Skip to main contentscoreboard | rogue of the week | murmurs
FOLLOW UP
Observers have long puzzled over the Port of Portland's decision last year to sell the Portland Shipyard to shaky shipbuilder Cascade General for a bargain price that amounts to $23.8 million.
Now, in the wake of Cascade General's controversial sale of Dry Dock 4 to a Bahamian ship firm for more than $25 million, an explanation for the port's enthusiasm for Cascade has come to light.
Last week, WW reported that Mike Thorne, former executive director of the Port of Portland and now a Democratic gubernatorial candidate, received a $68,000 bonus in the waning days of his tenure.
The bonus appears to have violated the port's bylaws, because it was granted with the involvement of only one of four port commission officers, former commission president Bob Walsh.
According to port officials, the bonus was part of something the port called a "pay-at-risk" plan, the details of which have been obtained by WW.
That plan reveals that a criterion for Thorne's bonus was reducing the port's reliance on property taxes. And by strange coincidence, when the port completed the sale of the shipyard to Cascade General last August, its press release was headlined, "Port reduces annual property taxes by $2.7 million with shipyard sale."
The shipyard sale may have pumped up Thorne's bonus, but
it appears to have shafted
taxpayers.
The port received only $18 million in cash for the 57-acre shipyard and all its equipment including Dry Dock 4--meaning Cascade essentially got all the real estate free. (As part of the sale, the port also made a $5.8 million unsecured loan to Cascade, due in 2009.)
Barely eight months after completing the purchase, Cascade CEO Frank Foti announced that his other lenders were threatening foreclosure and that he needed to sell Dry Dock 4, despite an earlier pledge to keep the shipyard intact.
Port Commission Vice President Cheryl Perrin, who has been critical of the shipyard sale, says the commission should rethink its bonus policy for port executives. "Perhaps we ought to just pay them a straight salary," she says.
--Nigel Jaquiss
SHOWDOWN AT TEMPLE OF SOUND
An "omni-denominational" musico-religious community that occupies a former cereal factory in Northwest Portland is waging a war of nerves with the Portland Fire Bureau.
Last week, fire officials paid a call on the Temple of Sound, a loose-knit congregation of dance fans more inspired by BPMs than Ave Marias. The marshals were not thrilled with what they discovered: a half-dozen Temple members living in the rust-colored, commercially zoned building hunkered at the edge of Northwest Portland's residential core.
Fire inspectors initially gave the Temple members 24 hours to clear out.
"This is basically an illegal occupancy," says Senior Deputy Fire Marshal Scott Edwards.
The local electronic-music community has rallied around the Temple. Offers of help have poured in since residents sent an email alert to nwtekno.org, a busy website for local electronica fans.
"I was just stunned by the number of people who said they'd contact their own lawyers or do whatever else needed to be done," says Jasmine Horn, the Temple's 21-year-old founder and spiritual leader.
Wednesday, Temple supporters and the property's landlord presented a plea to city officials, documenting the building's religious use and asking for a change to its zoning classification.
That won at least a temporary reprieve for the Temple.
"We're not in the business of putting people on the street," says Edwards. "Since they didn't volunteer to leave, we've established some safety measures we think are appropriate while they pursue having the residency situation legalized."
It's unclear how soon a zoning change might be forthcoming. In the meantime, Temple members have removed bedding from their building, vowing to extinguish open-flame candles and incense and keep a 24-hour fire watch. Fire officials plan to check up on their efforts by the end of the week.
Temple of Sound maintains a website at www.templeofsound.com.
--Zach Dundas
Duck Soup
Publishing potentate the Rev. Dr. Robert Pamplin Jr. has splashed down in the middle of one of the oldest fights in the West: water rights.
Seems the good reverend wants a duck pond on R-2 Ranch, his 60,000-acre spread along the banks of Trout Creek near Madras.
This is no ordinary duck pond: Pamplin has dug a 19-acre hole.
To fill the pond, however, Pamplin is eyeing Trout Creek--a prospect that has environmental advocates crying fowl.
Last month, Pamplin asked the Oregon Water Resources Department for a "limited license" to the creek so he could fill the pond. In exchange, he offered to forgo an 1880 irrigation right attached to the property that can only be used to sprinkle fields, not fill ponds.
"We thought we'd try this innovative approach and not do any harm to the stream under a fairly quick and easy process," says Pamplin's attorney, Martha Pagel, who happens to be the former director of the Water Resources Department.
Wrong, says Kimberly Priestly of Water Watch, a conservation group.
"It doesn't quite work like that," Priestly says. "People upstream would be able to use that water right. He doesn't have the right to call the water for his use."
Like most Oregon waterways, Trout Creek is already stretched to the limit with demands for its water. In addition, it's a primary spawning ground for Deschutes steelhead and was the target of a $5 million project to restore habitat for the threatened fish.
In the face of the brouhaha, Pamplin plans to withdraw his application. "We're going to bag it," says Pagel. "If it's scary to people, we're not going to do it."
Since February, Pamplin--who owns the Portland Tribune--has run a hose from a nearby well 24/7, but going is slow. So far there isn't enough water to attract the most dehydrated duckling.
--Patty Wentz
Forgery on the High Seas
State health officials confirmed last week that they revoked three medical marijuana cards issued earlier this year after they discovered the doctor's signature had been forged.
Another four forgeries were detected before cards were distributed, officials say.
"Three medical marijuana registration cards were issued inappropriately because we failed to follow established procedure," says Mac Prichard, a spokesman for the state Department of Human Services.
The Oregon Health Division is supposed to confirm each doctor's signature. But in at least three cases, it failed to do so.
"We have begun an internal review of the application process and the role of staff to see what changes are necessary to prevent future problems," Prichard says.
News of the scam angered proponents of medical marijuana.
"You can't get any lower than that," fumes Perry Stripling, Director of Portland NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws), about the perpetrators. "They should be taken out and horsewhipped. Dragged through the streets so everyone can spit on them. These criminals are stealing the hopes and dreams of sick people."
State police declined to comment.
The identity of doctors who sign applications for medical marijuana is strictly confidential. But WW has learned the identity of the doctor whose name was forged. "I wanna get this son of a bitch," says the local osteopathic physician, who requested anonymity. "He's making things awkward for...the poor bastards who need a medical marijuana card."
It remains unclear whether the seven patients knew the doctor's signature had been forged or whether they were duped.
Since the Medical Marijuana Program was created by the passage of the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act in November 1998, approximately 550 physicians have signed papers for 2,200 cards, which enable the holder to possess up to one ounce of weed and seven pot plants. More than 500 applications are pending.
--Patrick R. Bell
SCOREBOARD
WINNERS LOSERS
1. Automobile break-ins are up more than 50 percent in some parts of Portland--a boost for pawnshops and their patrons.
2. A city hearings officer handed Tomahawk Islanders a key victory in their battle to stop Brookhill Redevelopment from dumping a million cubic yards of contaminated gunk onto their Columbia River idyll. Brookhill may appeal.
3. More evidence that departing UO women's basketball coach Jody Runge knows how to play ball: Not only will she receive a severance package of more than $500,000, but the U is protecting her tattered reputation by refusing to release the investigator's report that preceded her ouster.
1. The foundation of Western civilization continues to crumble, as evidenced by the announcement last week that the Rose Festival Court won't be donning traditional evening gowns for the Rose Festival Parade. Instead the fair lasses will be clad in laissez-faire "garden party" wear.
2. Bad week for Republican Sen. Gordon Smith. Not only will the Pendleton pea-packer lose influence in Washington when the Dems take control of the Senate, but the state DEQ also slapped his company, Smith Frozen Foods, with a $6,000 fine for polluting Pine Creek.
3. Combine a buggy computer system at the city water bureau with the ongoing effort to avoid spilling untreated sewage into the Willamette River, and what do you get? A proposed water and sewer rate hike of 12.5 percent--bad news for the working poor.
ROGUE OF THE WEEK
The Rogue desk is now accepting nominations
buzz@wweek.com
After a two-year hiatus, the roar of chainsaws and the rumble of logging trucks will return to the deep woods of Eagle Creek on June 1.
Vanport Manufacturing Inc. asked the U.S. Forest Service for permission to recommence logging the controversial area, including a unit near Forest Road 4615 where protesters are perched in three tree-houses high above the ground.
But even while a government-appointed panel of experts is weighing the environmental damage from the sale, the Forest Service--this week's Rogue--gave Vanport the green light.
Last November, after evidence emerged that the Eagle Creek logging was turning into an environmental disaster, the Clinton administration ordered an independent panel of experts to examine the Forest Service's logging rules and suggest ways to tighten them up. Even Vanport president Adolph Hertrich admitted that logging at Eagle Creek harmed the forest around the harvest, leaving vulnerable trees to topple in the wind.
The Forest Service says it approved Vanport's plan because the panel, which begins investigations this week, will be scrutinizing a part of the forest far removed from where Hertrich plans to cut. Yet, once scientists actually begin their work, they may find other problems with the sale besides the blowdown.
We don't blame Hertrich. He does, after all, own the trees. For the last three years, it hasn't been economically feasible for him to harvest Eagle Creek. But Asian timber prices are now on the upswing, and he's ready to cut and run.
It should be clear to the Forest Service by now that the public does not trust their judgment on the Eagle timber sales. They should have held Vanport off just one more month.
Murmurs
GOSSIP TAKES NO HOLIDAYS.
* Tongues are wagging at City Hall over City Commissioner Erik Sten's appointment of staff aide Tonya Parker to head the Bureau of Housing and Community Development. Though well-versed in housing matters, Parker has no management experience and was tapped in a rapid process that failed to jump through all the usual hoops of a national search.
* Curiouser and curiouser. Amid the spate of investigations triggered by the tragic police shooting of Mexican nurseryman Jose Mejia in a psychiatric hospital last month, we now hear that investigators at the state mental health division are looking into whether the county's department of Community and Family Services ignored problems at Pacific Gateway Hospital out of fear of losing beds.
* Hardball tactics: Because of a building-code complaint by a Northwest Portlander, the City of Portland has given Camp Dignity's 70-plus residents until July 1 to move off public land underneath the Fremont Bridge or be tossed out by the police. What's more, campers won't be allowed onto public land anywhere else in Portland. Their only option is to score private, donated land in a hurry. Organizers will discuss the camp's future at 1:30 pm Sunday, June 3, at the First Unitarian Church, 1011 SW 12th Ave.
* The radioheads at KBOO-FM have filed an appeal with the Federal Communications Commission over a $7,000 fine levied by the FCC for broadcasting "Your Revolution Will Not Happen Between These Thighs,"
a feminist critique of R-rated rap. Word on the street is that the original complaint was lodged by a dissident KBOOster with a grudge against the DJ who spun the offending disk.
WWeek 2015