News The Oregon Liquor Control Commission today began what's expected to be a five-month hearing process toward getting enforceable compliance plans in its rule books to deal better with liquor selling establishments that are creating problems for neighbors. Much of the testimony at the OLCC's initial hearing on the proposal, which would grant state liquor inspectors the power to get business owners ...   More

News The Oregon Wireless Interoperability Network is a project aimed at upgrading and linking together public safety radio systems that don't communicate well—or at all—with each other. The idea makes sense, at least in the abstract. But the implementation has gone anything but smoothly, as the The Oregonian has reported. Earlier this year, the Oregon Department of Transportation took ...   More

News Oregon's quarterly revenue forecast has been a day of doom for the past nine quarters. In each case, state economist Tom Potiowsky told lawmakers projections were worse than previously thought. Today's forecast brings that nine-quarter losing streak to an end. The forecast today calls for an increase of $119 million from the September forecast. That's much better news than another decline. ...   More

News Unsuccessful Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Dudley has gotten criticism for the decisions made by his campaign against Democrat John Kitzhaber. But one decision Dudley is unlikely to be kicking himself for was his choice not to put any of the money that he accumulated during his 16-year NBA career into his first political run. According to a report this week by the National Institute ...   More

News Before we put the recent unsuccessful rebellion by some House Democrats against Speaker (and soon-to-be Minority Leader) Nancy Pelosi to rest, it's worth noting that U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio wasn't the only Oregon Democratic rep unhappy with Pelosi. Rep. David Wu (D-Ore.), who isn't usually as outspoken as DeFazio, also told Pelosi, "Under these circumstances, I would have resigned," according ...   More

News The option of asking Oregon voters to OK marijuana legalization in 2012 was mentioned in a WW piece this week about what's next for the marijuana movement after this month's defeat of Measure 74, which would have created a statewide system of medical marijuana dispensaries. The argument for seeking an Oregon ballot measure in two years for outright legalization is that a presidential election ...   More

News WW wrote a couple weeks back about state and federal officials calling a summit in response to what they called a nationwide prescription drug problem. We went to the summit today and learned the following three things from the gathering called by Attorney General John Kroger, Gov. Ted Kulongoski and Acting U.S. Attorney Dwight Holton: 1) Drug-induced deaths are on the rise, especially among ...   More

News There's an update to our cover story this week about Native American casinos and poverty in Oregon. And it's a bit of news for which American Indians can be thankful. The U.S. Senate on Friday unanimously approved a $3.4 billion settlement in a lawsuit claiming the federal government mismanaged individual trust accounts involving oil, gas and other royalties from tribal lands. In the same ...   More

News The New York Times had a thought-provoking piece this week about a Georgia man who's made it his business to track the casualties among coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. We point out the icasualties.org web site run by Michael White because one of the site's many functions is to enable readers to track fatalities by state. And it's worth remembering this Thanksgiving eve that among the ...   More

News While many of us worried on Thanksgiving only about eating and drinking too much, a cadre of highly-paid Oregon state employees probably had a lot more on their minds yesterday. That's because when Gov.-elect John Kitzhaber returns next week to the work of preparing for his third term as governor, he'll be delivering some unpleasant news. Back in September, Kitzhaber convened reporters for the ...   More