed more than three hours of impassioned public testimony and came after Police Chief Rosie Sizer voiced some objections to details of the measure, including its call to make the city auditor (rather than ...   More

News City of Portland Auditor LaVonne Griffin-Valade today issued a status report on Mayor Sam Adams' 2009 stimulus plan designed to fast-track $500 million in local spending and create 4,985 jobs. Her conclusion? That last part of fewer jobs than expected didn't surprise Portland auditors. "Those are not Portland problems," says Drummond Kahn, director of the city's Audit Services Division. ...   More

News City Council this morning voted unanimously 3-0 to approve the 19 members of Portland's new Police Review Board, one outcome of last winter's successful but arduous police-oversight reforms. Neither Mayor Sam Adams nor Commissioner Nick Fish attended today's meeting. Both are on vacation. But all three of the remaining commissioners waxed poetic about the significance of the change, none more ...   More