The week's most arresting developments.

[November 16th, 2005] The Multnomah County DA's office has asked Clackamas County prosecutors to take over any prosecution of Jim Jeddeloh , a local businessman and law-enforcement booster arrested last week on charges of violating a restraining order filed by his wife. Society watchers spot Jeddeloh's wife, Lee, around town on the arm of Multnomah County Sheriff Bernie Giusto . But while the sheriff takes heat for getting the law to intervene on Lee Jeddeloh's side ("The Long Arm of the Law," WW, July 20, 2005), Jim Jeddeloh has given bad mojo the slip. Despite revelations of a drunk-driving conviction, charges of domestic violence and his newest arrest, he still heads the Citizens Crime Commission in Portland.

What do ski-resort operators around the country know that City Hall and Oregon Health & Science University don't? In a Nov. 13 New York Times story titled "Trams Go the Way of Wooden Skis," the experts' consensus is that, at least for ski resorts, aerial trams are "high maintenance, low efficiency." Meanwhile, Portland City Commissioner for Transportation Sam Adams is in the middle of multiparty negotiations to figure out who will pay for the most recent OHSU tram cost overrun of $5 million. That brings the project's total price tag to $45 million, triple the original estimate.

Portland Public Schools Superintendent Vicki Phillips steps into enemy territory Monday at Cleveland High School when she meets teachers fuming over a curriculum change handed down this year without their input ("One Fine Mess," WW, Oct. 26, 2005). Jeff Miller , vice president of the Portland Association of Teachers, says the district's so-called "anchor" curriculum to strengthen and standardize writing skills for middle- and high-schoolers adds unfairly to teachers' workload and has questionable value for students. Phillips' office did not return calls about the four new districtwide synchronized writing assignments.

He's baaack. Andrew Kirkland, newly licensed to be a private investigator in Oregon after a rough stint as a top cop in Arizona, might make a good hire for tracking down an errant husband. After all, Kirkland is not only a former assistant police chief in Portland; he also survived allegations while here of raping a prostitute, sleeping with a woman who wasn't his wife on city time, and getting shot while visiting another woman late at night. Kirkland got his Oregon PI license in August following a brief stretch as police chief in Glendale, Ariz., where he resigned in April amid accusations of sexual harassment and having an inappropriate relationship with a female officer.

Tom Markgraf , longtime staffer for Oregon's Democratic U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, says he's seriously considering a challenge next year to Multnomah County Chair Diane Linn and has donor promises for tens of thousands of campaign dollars. Markgraf promises to point out how county programs such as mental-health treatment would suffer if money gets diverted to fund more jail beds. He's also open to talk of a public-safety levy.

From the department of minutiae: Two weeks ago, Murmurs noted the puzzling alteration of The Oregonian's masthead, which coincided with the paper's redesign and elevated, at least graphically, President Pat Stickel above Editor Sandy Rowe. Well, on Sunday, somebody rejiggered the masthead again, placing Rowe and Stickel Jr., both of whom are said to want the publisher's job held by Pat's father, Fred, on the same level again.

^WEB-ONLY MURMURS!

City Commissioner Randy Leonard isn't often accused of being neutral, but he's staying out of state Sen. Ginny Burdick's challenge next year to Commissioner Erik Sten. Burdick and Leonard often worked together when the two Portland Democrats served in the Legislature. And when Leonard left the Capitol to run for City Council in 2002, Burdick said Leonard had the most integrity of anybody in the Legislature. But Leonard said no when Burdick asked recently for his endorsement, saying he's friends with both Sten and Burdick. "Were it anyone else but Ginny running, I would have endorsed Erik,'' Leonard says.

Koch Industries' recent acquisition of Georgia Pacific may mark the next chapter in the timber and paper products company's long, indirect influence on Oregon's politics. Stage one came when longtime CEO Robert Pamplin Sr. passed his fortune to Bob Pamplin Jr., one of Oregon's largest political donors (he also owns KPAM radio, The Portland Tribune and numerous suburban newspapers, and Ross Island Sand & Gravel). Now Kansas-based Koch, co-owned by billionaire David Koch, has snapped up GP. Koch founded the powerful anti-tax group FreedomWorks. And given that GP still employs 3,000 Oregonians, expect to see FreedomWorks raise its already high national profile locally.

Multnomah County Sheriff Bernie Giusto says he's now hired enough staff to open 114 new jail beds at the Inverness Jail by early December. The beds will cost about $660,000 a year to operate, with the money to come from cuts in duplicated county administration services. Before the sheriff can fill the cells, he must turn in an operations report—due this week—proving he can do the job without relying on overtime. The sheriff's office said a draft of the report would be finished this week. The board of county commissioners has asked former Sheriff Dan Noelle to review the final plan before they vote on its approval.