Gossip with legs.

[February 16th, 2005] * Is Major League Soccer coming to Portland? Last Thursday's edition of El Hispanic News reported on little-known local investors who say they're working to bring Mexico's oldest big-league futbol team, Pachuca , into an MLS/Rose City expansion deal. The investors for One Wolf Soccer, led by Tony Stacy, Antonio Gomez and Alex Pasauri , say Pachuca has committed verbally to backing a Portland team. What's not clear: where the team would play. Though Pasauri says his group is in contact with the Portland Timbers , the popular minor-league side that now occupies PGE Park , Timbers officials said last week that they don't know a thing about it. MLS would not comment; Pasauri says One Wolf expects to reveal more soon.

* The city's protesters will be smiling this week. On Monday, Feb. 21, the lawyers who recently won a legal settlement against the Portland Police will use the city's cash to pay for a "Portland Loves Freedom" party celebrating protesters and dissidents—free at Berbati's (10 SW 3rd Ave.), with several bands followed by a "hip-hop dance party" featuring long-haired hippie lawyer Alan Graf showing off his moves . And tonight, Feb. 16, the local chapter of the Industrial Workers of the World (a.k.a. the Wobblies) will celebrate the union's 100th anniversary of hardcore activism at the Red & Black Cafe (2138 SE Division St.) featuring the local activist band General Strike (suggested donation $3-$10).

* There's already speculation about Gov. Ted Kulongoski finding his way onto a presidential ticket (see blueoregon.com), but you wouldn't know it from recent missteps. Last week reporters from the O, the Bend Bulletin and the Salem Statesman Journal blasted Kulongoski's communications staff in a legislative workshop. Then, over the weekend, the guv's newly hired 2006 campaign manager, Paige Richardson , sent an email endorsing Stand for Children—a group which has recently blasted the guv's "irresponsible" K-12 schools budget .

* Oregonian subscribers may soon have yet another weekly insert to wade through. Last week, the daily solicited reader input on a new section "devoted to the people, issues and stories that make Portland the special place it is." While some daily papers around the country have launched stand-alone weekly sections—usually in an effort to crush a local free newsweekly—the O plans to distribute this nameless new beast as part of the regular paper.

* Earlier this week, City Commissioner Erik Sten issued a thinly veiled request to oversee the Portland Development Commission when Mayor Tom Potter assigns city agencies to members of the council. "The City Council needs to set much clearer and firmer expectations for PDC," Sten wrote of the agency, the subject of a stinging City Club report delivered last month. "If one were to look at the Burnside Bridgehead or the Portland Family of Funds as examples, it actually looks as though PDC sets the city's policies."

* Speaking of City Hall, a few weeks back Murmurs reported that PDC Chairman Matt Hennessee was considering running against City Commish Dan Saltzman next year. Not long afterwards, the two sat down and Hennessee told Saltzman not to worry—he'll run for something else.