Murmurs: City Objects to Highway Widening Above Esplanade

In other news: Porn theater has gone dark.

Kevin J. Duckworth Memorial Dock at Eastbank Esplanade. (Paul Wasneski)

CITY OBJECTS TO HIGHWAY WIDENING ABOVE ESPLANADE: The city of Portland won't give its approval to the Oregon Department of Transportation's plans to expand Interstate 5 above the Eastbank Esplanade. That could be a significant blow to ODOT, which asked the city to agree that the wider highway through the Rose Quarter won't effect the waterfront walkway below. (Critics argue it would create a cavelike atmosphere in a city park along the river.) As WW reported last month, advocates called on Mayor Ted Wheeler to use this power to push for a delay and more clarity on the project's effects on Portland ("East Flank," Feb. 5, 2020). He has done just that. "We do not believe," wrote Portland Parks & Recreation planning manager Brett Horner to ODOT on Feb. 21, the agency's document assessing the impact on the esplanade "was adequate." Opponents of the project say the city's decision bolsters their legal case for a more thorough review of the entire project.

PORN THEATER HAS GONE DARK: Portland's last porno house has apparently closed. The Oregon Theater, an adult entertainment venue along gentrified Southeast Division Street, could not be reached for comment. But documents filed with Multnomah County show the owner, Gayne Maizels, went into foreclosure Feb. 13. On March 3, the theater's door was locked, its phone was disconnected, and its Twitter account was deleted. The theater, which was built as a vaudeville venue, had been an adult cinema since the '70s. It showed porn on a big screen, but was also a venue for more live action.

HUFFMAN NOT FEELING THE BERN: Jim Huffman, a 2010 Republican nominee for U.S. Senate and dean emeritus at Lewis & Clark Law School, penned a provocative op-ed in the March 2 Wall Street Journal. Huffman wrote that he left the GOP when Donald Trump won the 2016 nomination. "Trump has been even worse as president than I imagined," Huffman wrote, "yet if Mr. [Bernie] Sanders is the nominee, I'll vote for Trump." Huffman's fear: "Everything government does is funded by the capitalist economy that Mr. Sanders' proposed policies would deliberately undermine." His prediction on the eve of Super Tuesday: "Voting for Bernie Sanders will not be an option for millions of moderate Republican and independent voters, including those in swing states."

MORE PAMPLIN MONEY WOES: Robert B. Pamplin Jr., long known as one of Oregon's wealthiest men by dint of assets that include his family's Southern textile mills, is showing increasing signs of financial distress. Two weeks ago, WW reported that his newspaper chain, which includes the Portland Tribune and 23 community newspapers, had failed to pay federal taxes, resulting in a $1.1 million lien by the Internal Revenue Service. Since then, the IRS filed a separate $431,257 lien against Ross Island Sand and Gravel, another Pamplin company. Andrea Marek, CEO of Pamplin Communications, says the companies are paying down their IRS debts. "Like all businesses," Marek says, "We are managing cash flow and chose to delay these tax payments last year with the full knowledge that we would have cash available to pay them this year."

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