News Laura Young says it’s about time someone at City Hall gets serious about paving Portland’s dirt roads. She lives in the Cully neighborhood, where 10 percent of city streets look like mud wallo   More

News Turns out citizens aren't just willing to vote for a Portland Arts Tax. Given enough time, they'll pay it, too. More than 248,000 Portland residents have paid the $35-a-person tax after two deadline extensions, paying the city $7.6 million, according to Mayor Charlie Hales's office.Those numbers are estimated, says Hales spokesman Dana Haynes, because the city's revenue bureau is still counting about ...   More

News Facing a barrage of criticism, Mayor Charlie Hales called Multnomah County Commissioner Loretta Smith tonight to apologize for suggestive remarks and gestures made toward her by one of his top aides at a Thursday night event.But Hales made no promises of what actions he would take regarding Baruti Atharee, one of the most prominent African-American officials in the city.As WW first reported Sunday ...   More

News A top aide to Mayor Charlie Hales is under fire for suggestive remarks and gestures he allegedly made toward Multnomah County Commissioner Loretta Smith at a Thursday night event.WW has learned the aide, Baruti Artharee, 60, and about 40 others gathered Thursday at the Quartet Restaurant at Riverplace. The purpose of the event, which was arranged by Bernie Foster, the publisher of The Skanner newspaper, ...   More

News A 15-year-old Beaverton girl jumped to her death from the Vista Bridge yesterday, the latest in a string of well-documented suicides on the historic bridge.City leaders have come up with a plan that would place barriers on Southwest Portland bridge and still satisfy the Oregon Office of Historic Preservation. The price tag? $2.5 million, says Portland Commissioner and new Bureau of Transportation ...   More

News Mayor Charlie Hales made bold pledges in a speech to delegates from the United Nations Environment Programme this morning—promising that Portland city government will reduce its carbon emissions by half in 17 years, and make bicycles the preferred mode of transportation for all trips under three miles in 10 years. Hales also made it clear that cleaning up the toxic Willamette River will be his office's ...   More

News Nick Fish looked shaken. Amanda Fritz was horrified. Steve Novick told bicycle jokes in the lobby. And Dan Saltzman left early, pleased as punch. Portland’s city commissioners had just learn   More

News In the final weeks of writing his first budget, Mayor Charlie Hales restored money to dozens of city programs he had suggested cutting: the Police Bureau’s Mounted Patrol Unit, a county-run ment   More

News The head of the Portland fire union is disputing Mayor Charlie Hales' claim that the city's new budget includes no firefighter layoffs. Portland Firefighters' Association President Alan Ferschweiler says the new budget actually requires 13 fire bureau layoffs—it just delays the pink slips by three months.Hales' budget takes effect June 30, and provides three months of "bridge funding"——short-term ...   More

News The next time you hear Portland's public safety bureaus howl about taking the brunt of what have been painted as draconian city budget cuts, remember this number: Zero. That's how many layoffs the city's police and fire bureaus will have to make in the budget approved by City Council this morning. Mayor Charlie Hales had warned for months that the public safety bureaus would need to take their share ...   More