May 14th, 2008
Vote, Vote, Vote, Vote.0 comments
May 7th, 2008
Where We Gather Each Week To See How We Live.6 comments
April 30th, 2008
More revealing than Miley Cyrus in Vanity Fair.0 comments
April 23rd, 2008
Candidates aren’t the only thing going wild2 comments
April 16th, 2008
We give stuff meaning every week.2 comments
April 9th, 2008
News ripped from our cold dead hands.7 comments
March 26th, 2008
For those of us not away on spring break0 comments
March 19th, 2008
Un-happy Anniversary9 comments
March 12th, 2008
What do John Lennon and Eliot spitzer have in common? Number 9, Number 9.9 comments
March 5th, 2008
On to the oregon primary.6 comments
![]() DEQ: This dump in Washington County must close in 2009. IMAGE: leahnash.com |
[April 2nd, 2008]
• The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality is shutting down a 50-year-old dump on the Tualatin River. The DEQ issued a final order Tuesday telling Lakeside Reclamation Landfill (“Grapes of Trash,” WW, July 18, 2007) to stop accepting garbage by July 1, 2009. The DEQ also orders landfill owner Howard Grabhorn to improve health and safety procedures, and expand monitoring of groundwater and landfill gases. Grabhorn spokesman Larry Harvey says the goal is to close the dump eventually, but Grabhorn may appeal DEQ’s decision so the closure can happen safely.
• Portland Public Schools may be stingy with its custodians, who faced threats of outsourcing and slashed wages during recent contract negotiations. But if you’re PPS lobbyist Justin Martin , you get $4,500 a month from the school district for less than full-time work. For the fourth time, the School Board voted Monday night to extend the district’s contract for a year with Martin, who also represents the Confederated Tribes of Grande Ronde and other organizations. By comparison, the Beaverton School District no longer employs a lobbyist, but paid about $2,000 a month when it did. Martin, who used to get $8,000 a month from PPS, attends hearings in Salem and helps craft the district’s legislative agenda.
• Some residents along the west side of the Willamette are squawking that Pacific Power should fulfill its promise to restore a nest on a utility pole for a mating pair of osprey . The utility company capped the 100-foot-tall pole last year out of concern the birds might be electrocuted. The company promised a replacement by the ospreys’ nesting season from March through August. “We were told an alternative platform was going to be put in place,” says one resident, Roger Goldingay. Pacific Power now expects to replace the nests next year. And local enviros Mike Houck and Bob Sallinger say the ospreys have already found a new site on a South Waterfront crane , and that waiting is better for the birds’ safety.
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• Tea time invades coffee hour: Kristian Foden-Vencil—Portland’s most aurally recognizable Brit expat journo—is taking over April Baer’s job as host of Morning Edition on Oregon Public Broadcasting starting the week of April 7. According to OPB’s vice prez for news, Morgan Holm, Baer will be picking up the slack on the political beat. In January, veteran OPB political reporter Colin Fogarty left for Pyramid Communications, a PR firm.
• The Portland Trail Blazers—with their hotel-to-arena buses and electricity-gobbling Rose Garden—may seem the antithesis of green-friendly. But the franchise will take a baby step toward acknowledging its big ol’ carbon footprint this Thursday, April 3, by hosting a “Green Awareness Game” against Houston for Earth Month (it’s a whole month now?). Reps from various city and state agencies and companies are planning promos, and Blazer forward Channing Frye will be the evening’s tree-huggin’ spokesman. Nice. But the New Jersey Nets played the league’s first carbon-neutral game this Tuesday (they bought hybrid truckloads of carbon credits), and their initiatives (see netsgogreen.com for more info) make Portland look like...well, New Jersey.
Funny how PPS "claims" that they don't have the money to maintain the schools or properly fund and staff the custodial department and yet they have enough money to hire expensive consultants and add more administrators to the infrastructure.(Brian Winchester who runs the Facilities department is adding two more administrators.)










If PPS is paying their Gucci-loafered consultants $1,000 a day, no wonder Mt. Tabor Middle School just closed its award-winning library, its art room and the computer lab.
Gone, forever.