Murmurs: You Don't Have Sam to Kick Around Any More.

1. Mayor Charlie Hales has stopped hinting his predecessor, Sam Adams, might be to blame for a plan by the city’s top financial officer, Jack D. Graham, to improperly shift Water Bureau funds to his own department’s budget last year. Hales told Oregon Public Broadcasting’s Think Out Loud on June 12 he’d “need to charter a couple of buses” to remove every city employee who “worked on a shaky financial proposition or idea” under Adams. But results of an investigation into Graham’s actions—made public July 9 after a legal appeal from WW and The Oregonian—contains no evidence Graham acted under Adams’ orders. Hales says he apologized to Adams a few days after the radio show. “He was not happy with my comments,” Hales says.

1. Another sign everyone thinks they look good in black: Nearly 50 lawyers and judges have applied to fill three new positions  on the Oregon Court of Appeals, including Brandon Mayfield, falsely accused by the U.S. government of involvement in the deadly 2004 Madrid bombing; former Oregon Commissioner of Labor and Industries Jack Roberts; and Portland lawyer Tim Volpert, who lost an appeals court race in 2012. The positions —created by the 2012 Legislature and funded this year—pay  $122,820 annually. Gov. John Kitzhaber’s office says he expects to make his pick by mid-October.

1. Anyone wondering why lawmakers failed to approve bigger savings in the Public Employees Retirement System before adjourning July 8 should consider these numbers: The Service Employees International Union and the Oregon Education Association gave a combined $1.78 million to 2012 legislative candidates last year—and 88 percent went to House Democrats, who had no taste for deeper cuts in retirement benefits this session.

1. Rep. Shemia Fagan (D-East Portland) keeps doing what Mayor Charlie Hales can’t: find new money for East Portland sidewalks. Not only did Fagan secure $3.6 million in state money to design sidewalks and crosswalks on Southeast 136th Avenue—a stretch where 5-year-old Morgan Maynard-Cook was killed by a car in February—but she also landed $4.9 million for sidewalks, crosswalks and lane widening on Southeast Powell Boulevard between 111th and 174th avenues.

1. The national progressive blog ThinkProgress blames a pivotal “no” from Sen. Betsy Johnson (D-Scappoose) in a 15-15 Senate vote for killing a bill to register 600,000 Oregonians as voters when they get new or renewed driver’s licenses (“No License to Vote,” WW, June 12, 2013). “Oregon appeared to be on the cusp of passing one of the most innovative, progressive voting laws in the country,” the blog says. “Now, thanks to one Democratic senator, that legislation is dead.”

WWeek 2015