Thunderbird Hotel Is the Biggest Property Tax Delinquent in Multnomah County

1. Howard Dietrich’s Thunderbird Hotel, which burned to the ground on Hayden Island in 2012, is the biggest property tax delinquent in Multnomah County, with $720,000 overdue. The county’s top 10 scofflaws owe a combined total of just under $2.5 million in unpaid taxes. The debts are cumulative: Most of the scofflaws have been ignoring their tax bills for at least two years, and a few have been letting the fees build for at least five years. In second with $348,500 owed: the Ross Island Sand & Gravel Co., owned by Portland Tribune publisher Robert Pamplin Jr. 

1. State Treasurer Ted Wheeler plans to announce Sept. 9 that he will challenge incumbent Mayor Charlie Hales in next May’s primary election. Wheeler, 53, was elected Multnomah County chairman in 2006 and was appointed Oregon treasurer in 2010. In that job, he manages state borrowing and helps guide the investment of nearly $90 billion in state pension funds. Because of term limits, he can’t seek re-election. He’s been at odds with lawmakers who thwarted his desire to make the treasury more independent, but he pleased organized labor by backing 2015 legislation that promotes financial savings for workers without pensions. Long seen as a potential governor, Wheeler saw his path to Mahonia Hall blocked by the resignation of Gov. John Kitzhaber and the rise of Secretary of State Kate Brown to replace him. Wheeler flirted with a gubernatorial run throughout the summer before fixing his sights on City Hall. “We have a governor in Kate Brown who’s making progress,” he tells WW, “and a mayor in Charlie Hales who isn’t.”

1. Mike Rosen won a seat on the Portland Schools Board in May, days after being placed on administrative leave from his city of Portland job for insubordination and bullying behavior. Newly released records show Rosen had his city-issued credit card taken away in March after he used it to pay for a $569 dinner at Mekong Bistro without permission from his boss. The dinner, held for immigrants and refugees in the city’s New Portlander Program, was intended to encourage communities of color to apply for Bureau of Environmental Services grants to improve the city’s watershed. A March 27 memo about the decision to revoke Rosen’s purchasing card for one year says the dinner needed preapproval from the bureau’s then-director, Jim Hagerman. Rosen, who resigned from the city in July, says BES spends far more on dinners that feed city employees. He argues that the dinner, which fed dozens, provided grant-writing training to disenfranchised communities. “It was an appropriate expenditure,” he says.

WWeek 2015