On to the oregon primary.

[March 5th, 2008]

»Election results are in at the Portland Association of Teachers , and Rebecca Levison has upset incumbent Jeff Miller to win the presidency of the 3,000-person union. Levison, a sixth-grade teacher from Clarendon-Portsmouth School, won the Feb. 28 election (see “State of a Union,” WW, Jan. 30, 2008). Miller, a Cleveland High social-studies teacher, had the reputation of a bulldog , which some teachers valued. Others, including some administrators, did not: On Feb. 25, Cynthia Gilliam, a central-office administrator, rushed out of a school board meeting in tears after a brief conversation with Miller. Neither Gilliam nor Miller returned calls about the cause of the dispute.

»The entire executive board of the PTA at Humboldt School quit in a huff after school principal Jamila Williams wrote them in a Feb. 20 email that they’d “blemished all of the positive strides we have made.” Translation: You’re either with us or your against us at Humboldt , a high-poverty school in the Jefferson High School cluster that’s been struggling to attract students two years after facing a possible closure. At a Feb. 19 meeting between reps from a couple dozen Portland schools and Superintendent Carole Smith, Humboldt PTA member Nancy Clark said the school’s middle grades were very small and pre-K students had the same electives as 7th graders this year. In a follow-up letter on Feb. 22 to the PTA, Williams said that will change. But it was too late to stop the mass board resignation after Williams’ first email.

»Two eye-catching donations in statewide races this week: Sen. Brad Avakian (D-Bethany) chair of the Senate Environment Committee and a candidate for secretary of state, hauled in $5,000 from Oil Re-Refining, a North Portland processor of used oil filters . In the attorney general’s race, former mob prosecutor John Kroger got $5,000 from bad-boy homebuilder Roger Pollock (see “Tarnished,” WW, July 25, 2001).

»Portland mayoral candidates Slav Davidzon, a vegan bike-tour operator with a plan for local-universal health care, and flower-shop owner Gerhard Watzig have dropped out of the May 20 race. “Too much work, and not enough money,” says Watzig. And, because nature abhors a vacuum, two newbies have joined the race: Red Cross instructor Patricia Stewart and “entrepreneur” Christopher Rich, who wants to put “stylishly uniformed crosswalk guards” on the Park Blocks. Meanwhile, Tamara DeRidder, a land-use planner who was running for Commissioner Erik Sten’s seat, dropped out to endorse Jim Middaugh. For even moreon mayoral candidate Sho Dozono’s mystery poll and Randy Leonard’s fallout with firefighters, go to wweek.com.

»“Idi Amin” made a phone cameo appearance last weekend in Oregon on behalf of presidential candidate U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.). Obama’s Oregon supporters held more than 30 house parties around the state on Sunday, March 2; the gatherings featured a 10-minute rally-the-troops conference call with Obama backer U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) and Oscar-winning actor Forest Whitaker, who played Amin in The Last King of Scotland.

»City Commish Randy Leonard may have put in 25 years as a firefighter, including serving as union president. But the Portland firefighters’ union has declined to back him in his re-election bid. Firefighters’ Local 43 President Ken Burns says neither Leonard nor any of his colleagues has been sufficiently supportive in contract talks heading to arbitration June 9. “They’re having meetings about how to spend the city’s [$30 million] budget surplus, and we’re only about $900,000 apart,” says Burns.