News Deeper Than Loren Parks’ Pockets

[November 12th, 2008]

Yes, they can : Dozens of students at the outer Southeast Portland school now called (take a deep breath) “Clark K-8 @ Binnsmead” have proposed renaming their school for President-elect Barack Obama. And they could very well get their wish. The newly merged school on Southeast 87th Avenue is in the process of finding a new name by the end of the school year. “The buzz was big and high” the day after the election, about the possibility of a new Barack Obama School, says Ralph Leftwich, a Clark community volunteer.

Mayor Tom Potter will set up a showdown on Wednesday, Nov. 12, with his three City Council mates by asking to transfer $1.75 million from the “rainy day fund” so the city can buy 276 acres in Scappoose for a Portland police training facility (see “An Offer The City Could Refuse,” WW, Oct. 22, 2008). “We hope to bring a purchase agreement to Council by year end,” says Potter’s chief of staff, Austin Raglione. A land purchase requires Council approval, which may not be forthcoming. 

Big win for ex- Oregonian correspondents : U.S. District Judge Michael Hogan on Nov. 4 ruled largely in favor of former O scribes seeking back benefits. At issue: whether 18 correspondents were contractors—as the paper claimed—or employees entitled to wage and pension benefits. Hogan’s ruling (pdf) says they were employees and eligible for some, although not all, benefits. “The ruling is a vindication for my clients,” says Roy Pulvers, the correspondents’ attorney. In total, they seek between $2 million and $3 million. Oregonian lawyers were unavailable for comment. One other piece of O news: Former City Hall reporter Anna Griffin will become the paper’s new Metro columnist.

One late campaign expenditure caught Murmurs’ eye: $16,000 that Judy Shiprack loaned on Oct. 23 to her ultimately successful campaign for Multnomah County Commission. Curious that, since Shiprack is still negotiating with the Portland Development Commission to repay $1.8 million in public money from a bungled Old Town condo project (see “Shipracked,” WW, Sept. 17, 2008). Shiprack told WW the PDC debt is “totally unrelated” to her personal finances. PDC spokesman Shawn Uhlman says officials are hopeful she’ll soon settle the five-year-old debt, calling recent talks “encouraging.”

Charges have been dropped against Joseph Beres, the Portland man accused last spring of  “telephonic harassment” after he says he sent just two text messages to a female acquaintance (see “Call Me Crazy,” WW, July 23, 2008). Beres says the unusual case stemmed from a glitch in cell phone technology. Beres owned a $499 4GB iPhone that let him type text messages of unlimited length. But they arrived on the woman’s $30 Nokia phone in multiple, 160-character nuggets. The flood of text messages, she says, shut down her phone. An initial hearing, set for August, was postponed several times before the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office dropped the case. A prosecutor with the DA’s office declined to say why.

This Saturday, Nov. 15, at 10:30 am (PST), protesters nationwide will gather to demonstrate against Prop. 8, the amendment passed in California to ban gay marriage in that state. Locally, groups will gather at Portland State on the South Park Blocks near the farmers market.