Weighing the Pros and Cons

1) Bloated behemoths can abandon their New Year's resolutions, and puffing paramedics can leave their weight belts at home. American Medical Response, which provides ambulance services to Multnomah County, now boasts a new, hefty-size ambulance (complete with winch) that can accommodate patients weighing up to half a ton.

2) Live...from Milwaukie?! Long known mostly as Jerry Springer country, the blue-collar 'burb on Sunday played civic-minded host to Peter Jennings, who moderated a debate on the war against Iraq. Next up--Fear Factor: Clackamas.

3) Portland's cash-strapped Outdoor School got help from Columbia Sportswear, which will match up to $180,000 in donations for the popular sixth-grade environmental-ed program. Send checks made out to Friends of Outdoor School to MESD Foundation, P.O. Box 301039, Portland OR 97294 by Feb. 17.

LOSERS

1) Portland General Electric got whacked around like a Ping-Pong ball last week. First, a federal judge called the utility "paranoid" during hearings on charges that PGE manipulated energy prices. Later, six Oregon counties released a study showing that ratepayers could save hundreds of millions every year if the utility were publicly owned.

2) Just in time for Valentine's Day, OHSU had its heart broken when top doc H. Storm Floten elected to step down as head of cardiac surgery at the university rather than abandon his private practice at St. Vincent Medical Center.

3) Oregon food banks got some unappetizing news from the feds. Here's the beef: The Agriculture Department is taking cash that once paid for surplus food and using it for drought relief to ranchers instead. So Oregon's poor get less government cheese, while the state's ranchers get more government pork. Nice.

4) Vice cops say drug dealers are increasingly shunning back alleys and low-rent mini-marts for the gleaming convenience of MAX. Sometimes it seems like there are as many people at stops waiting for their man as waiting for their train--a perception that could pose a political headache for TriMet when the agency tries to sell new light-rail routes to suburban voters.

WWeek 2015