New dirt for the new year.

[January 4th, 2006] The Weekly Kitz Watch: As ex-Gov. John Kitzhaber still considers another run, Democratic operatives awaited details from his Tuesday, Jan. 3, meeting with reps of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde . Meantime as Murmurs went to press, Gov. Ted Kulongoski won the early endorsement of his 2006 re-election bid by the Building Trades Council . The council's construction-worker members like the guv's infrastructure spending and support for a Gorge casino. And showing an iron fist lurks behind the guv's smile, Kulongoski pal Junki Yoshida hosts a Pearl District fundraiser this week for former Eugene Mayor Jim Torrey, who's expected to challenge State Sen. Vicki Walker for her seat. How pissed is Ted at Walker, who's also thinking about running for guv? Well, she is, like him, a Democrat, while Torrey is a Republican (for more gubernatorial news, go to www.wweek.com).

There's more tube time ahead for Tonya Harding . Oregon's favorite disgraced figure-skater-turned-crappy-boxer will be featured in a series starting Jan. 10 on cable's Game Show Network. Other "stars" in the new Anything to Win show include Rosie Ruiz, who was stripped of her 1980 Boston Marathon victory when she, uh, was discovered to have taken a "shortcut" to the finish line. Who says there's nothing worthwhile on TV?

The number of women locked up in Oregon prisons has passed the 1,000 mark for the first time in the state's history . The end-of-2005 count of 1,044 female prisoners is more than double the figure of a decade ago, when the state Department of Corrections reported 382 female inmates. Oregon's growth corresponds to a nationwide explosion in female incarceration, which is growing faster than rates for men (though the number of incarcerated men is also rising).

Fend for yourselves! The downtown YWCA, which wants two programs for seniors to leave their leases a year early (see "Asking Y," WW, Dec. 14, 2005, and this week's Mailbox on page 4), also won't renew the lease for a recreation program helping developmentally disabled people. And the Y has stopped offering scholarships for the disabled at its now for-profit gym. Former scholarship recipient Nancy Dunckelman says new gym director Wayne Westwood told her, "You people want everything." And Rachel Bloom, who runs the recreation program, says Westwood described her clients as "unsightly." YWCA director Adella Macdonald says "unsightly" is not Westwood's terminology, and that Bloom's program can't stay because of space issues.

The names, they are a-changin'—at least for Multnomah County Commissioner Serena Cruz. The commissioner enters her last year in office (she can't run again because of term limits) going by Serena Cruz Walsh, no hyphen, because she wants her family—currently just her and husband Tom Walsh, though the commish says they're also trying to have a baby—to feel more like a "unit." Cruz Walsh says she had no luck convincing her husband, a contractor, to take on her name as well.

The envelopes, please, for WW's Give! Guide, which raised more than $78,000 this holiday season. Which local nonprofit attracted the most donors age 35 and under? The Bicycle Transportation Alliance, which wins the first-place matching grant from Momentum Market Intelligence of $1,000. The Northwest Academy and Write Around Portland win second and third prizes of $500 each. For the most donors older than 35, the Feral Cat Coalition of Oregon wins MMI's first-place matching grant of $1,000. Planned Parenthood of the Columbia/Willamette and the Wallace Medical Concern win second and third prizes of $500 each.

^WEB-ONLY MURMURS!

One more piece of gubernatorial news while we wait on John Kitzhaber's decision to run again: Republican hopeful Ron Saxton's fundraising passed the $1 million threshold, which is far more than any other candidate of either party has raised.

TriMet's recent financial loss was Washington County Elder Safe's gain. Last Thursday, Rosa Wigmore gave the elderly-victims program $1,000 out of her $700,000 December settlement from TriMet. The agency paid the money to Wigmore, an 82-year-old Holocaust survivor, to settle her lawsuit after a now-former bus driver tossed her off the bus and insulted her in June 2004, reminding her of when she had been in a concentration camp.

Oregon Business magazine's new editor has a familiar last name for close watchers of City Hall. The 25-year-old glossy monthly's newest hire is Robin Doussard, fresh from a three-month stint at Portland Monthly. Doussard is an L.A. transplant with 30 years of daily newspaper experience, most recently as a senior editor at The Orange County Register. Her husband, John Doussard, another former top editor at the Register, is Mayor Tom Potter's press secretary. Robin Doussard's predecessor, Mitchell Hartman, moves on to Reed College, where he's editing the alumni mag.