Where the Flights are Never Fanciful.

[September 28th, 2005] Maybe we should get Congressman Earl Blumenauer an airplane pin. Of the 633 lawmakers who were in Congress between 2000 and 2005, the bike-pimpin', light-rail-lovin' Portland Democrat ranked 36th in taking privately funded trips, according to the watchdogs at PoliticalMoneyLine (fecinfo.com). Blumenauer racked up 32 boondoggles at a total cost of $86,770. The Aspen Institute, a lefty think tank , picked up the tab for nearly $55,000 of that, including an $18,788 excursion to China last spring. Lots of bikes there. Thanks to blogger Jack Bogdanski (bojack.org) for the heads-up.

Portland's Parks and Recreation Bureau director Zari Santner faces an online backlash after a yearlong bureau reorganization that forced out several well-regarded managers. A new website refers to Santner as "Sorry Zari," calls for an unofficial vote of no-confidence and asks Mayor Tom Potter to remove her (www.geocities.com/portlandparks). Santner is on vacation and could not be reached for comment. But manager Lisa Turpel, filling in for Santner, said some anxiety and bad morale is to be expected given the bureau's restructuring. "I'm just surmising that it's one disgruntled employee or former employee. I don't know," Turpel says.

"The doors are closed. The editor is out ." And with that, the blogger known as b!X (real name: Christopher Frankonis , left) ended Portland Communique's nearly three years of reportage and opinion on city politics. Frankonis' blog earned a loyal readership, thanks largely to his indefatigable coverage of the wonky, endless meetings that make local government run. The one-man Communique's posts were often moody and mercurial, and he never quite figured out how to make his blog a paying, full-time endeavor (he has been pleading for a job at Powell's). But Portland's political junkies, journalists and activists will have to start scouting a new online home (may we suggest as one option www.bojack.org, from this week's first Murmur). Meanwhile, you can still check out b!X's greatest hits at communique.portland.or.us.

Bit of a dust-up at the National Preservation Conference held here this week for 2,000-plus conventioneers. Every year since 1949, the conference has invited the mayor of the host city to make opening remarks, and nearly all have complied. But a scheduling snafu between Mayor Tom Potter's office and the preservationists meant the mayor was already off for some sol and cervezas in Guadalajara, Portland's sister city in Mexico. Local historic-preservation wonk Jim Heuer calls it "distressing" that the conference "appears to have been treated as just another convention in Portland-no different from a gathering of square dancers or dental hygienists." The last-minute compromise: Conference organizers agreed to allow a Potter letter to be read at the opening ceremony.

Vocal locals will join a national cast in Portland this weekend at the National Summit to Save Our Elections. Organizers of the summit, sponsored by the Oregon Voter Rights Coalition & Alliance for Democracy, hope to see a few hundred people from Friday through Sunday at First Unitarian Church and Portland State University. The Oregon coalition advocates random hand counts of votes by poll workers or citizen groups. Among the local luminaries: author and radio host Thom Hartmann and former Oregon state Rep. Jo Ann Bowman. Scheduled from the national scene: Blair Bobier, Pacific Green Party of Oregon founder and election reformer; 2004 Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb; and U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Ill. For more information, call (503) 499-9000 or visit www.oregonvrc.org.