Gossip Should Have No Friends

[March 28th, 2007] A TriMet bus driver faces possible discipline after his bosses got complaints that a girl estimated to be 8 years old recently drove the No. 70 bus for at least 1.5 miles and made at least three stops. TriMet spokesman Bruce Solberg acknowledges the 2:15 pm incident March 17 with 13-year driver Timothy Klassen, and says TriMet is still determining disciplinary action. Tarin Jordan, one of the two riders filing complaints, says the girl "was still steering when I got off at the Lloyd Center." Police haven't gotten an official report about the incident, which the DMV says could warrant a $242 careless driving citation.

Michael Munk wants the Oregon State Bar to dig deeper in a misconduct investigation against a Portland lawyer with alleged ties to the CIA ("North by Northwest," WW, Feb. 21, 2007). Munk brought a bar complaint last year against lawyer Scott Caplan, who acted as a registered agent for Bayard Foreign Marketing LLC. Bayard bought a plane allegedly used to fly terror suspects to secret prisons in other countries. The bar dropped its investigation March 12, but Munk has appealed , asking if the bar will tolerate a member's "knowing participation" in the CIA program.

Lies, damn lies and statistics : In its voters' pamphlet statements, "Citizens to Reform City Hall" claims the charter-review committee reached the recommendations Portlanders will vote on May 15 after "100 plus public meetings, 2,000 hours of testimony, and 15 months of work." But Murmurs calculates that claim by the pro-charter-change group means each public meeting lasted nearly 20 hours and the committee averaged 33 hours of weekly testimony for 60 straight weeks . Spokesman Kyle Chisek confirms the oft-repeated numbers are inaccurate, saying, "The committee put in 2,000 volunteer hours including all meetings and outreach...they didn't actually take 2,000 hours of testimony. That's a slight nuance that was lost in the editing process. "

Add $88,000 to the cost of closing and reconfiguring Portland schools this year. That's the estimated price tag on a special deal with about 110 Portland Public Schools teachers who must move classrooms this year due to closures and elementary- and middle-school mergers. The new deal specifies teachers can claim up to an additional 16 hours' pay to pack their personal belongings and move them to their new classrooms. The district notes the changes still carry an overall net savings of $965,788.

On March 19, The Oregonian editorialized that Portland's City Council-passed public campaign finance system was so flawed that voters should decide its fate. That drew a letter of rebuke to the O from Chuck Beggs, a retired legendary Capitol reporter for the AP. In his letter published March 23, Beggs noted that efforts to refer public finance to the ballot "flopped" in 2006 and also that one of public funding's key architects, Commissioner Erik Sten, won re-election. "I suspect Portlanders favor the program," Beggs wrote. "Arguably, they have indirectly spoken already."

So why was Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury among 1,000 people outside Portland Providence Medical Center on March 21? To be part of a candlelight vigil supporting hospital workers trying to unionize at Providence Health System, which includes that hospital and St. Vincent Medical Center. Bradbury chaired a commission last June that said Providence was engaging in "a coordinated union-avoidance strategy" with nonunionized employees, which includes everyone but docs and registered nurses. Providence says it won't meet with the Service Employees International Union because the union is trying to harm its reputation.