Skip to main contentCALLING ALL PORT COMMISSIONERS!
After announcing Bill Wyatt's appointment as Port of Portland executive director last week, port commission president Jay Waldron faced the local press corps. The first question, from KOPB's Colin Fogarty, got straight to the point: How much influence did Gov. John Kitzhaber have in the selection of his chief-of-staff for the Port post? "Little or none," Waldron promptly replied. "The governor really had no influence over anyone's decision."
That claim is puzzling for two reasons: First, WW has learned, Kitzhaber called a majority of the port's nine commissioners in recent weeks to encourage them to select Wyatt over Portland businessman Matt Chapman. Second, during an executive session held last week to select the new port boss, commissioners reportedly clashed bitterly over what Commissioner Keith Thomson termed "manipulation" of the process--an apparent reference to the governor's lobbying. (WW did not attend the closed-door meeting).
Kitzhaber's calls achieved their desired result. Multiple attendees of the August executive session, at which commissioners failed to choose a new boss, say that at that meeting Chapman commanded at 5-4 majority of commissioners in unofficial polling. Last week, however the closed-door straw poll went 6-3 for Wyatt, with Commissioners Perrin, Powell and Thomson expressing a preference for Chapman. (In public, commissoners then voted unanimously for Wyatt.)
Perrin, Powell and Thomson all told WW that the governor had called them to encourage a vote for Wyatt, although all say he didn't give them the hard sell. Commissioners Ann Nelson and Bob Eaton, however, did change their preference from the August meeting, although no commissioner could cite any new information about either candidate introduced in the intervening month.
On Aug. 31, Kitzhaber went so far as to invite Eaton to lunch in Astoria, where the governor was fishing. Eaton says that they only discussed the port job briefly and that the governor did not press him to support Wyatt. Eaton, an Astoria fisheries expert whose appointment to the commission sparked controversy earlier this year, declined to say what led him to switch to the Wyatt camp. (Nelson could not be reached for comment.)
Kitzhaber spokesman Bob Applegate says there's nothing wrong with the governor vouching for a trusted aide. Still, one observer said the selection process proved "nothing has changed at the port--there's a new set of players, but it's the same old playbook." --Nigel Jaquiss
Monday's grand opening of MAX's new 5.5-mile light-rail extension to the Portland International Airport came with the usual ribbon-cutting and prophesies of future success. Largely lost in the hoopla, however, was the fact that this is simply the latest project to tame the tyranny of the car in Portland. Though the Piltdown men of the Cascade Policy Institute propose more fossil-fuel-burning answers to the region's transportation problems, the wisdom of the extension is apparent.
The new Red Line (the MAX's Gresham-Hillsboro route is now the Blue Line) will free many Portlanders from the hassle of finding a ride or the expense of long-term parking. To make boarding easier, Tri-Met has designated drop-off locations along the line where cars can stop to load or unload passengers.
But the most important group of users may be those who live elsewhere. As in many European cities and a few select American burgs, such as Boston and Chicago, Portland's city center will now be connected by train to its airport, with the MAX station a mere 150 feet from the baggage carousels. This link will give visitors a cheap ($1.55) and efficient means to travel to their hotels and convention sites, as well as putting cultural tourists within blocks of the Portland Art Museum and the Performing Arts Center.
The line's opening coincides with new developments within the airport itself, with the new South Lobby and Concourse C slated to open next week, complete with its fanciful artwork and intricate floor tiling. This really is the only way to fly.
--Steffen Silvis
Swan Mart
still singing
The Swan Mart's efforts to fend off 7-Eleven were boosted last week when allies of the Kim family persuaded the neighborhood association to join the battle on Southwest Barbur Boulevard.
On Wednesday evening, the association passed a resolution that, while never mentioning 7-Eleven, clearly was aimed at making the chain store feel unwelcome as it eyes the Swan Mart property. "The Corbett/Terwilliger/Lair Hill Neighborhood Association opposes any convenience store at the Barbur/Hamilton location...with 24-hour operation, and oriented towards a transient and high-volume customer base, as opposed to neighborhood oriented stores," the resolution says.
The document, which has no legal force, will be given to 7-Eleven representatives and Ron Erickson, co-owner of the Swan Mart store leased by the Kims.
The board approved the resolution after receiving a petition with 1,700 names of people who live and work in the neighborhood, expressing sentiments that they were firmly against any convenience store. "The neighborhood association took a stance against any 24-hour store," says Jim Davis, chairman of the association's land-use committee. "If 7-Eleven really operated from 7 am to 11 pm, there probably wouldn't be any problem." (Swan Mart stays open until midnight on Fridays and Saturdays and closes earlier the rest of the week.)
Among those at the meeting was a leader of the effort across town to keep McDonald's off of Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard. McDon't campaigner Thom Booz sees the Kim situation as "the same story, different place": big corporations ousting local little guys trying to make a decent living. Booz says he and his supporters are willing to help with a boycott, should 7-Eleven (which is still weighing its options) muscle out the Kims. --Brett Weinstein
SCOREBOARD
* Springfield congressman Peter DeFazio finally announced he was giving the governor's race a pass--a shot in the arm for former Oregon Supreme Court Justice Ted Kulongoski, who has emerged as the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, outpolling former Multnomah County Chair Bev Stein among union Dems.
* Oregon prisoners lustily cheered a decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to recognize the right to procreate while behind bars. Unfortunately, the decision applies only to artificial insemination--not the real thing.
* Revenge of the Nerds: A scant 43 percent of student athletes who entered Oregon State University in 1994 had graduated six years later--bad news for administrators, but good news for pencil-necked geeks, who now have a clear shot at those cute cheerleaders.
* Multnomah County officials are scrambling for Plan B--no, make that Plan C--in the wake of a troubling state investigation into the psychiatric unit at Woodland Park Hospital, where the county was hoping to relocate its mental-health triage center. Meanwhile, psychiatric patients are flooding local ERs.
* Faces reddened at the Portland Fire Bureau after an investigation uncovered an atmosphere of puerility--and bigotry--in some of its firehouses. White firefighters' welcome to a black colleague included jokes about slavery, sagging trousers, and simulating fellatio on a nightstick. Commissioner Jim Francesconi feebly called for more diversity.
* The Mormon Church shelled out a hefty $3 million to settle a sex-abuse lawsuit which accused church elders of allowing a now-deceased high priest to be around children, despite knowing his history as a pedophile. The priest sexually abused a Mormon boy. Lawyers for victim vowed to bring more cases against the church.
ROGUE OF THE WEEK
The Rogue desk is now accepting nominations
For a moment, it looked like county officials had dumped their bikes and joined the region's asphalt addicts. While that turns out not to be entirely true, a series of events that had county phones buzzing last week reveals that, in some ways, the MULTNOMAH COUNTY TRANSPORTATION DIVISION remains a rogue agency--and that the county itself remains a communication-free zone.
On Aug. 31, Karen Schilling, a mild-mannered transportation planner for Multnomah County attended a meeting of a group called the Transportation Policy Alternatives Committee, which advises the Joint Policy Advisory Committee on Transportation, which, in turn, advises Metro on how to dole out federal transportation dollars in the area.
As the TPACkers pondered a list of projects, the costs of which exceeded federal funds available for 2004-05, Schilling voted to shift $1.7 million from the Springwater Corridor bike trail in Southeast Portland to a freeway overpass in Tualatin.
That struck some observers as odd. After all, Portland's TPAC representative, Steve Dotterrer, voted to retain the bike-path money. And four days after the vote, all five county commissioners signed a letter to Metro reversing the county's position and asking that the path get its full funding. This put in black and white what they've long mumbled: two wheels are better than four.
Schilling explained to WW she'd been assured the Spring-water Corridor would have its federal funds replaced the following year. And, after the commissioners' letter, it now looks like the money for the '04-'05 budget year could be restored.
Still, the episode is telling. Schilling didn't check in with her boss; her boss didn't check in with County Chair Diane Linn about transportation priorities. (Dotterrer says he conferred with City Commissioner Charlie Hales and the city's transportation boss prior to the TPAC meeting.)
But you can't completely blame the poor planner; she had plenty of help finding her way to rogue-land. The county's Transportation Division has a history of acting on freelance impulses. Linn's office failed to give direction to the transportation division. The entire county Board of Commissioners should have made its pro-bike desires known far more explicitly long ago. Indeed, Schilling is paying the price for a bureaucracy that never fully has its act together.
MURMURS
SEE, THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE REALLY ARE FREE
* In a rare moment of public frivolity, John and Sharon Kitzhaber bared some flesh over the weekend and got matching tatoos! The occasion for the First Couple's wild streak was the Bluehour anniversary party, where water-soluable body-art ink flowed freely. John isn't the only recent governor to use his skin as a message board. Longtime WW readers will recall that his predecessor, Barbara Roberts, also sported a discreet tattoo--and hers didn't wash off.
* After more than 50 years of running the Imperial Hotel as a family business, Albert Gentner is selling the grand old building which sits at the corner of Southwest Broadway and Stark Street. "If all our ducks are in order, we'll close in January," says Genter, adding that he has no plans to sell his other landmark property, the Mallory Hotel. The buyers are part of the Aspen Group, a collection of local investors headed by developer Gordon Sondland, who already has a piece of the downtown Westin and Benson hotels.
* City Commissioner Jim Francesconi's choice of words has left many observers wondering if his thought and speech centers have ceased to communicate with one another. On Aug. 30, while giving an impassioned seven-minute explanation of his vote against Camp Dignity before a packed council chamber, the commish inexplicably felt compelled to confess that he and his family would never end up camping in the cold "because I have money." More head-scratching followed Tuesday when Francesconi attended the funeral of former Metro Councilor Sandi Hansen and used the occasion to make a pitch for next year's city parks bond measure.
* From the department of strange rumors: Murmurs has heard that Bill Clinton had recently chatted by phone with former Republican Oregon governor and U.S. Sen. Mark Hatfield. Among the topics reportedly discussed was whether Clinton should consider challenging Republican New York Gov. George Pataki in 2002.
* Anyone who thought über-conservative Kevin Mannix would back down and leave the Republican gubernatorial field wide open for Jack Roberts and Ron Saxton has never seen the glint Mannix gets in his eye when the odds are stacked against him. Now that he has formally announced his candidacy, the real question is how long Ron Saxton can resist pressure from the moderates to drop out of the race so he and Roberts won't split the difference against Mannix.
* Congrats to our fellow ink-slingers at The Bear Deluxe magazine. The Portland-based enviro/arts publication was recently honored at the Bumbershoot 2001 Arts Festival in Seattle with a "Best Cover" design award for the photo-illustration "Garden Snake," appearing on the magazine's current summer/fall issue.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK:
"It was a close call. They talked about the cover for a long time before they went with Penelope Cruz."
--Rep. Mark Hass (D-Beaverton) quipping about his appearance in an article on term limits by Christopher Hitchens in this month's Vanity Fair.
There was an added attraction at last week's First Thursday in the Pearl District. The Jean Vollum Natural Capital Center held a grand opening to show off the chi-chi new headquarters of Ecotrust, a group that works at leading the Northwest toward a conservation-based economy.
Sharing space in the building are a flagship store for Patagonia, the City of Portland's Office of Sustainable Development, the Wild Salmon Center and other groups dedicated to making "sustainable" something more than a feel-good buzz word.
The shtick at the Natural Capital Center (formerly known as the Rapid Transfer Building) is that it is an environmentally friendly structure. It was remodeled using recycled or rescued materials. Rain runoff will be filtered through bioswales rather than dumped into the Willamette River. The windows actually open. Even some of the herbs on the pies at the not-yet-open Hot Lips Pizza will be grown in the water-permeable parking lot.
The building has been touted as the newly beating heart for green philosophy in Portland, but the tenants here don't file lawsuits, protest timber sales or launch boycotts. Nor are all the groups nonprofit. Instead, they use market-based and incentive-oriented programs to nudge the economy toward sustainability.
Underneath all the backslapping at the grand opening was grumbling from some environmental activists who toured the building with the jaded eyes of people who had been invited to look but not touch.
Office-space rent in the building runs between $21 and $23 per square foot
per year. Though that's not out of line
with the upper-end market, it's still
out of reach for all but the most flush environmental nonprofits. The Oregon
Environmental Council, for example, pays $12 per square foot for space on Southwest Sixth Avenue between Washington and Alder streets.
David Griswold is the president of Sustainable Harvest, a "barely for-profit" (as he describes it) importer of shade-grown, fair-trade, sustainable coffee. While he could be paying $300 less per month for office space, Natural Capital Center's shared kitchen space and copy machine rooms means he can get by with smaller offices.
"We found that while space is higher this kind of synergy was worth paying for," he says. --Patty Wentz
FOLLOW UP
CABLE ACCESS
Just when Portland Cable Access appears to be getting its act together, it must now contend with a new threat: legal action from its newly departed executive director.
Rob Skelton, who left the job after a stormy board meeting last month, now says that if the station doesn't give him pay and benefits worth $129,000, he will move forward with "legal remedies."
Skelton's demands, made through his lawyer, are the latest challenge to the nonprofit (see "City Cable Chaos," WW, Aug. 22, 2001). Funded to the tune of $1.3 million in surcharges on Portland cable TV subscribers' bills, the station operates channels 11, 22, 23 and 30 for the public's benefit. Joe and JoAnn Sixpack can use the facility to produce and air TV shows--and do so regularly, on topics from fishing to UFOs.
Following months of stormy meetings, the PCA board's Sept. 4 get-together was pretty calm--and the most productive in recent memory, observers said. Among other things, members convened an executive session to discuss an Aug. 31 letter sent by Skelton's attorney, Donna Sandoval. A copy acquired by WW after the meeting shows that Skelton claims he "terminated" his employment due to board interference, and is demanding a lump-sum payment covering the 20-month remainder of his contract.
The Skelton/board standoff now probably boils down to a game of chicken. If the matter goes to court, internal documents that reflect poorly on both sides might be made public.
Last year, for example, the board hired consultant Kent Layden to interview PCA staff, hoping to get to the bottom of the agency's dysfunction.
"PCA is rife with politics and Robert's management style is a key element," Layden wrote. Instead of everyone being on the same page, he concluded, "presently the variety of 'pages' don't appear to be in the same book.'"
Skelton set a Sept. 14 deadline for payment, and the board is currently drafting its reply.
--Nick Budnick
WWeek 2015