Murmurs

* The Lolenzo Watch is over. That's right, after months of political ballet, Lolenzo Poe, deposed director of Multnomah County's Department of Community and Family Services, has finally agreed to head the county's Office of School and Community Partnership. As door prizes, he gets a $30 million budget and 67 employees.

* Reedies returning to campus next week will undoubtedly rekindle the burning question, "Do we have a college president yet?" The search committee has no official deadline (it's Reed, after all), but word is that its members were quite impressed with Colin Diver, the former dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School who visited campus last month. The other finalist is David Auston, former president of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

* Last month, the Portland Development Commission admitted that Loretta Ebert, an administrative specialist at the agency, was occupying a PDC-owned property in Lents, which officials called "a lapse in professional judgment." On Jan. 11, the cost of that lapse was revealed: Ebert was suspended for 30 days without pay; her supervisor, Joel Jorgensen, resigned; and his supervisor, Linda Andrews was suspended for two weeks without pay.

* After five years of trying to get trial lawyers some good press (not exactly an easy task), spin master Michael Kesten is striking out on his own. Kesten will leave his post as communications director of the Oregon Trial Lawyers Association this week to start his own consulting firm, KestenMedia. His first client: Gubernatorial candidate Beverly Stein.

* She doesn't mind an honest day's work as long as somebody else does it. Elaine Franklin's triumphant return to public life last week as one of the Hacks vs. Flacks roast included what is believed to be a first in Roast history: Franklin hired a pro, paying Washington journalist and author David Bender an undisclosed sum to write her jokes (which, we've got to admit, were pretty witty). The event raised more than $200,000 for the Portland Schools Foundation.

* While Franklin blistered the assembled press corps, Peter DeFazio aimed one of his sharpest barbs at U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, a fellow Democratic politician, who has made much of his good relations with GOP Sen. Gordon Smith. "Gordon lunches regularly with the senior senator," DeFazio said. "If they invited me, it would be a bipartisan meeting."

* Smith, meanwhile, wisely saved his nastiest put-downs for himself. Turning to KATU anchor Cathy Marshall, he offered some career advice to her out-of-work husband, ex-anchor John Marshall--who, Smith noted, has nice hair and great teeth. "If he's got a spare $3 million, he could be a U.S. senator," Smith said. "Hey, it worked for me!"

* From the House of Corrections: In an item last week about the attempt to recall school-board member Derry Jackson, we incorrectly identified a related website. It is DumpDerry.org rather than DumpDerry.com. WW regrets the Derry error.

WWeek 2015