HOT TIPS IN A COLD BUSINESS.

[July 27th, 2005] Things are cold these days at the Portland Tribune, where business editor Kristina Brenneman , business writers Jon Bell and Jeanie Senior , TV columnist Pete Schulberg , photo director Tim Jewett and features writer Jill Spitznass learned last week they'd been canned. The twice-weekly paper, headquartered in Clackamas County, tells readers it will no longer have special Business Tribune pages but will still cover business in its news pages. Brenneman got her news the day before she flew to China to pick up her newly adopted daughter.

U.S. Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) has found a "solution" to concerns about endangered salmon and steelhead in the Columbia and Snake Rivers: stop counting them . In June, acting on a lawsuit by enviros concerned the fish would fall victim to drought, federal judge James Redden said the Bonneville Power Administration should spill more water over four of its Columbia dams. In making their case, enviros used data from the Portland-based, BPA-funded Fish Passage Center , which tracks fish survival. In apparent retaliation, Craig has inserted language in BPA's budget bill that would block the agency from funding the 11-person center, effectively killing it. See wildsalmon.org to get involved.

He's ba-ack. Peter Davidson , the flashy Multnomah County mental-health czar who resigned last December after allegations that he intimidated his employees, has resurfaced in the state mental-health division . Davidson landed a temporary job helping develop and implement a risk-assessment tool for clients reentering the community. He'll also be consulting on several individual cases.

Here's an update on a Feb. 16 Rogue of the Week about Redwood Trust and Bountiful LLC, two symbiotically attached groups active in Oregon that promised "humanitarian aid" to people with money problems, claiming to pay off mortgages for a percentage fee up front. Last week, federal prosecutors charged Redwood Trust's New York-based leader, Kenneth Titus Sr. , with mail fraud, wire fraud and money laundering. Authorities say that in 15 months the group took in more than $4 million and paid off only a single mortgage-one that happened to belong to the stepson of the scheme's leader in Oregon, a Sherwood-based Web designer named Rex Haragan . State officials have quashed the group's Oregon activities. And the feds intend to seize any ill-gotten dough to reimburse victims.

If Portland's burbs don't go for the idea of a regional schools tax , look for the city to consider going it alone, choosing from a menu that could include a local-option levy in some combination with taxes on restaurant meals, garbage, and/or gross business receipts . Other options remaining on the city's table for 2006 if Washington and Clackamas counties say no to more school funding in upcoming polls include a value-added tax or an income tax to replace the Multnomah County income tax that's expiring next year.

Stupid Human Tricks: We may not have the triple-digit temps scorching other parts of the country, but Oregonians are keeping pace in the "dumb things to do in hot weather'' department. Washington County sheriff's deputies rescued a 1-year-old boy on July 24 from a Ford Expedition with its engine running and doors unlocked while father Gregory William Mallek, 34, of Portland shopped in a nearby store; he received a ticket for child neglect. But at least he left the AC on-the week before, on July 19, Clackamas County sheriff's deputies had their own crisis, saving an unattended chicken left to bake in the sun without water in the cab of a Chevy pickup with its windows rolled up. The chicken has been placed in a bird sanctuary, while the case has been referred to the district attorney for prosecution.

It's all over but the cryin' in a class-action suit accusing Qwest of jacking Oregon cell-phone customers for unfair roaming charges. Though Qwest admits no wrongdoing in the case pursued by Portland lawyers Jennifer Palmquist and Christine Tracey, a settlement that could run as high as $20 million received Judge Jerome LaBarre's final approval last week. The 120,000 or so Qwest cell-phone customers who might be owed money have until Aug. 4 to mail in claim forms. (For more information, call 242-1122.) In his ruling, LaBarre tossed a demand from Palmquist's old firm, Garvey Schubert Barer, which had threatened to sue the class-action plaintiffs for more than $400,000 it wanted for work its lawyers did before the firm dropped the case. (Palmquist and Tracey left Garvey to keep the case alive-see "One Woman's Qwest," WW, May 4, 2005.)

Angie's List, a Consumer Reports-like website that offers user-generated performance reviews of businesses from asbestos removal to watch repair, went online in Portland last week. Membership to www.angieslist.com usually costs $35 a year in the two dozen cities where it's up. But it's free for the foreseeable future in Portland. The list, started by Columbus, Ohio, entrepreneur Angie Hicks, has 5,000 reports on Portland-area contractors and businesses and 700 registered Portland users.

Oregon ranks in the nation's bottom 10 places to be black, according to the Black Commentator. The Commentator, a Pennsylvania-based online opinion journal at www.blackcommentator.com, published a story this month with Oregon at eighth-worst in a ranking based on the percentage of African-American inmates in each state's penal system compared with their total in the state's population. A quick check with the Oregon Department of Corrections shows about 9.5 percent of the 12,865 inmates in the state system are black. According to 2000 Census data, the most recent racial population estimate available, only 1.6 percent of Oregonians are black.