Can the Ducks take the B.S. out of the BCS?

[November 14th, 2007]

PowerPointing our way to a secure Homeland : On Wednesday, Nov. 14, City Council will probably approve a $100,000 contract with the Boston-based Public Consulting Group to assess Portland’s “continuity of operations plan.” Huh? The PCG assessment is intended to ensure that we remain “the city that works” during a terrorist attack, volcanic eruption or any similarly apocalyptic disruption of our familiar routine. “It’s good business practice,” says Patty Rueter of Portland’s Office of Emergency Management. PCG will hold workshops and “facilitate discussions” with city bureaus that can spare the time, ultimately “identifying gaps that still need to be met”—a.k.a., future contracting opportunities. The feds will pick up the tab, god bless ’em.

A Portland businessman convicted of conspiring to ship missile batteries to Iran (“Missile Misdeal,” WW, May 16, 2007) has been sentenced to 20 months in prison. Robert Caldwell was sentenced Nov. 9 by U.S. District Court Judge David Briones in El Paso. A Homeland Security sting busted Caldwell on Jan. 25, 2007, in a San Antonio hotel room, where he’d just bought five batteries to operate a Hawk surface-to-air missile system. The feds believed Caldwell conspired with an international arms network to ship the batteries to Europe and on to Iran; Caldwell, 57, told WW he was duped and thought the batteries were for offshore oil rigs. His prison stint starts Jan. 11.

Measure 50, version 2.0 : Last week, Oregon voters rejected an increase in cigarette taxes. This week, Portland city Commissioners want to create a 50-foot no-smoking zone around most city-owned buildings . The ordinance was sponsored by every commissioner but Dan Saltzman. Earlier this year, Saltzman—as parks commissioner—led a smoking ban in city parks and Pioneer Courthouse Square. Saltzman is cool to the new ordinance coming to council Wednesday, Nov. 14, because of employee concerns about the smoke-free zone . But Richard “Buz” Beetle, a Laborers’ Local 483 official (who quit smoking by gnawing on raw carrots), says he hasn’t heard many complaints from his membership, which includes Parks&Rec workers.

Add Multnomah County Chairman Ted Wheeler to the list of folks ready to draw their knives if Sheriff Bernie Giusto loses his badge (“Let’s Play Recall,” WW , Oct. 24, 2007). Wheeler tells Murmurs that if the state Department of Public Safety Standards and Training’s investigation of Giusto ends with the sheriff’s police certification stripped, Wheeler expects Giusto to step down immediately. If not, Wheeler says he’d put a resolution before the county Board of Commissioners demanding that Giusto leave . Lt. Bruce McCain, Giusto’s private attorney, says Giusto would step down as sheriff if the state strips his badge. But McCain says Giusto plans to exhaust all options to keep his badge —and that could last until early 2009.

Last year, we complained that a city-provided Web tool for checking basic property information lacked other key public records—i.e., property owners’ names (see “Record Frustrations,” WW , May 24, 2006). Blogger Jack Bogdanski noted this week at bojack.org that our prayers for Portlandmaps.com have been answered . The more secular explanation for the change comes from city ombudsman Mike Mills, who says many months of research and discussion by city and Multnomah County officials concluded “property owner names should not be blocked from view on the Internet.”

In 2006, the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde spent more than $800,000 in Oregon gubernatorial primaries trying unsuccessfully to help opponents of a proposed rival casino in Cascade Locks. Last week, they waded into a smaller political pond, trying to unseat La Center , Wash., Mayor Jim Irish. What had the mayor of the 2,440-person town done to get the tribes, er, Irish up? According to The Columbian newspaper in Vancouver, his refusal to rule out a mega-casino proposed by the Cowlitz tribe, which would compete with the Grand Ronde’s Spirit Mountain casino, led the Grand Ronde to pay for six mailers against Irish. Hewon anyway. Grand Ronde spokeswoman Siobhan Taylor says the tribe also sent mailers to Clark County residents and helped a challenger in the Woodland, Wash., mayoral race. Including mailers and TV ads aimed at Clark County commissioners earlier this year, Grand Ronde has spent “a little less than 200,000 ” to reach Washington voters, which Taylor says is “peanuts ” compared with spending by proponents of the Cowlitz casino.

A quick update to a Rogue that’s drawn more than 175 comments on wweek.com: Union members organizing a petition to recall SEIU Local 503 president Joe DiNicola (see Rogue of the Week, WW , June 27, 2007) remain short of the signatures they need for an election to remove him. Their petition drive began after DiNicola requested almost $110,000 from union funds to pay his overtime on top of his $83,000 annual salary. Five months later, former SEIU presidential candidate Rosalie Pedroza says DiNicola opponents are short of collecting signatures (she won’t say how many more are needed) from the needed 20 percent of its membership. Next up: A Nov. 21 hearing in Marion County Circuit Court regarding DiNicola’s wage claim.