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DOWN ON THE ROOF
Some county commissioners are again hitting the ceiling over roof plans. First came consternation over a $150,000 windmill-and-tree artwork scheduled to be installed atop the county government's headquarters in Southeast Portland (see "A Monumental Blunder," WW, May 23, 2001). Now some commissioners are questioning not only the artwork, but also a proposed $338,000 "green roof" project for the same building.
Essentially a natural-turf carpet, the roof would capture storm water and absorb carbon dioxide. But at a time when the county has a $22 million budget shortfall and is deferring routine maintenance, some commissioners question the price tag, especially since the building got a $694,000 new roof last year.
"Is this the best use of our funds?" asks Commissioner Lisa Naito, referring to the earth-friendly roof.
"$338,000 would go a long way toward buying books for kids in school and, for me, that's an important part of the environment," says Commissioner Lonnie Roberts.
The lone ardent supporter of the green roof is new commissioner Maria Rojo de Steffey. She calls the roof "a small but significant step" in addressing global warming, one in which the county should take a leadership role.
County Chair Diane Linn says she'll withhold judgment until July, when commissioners will have a chance to debate the merits of going green. Meanwhile, Linn is still annoyed to be the inheritor of the cow-town roof art, a project begun under former county chair Bev Stein.
"What's really frustrating is we might run into people at the grocery store and they'll say, 'What are you doing with a windmill on your building?'" Linn says.
Naito recently tried to find a way to stop the artwork's installation, which is scheduled for this fall. But she was told by the county counsel's office that the Regional Art and Culture Commission had already committed the county's money.
--Philip Dawdy
City Hall's Water Woes
After 16 months of frustration, one City Council member is suggesting it may be time to flush the Water Bureau's new billing system down the toilet.
Commissioner Dan Saltzman doesn't oversee the Water Bureau, but he is in charge of the Bureau of Environmental Services, which uses the Water Bureau's computer system to generate sewer bills. Both he and BES director Dean Marriott are steamed that the Severn Trent software has prevented BES from collecting $20 million in overdue bills (the Water Bureau has $17 million). Marriott says he expects to lose as much as $5 million of that cash.
Saltzman plans to talk with Water Bureau staffers and aides to city commissioner Erik Sten (who oversees the Bureau) this week to discuss the city's options. "One may be as severe as scrapping the entire system and starting over," he told WW last week.
Frustration with the system is growing as more evidence surfaces that Water Bureau officials knew of problems much earlier than they've said. Just three weeks after the bureau fired up the software in February 2000, a bureau consultant warned that at least one other utility had had troubles with the same vendor, Severn Trent. According to a March 16, 2000, memo prepared by Martin Wilson, the Snohomish Public Utilities District in Everett, Wash., had also experienced problems implementing its software.
Although Wilson's memo appears to have been routed to him, Sten says he doesn't recall reviewing it. He says the Water Bureau made the best decision possible with the information available in February 2000.
Sten says the system should be running properly by summer's end, after which he'll ask Severn Trent to refund a portion of the system's $8.6 million cost. The city already has withheld $750,000 in payments to the company.
Saltzman says the Water Bureau had plenty of warning in the first place, including some from BES personnel who, he says, told the bureau "they didn't feel [Severn Trent] was the most-qualified firm."
--Philip Dawdy
We're Here. We're High. Get Used To Us.
Jeff Jarvis and Tracy Johnson couldn't have planned it better. Increasingly frustrated by the stigma of what they see as a harmless and popular activity, they decided to take to the radio waves.
The couple, who moved from Aloha to Bend earlier this year, approached Portland's KUFO-FM in May with a proposed script for a 30-second radio ad. The station turned them down.
KUFO wasn't alone in such thinking. Jeff and Tracy, both 39, have also been turned down by Portland's KNRK-FM, KGON-FM, KKRZ-FM, KKCW-FM and KEX-AM, and by stations in Seattle and Bend. Plan B--bus and Max banners--was nixed by Obie Media, which handles advertising on Tri-Met. A proposed ad in the Sunday Oregonian was found by the paper to be "unsuitable for publication."
What offensive message do these two deviants propose? In short, it's this: A lot of normal (rather than NORML) people use marijuana, so be wary of stereotypes.
Jarvis, a self-employed software engineer, says that although he's contributed to the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act crowd and once volunteered at a NORML table at the state fair, he doesn't consider himself a marijuana activist. Rather, he and Johnson say they became increasingly aware of how bizarre it is that such a common activity has to be done in secret.
"I'm looking around saying, 'This is crazy,'" says Jarvis. "It's 2001, and we're running around like it's the dark ages."
"I got tired of the fear factor," says Johnson. "I don't like the intimidation. We're not a threat to society."
They say they never expected to be banned from radio. "We understood that we'd be controversial," says Johnson. "We didn't expect that we'd have trouble getting air time."
Eventually the couple found some folks willing to take their money, here at WW (their full-page ad, which cost $2,555, appears elsewhere in this issue). And they may yet hit the airwaves: On Friday, KDBZ-AM 620 (appropriately known as The Buzz) reviewed the script and said the staion would consider running it.
--John Schrag
End of West End Battle in Sight
Sometimes doing nothing can mean everything.
After hearing six hours of heated testimony about the future of downtown's West End last week, the Portland City Council ordered planning director Gil Kelley to make sense of the mess.
The council ended the contentious June 21 meeting by giving Kelley three weeks to fashion a politically palatable compromise between developers' demands for greater freedom in building commercial projects and advocates' demands for continued protection of low-income housing.
Despite the delay, a majority of city commissioners --Charlie Hales, Erik Sten and Dan Saltzman--broadcast their intentions to side with developers. They favor rezoning a portion of the West End (stretching from Southwest Salmon to West Burnside streets) as commercial property. "I think a little more flexibility works better," said City Commissioner Sten.
That head count spells defeat for housing advocates, who repeatedly called upon the council to keep the area zoned residential (see "What's Up with Erik?" WW, June 13, 2001). Their words did catch the ear of Mayor Vera Katz, who two years ago seemed to be in lockstep with developers.
Despite their qualms about commercial zoning, some housing advocates think they have a last, best chance. Still on the table is a Sten/Saltzman "no net loss" resolution calling for preservation of housing units. Advocates hope the City Council will nail down provisions for how much money developers must pay for each affordable housing unit they take out of circulation.
"If they fill out what is meant by preservation, it would be better than going with the tripe that is there," says former City Commissioner Gretchen Kafoury.
The council will sift through Kelley's proposal July 18.
--Philip Dawdy
WEEK #3
TANTALIZING TIDBIT: Ex-Supreme Court Justice Ted Kulongoski, who entered the Democratic race for governor last week, attended a June 18 DeFazio fundraiser held at the Bridgeport brewpub. Surely this is more proof that The Faz assured Teddy K he isn't joining the race.
THE REAL DEAL: Insiders say there was no secret call between the two Dems. Kulongoski simply got tired of waiting and made a calculated bet that DeFazio will pin his hopes on Democrats' taking control of Congress. In short, there's still hope for fans of The Faz.
SCOREBOARD
WINNERS LOSERS
1. Two. Four. Six. Eight. We know how to multiplicate! After Portland Public Schools adopted a new math curriculum, the city's elementary students beat the state average in math for the second year in a row.
2. Psst! Portland City Council quietly approved what amounts to a tax increase disguised as--ahem!--a "transportation fee." The hike will cost homeowners $1.85 a month and businesses as much as $1,500 a month.
3. Paleontologists breathed a thigh of relief when Kennewick Man's femurs--missing since 1998--mysteriously turned up last week in a storage locker at the coroner's office in Prosser, Wash.
1. The Portland Waldorf School's dream of relocating to a new campus was crushed when judge Ellen Rosenblum ruled that its schoolyard rival, the David Douglas School District, was entitled to seize the site--even though Waldorf spent nearly $200,000 and five years to find it.
2. A court-appointed receiver asked the University of Oregon to send back an $800,000 donation from money-manager alum Jeffrey Grayson, who stands accused of bilking clients, including union pension funds, out of hundreds of millions of dollars. One hitch: The Ducks already spent the cash. Another: Upon receipt, UO renamed a building Grayson Hall.
3. Grim tidings for the poor, the sick and the young--Multnomah County slashed $22 million from its biennial budget last week, chopping services to kids and social services, as well as eliminating 160 positions.
ROGUE OF THE WEEK
The Rogue desk is now accepting nominations
buzz@wweek.com
Last week, we here at Rogue Central confirmed longstanding rumors that Portland Family Entertainment wasn't paying its bills ("Ballpark Bills Go Into Extra Innings," WW, June 20, 2001). Little did we know how pervasive the problems were.
Although PFE management declined to comment on its bookkeeping difficulties last week, WW has subsequently learned that the ballpark brass played the old "check's in the mail" routine with people who know all about subterfuge, tricks and plain old disguise.
Tater A. Peal, a professional clown otherwise known as Tyler Bechtel, confirmed that he was stiffed by PFE after providing some family entertainment during the old ball game. Tater says that when some previously scheduled performers fell through, PFE hired him and a few others from the local professional entertainment industry to warm up the crowd from the stadium's Widmer Pavilion on May 11 and 12.
But despite twice-weekly phone calls since then, the company had not paid Tater a dime until last weekend, he says, when he received a check--but it was for only one of the two days he worked. Tater is still out $125 for the second day he performed, and he's getting a little steamed. "What upsets me the most is that they're not paying the little guys," Tater says.
Another performer, magician John Greene, who performed with Peal on May 12, says he faxed PFE an invoice long ago and has since called company personnel numerous times. Although Greene says that PFE has now offered him a couple of dinners and some tickets along with continued promises of payment, they still haven't conjured up his cash.
Greene is baffled by the situation, figuring the amount owed can't be worth the bad PR coming PFE's way as a result of nonpayment. "It's a heck of a way to do business," Greene says. "I can just see the headline now, 'Clown Not Laughing--Magician's Check Disappears.'"
Murmurs
NATTERINGS FROM THE NABOBS OF NEGATIVITY
* The first serious candidate to replace the soon-to-be Rev. Ben Canada as Portland Schools Superintendent is Jay Casbon, Dean of the Graduate School and Associate Professor of Educational Administration at Lewis & Clark College. A former teacher, counselor and principal, Casbon is a nationally known figure in the areas of urban education and school reform. Bill Farver, most recently interim county chairman and long active in children's issues, is also reported to be mulling the idea of tossing his hat in the ring.
* The impending closure of the Crisis Triage Center has County Commissioner Serena Cruz worried that local ER staffs will be overrun with mental health cases. "I think we have an impending crisis on Aug. 1," says Cruz. "I don't know if we're prepared for it."
* Spotted outside the downtown Gap for women, in front of a display of skinny girls wearing bras, were these chalked musings: "You are a body. No mind, no soul!" and "Buy an identity here."
* When queen foodie and Gourmet magazine maestro Ruth Reichl came to town on her recent book tour, it's no surprise that WW chief nibbler Roger Porter took her to Paley's Place to sup. Reichl recounts her morel-rific meal at Paley's in the July issue of Gourmet as one of her favorites on the tour.
* Conventional wisdom has it that former state Supreme Court Justice Ted Kulongoski will have a lot to say about whom Gov. John Kitzhaber picks to replace him. The usual place to look is the state appellate bench, where David Brewer is viewed as the most ambitious. Then again, if the boys in power want to give Susan Leeson some company on the top bench, Virginia Linder and Mary Deits would probably accept a phone call.
WWeek 2015