Murmurs: Ohman Inks Different Deal

1. After 29 years, Jack Ohman has drawn his last editorial cartoon for The Oregonian. Ohman—winner of virtually every major award for political cartooning and a Pulitzer Prize finalist this year—has accepted a buyout from the daily. “I was still taking acne medication when I started there,” Ohman, 52, said on Facebook in announcing his departure. Ohman tells WW his leaving has nothing to do with the paper’s direction under Publisher N. Christian Anderson III or the new editorial page editor, Erik Lukens. Ohman says he will announce his new job soon. “I don’t want anyone to worry about me,” he says. “I feel like I’m at the peak of my career.”

1. There’s less than a week to go before Election Day, and the candidates for Portland mayor are treating the outcome as a fait accompli. With polls showing him well ahead, Charlie Hales has pulled $30,000 worth of television advertising buys—this after going to the trouble of breaking his pledge to limit campaign contributions by taking big union checks. “It seemed like the right thing to do,” says Hales campaign manager Evyn Mitchell. Meanwhile, the Jefferson Smith campaign has stopped talking about Jefferson Smith. His campaign has been working for the $482 million Portland Public Schools bond measure. This week Smith campaigners held signs on Southwest 4th Avenue to draw attention to issues facing East Portland, which Smith has represented in the Oregon House for two terms. The campaign signs didn’t mention Smith—and his staff won’t discuss why. “There are some really critical issues facing the city,” says Smith campaign manager Henry Kraemer. “We want to spend as much energy as we can focusing on those issues.”

1. An Oregon sheriff has been named 2012 Sheriff of the Year by the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, an organization the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled an “anti-government ‘patriot’ group.” Grant County Sheriff Glenn Palmer didn’t return WW’s calls to discuss his ties to the group, which calls for a “new Declaration to the Federal Government regarding the abuses that we will no longer tolerate or accept.” Palmer has already made news for his anti-federal government stances; last year he refused to sign a mutual protection agreement with the U.S. Forest Service. “The principles of this group are very close to some of right-wing militia,” says Dave Fidanque, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon.

1. Blue or red, it doesn’t matter: Don’t forget to vote. Your ballot must reach your county elections office by 8 pm on Nov. 6. (Postmarks don’t count.) Multnomah County ballots can be dropped off until that time at county libraries and elections headquarters, 1040 SE Morrison St. 

WWeek 2015