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Donors include affordable-housing activists Bobby Weinstock, Dana Brown, Sam Galbreath, Peg Malloy, and Ed McNamara. Erik Sten's political action committee gave $500, and his chief aide, Bob Durston, contributed $100. Tri-Met director Tom Walsh gave $500 to Willer. Willer also received a whopping $7,000 from a union that represents county workers--AFSCME Local 88. Contributions from unions and corporations were banned under the campaign-finance reforms passed by Oregon voters in 1994. But the state Supreme Court struck down those restrictions last year. Willer's chief opponent, Lisa Naito, also benefited from the new lax rules. Naito, a Metro councilor and former state lawmaker, received $5,000 from the county corrections officers' union, but remained far behind Willer with just $22,550 in total contributions. In the three-way contest for Saltzman's seat, Tam, a Portland School Board member, raised $35,614, mainly by tapping left-wing activists and Asian-American contributors. Tam's largest contribution was $3,200 from the Portland Rainbow Coalition. He also received contributions from public employee union organizers Alice Dale and Suzanne Wall. Close on Tam's heels is Dianne Linn, a longtime Portland political activist and director of the city's Office of Neighborhood Involvement. Linn raised $33,743. Politicians such as Collier, Gretchen Kafoury, Metro Executive Mike Burton and City Commissioner Charlie Hales gave to Linn, as well as city employees Mia Birk, David Soloos and Marc Zolton. Linn's largest donation--$5,000--came from the county corrections officers union. She also received $1,000 from Fred Meyer. State Rep. George Eighmey raised just $17,760 but loaned himself $15,000, putting him in the same neighborhood as Tam and Linn. Eighmey received $2,700 from Fred Meyer, $2,000 from Oregon Right to Die, $1,000 from pharmaceutical giant Smith-Kline Beecham, $250 from Monsanto, and $1,000 from the Greenbriar Co., a Lake Oswego manufacturer of rail cars. --BY
Ushering In a New Era
Ushers at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall were handing out more than programs this week. At Monday night's performance by violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Schnitz patrons were handed pro-union propaganda calling the publicly funded Metro Exposition Recreation Commission "mean-spirited managers who only know how to rule through edict and punishment."
MERC manages the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, Civic Auditorium, the Convention Center and Civic Stadium for Metro. Portland's ushers union, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local B-20, is upset because MERC has decided to give the $7-an-hour part-time work at the Schnitz and the Civic Auditorium to a non-union subcontractor, Coast to Coast Security, putting 120 people out of work. Mark Williams, general manager for MERC, says he has good reason to turn to the subcontractor. He complains that MERC can't get IATSE members to work when it needs them because the union contract allows ushers and ticket takers to refuse to work 15 days a month. "For three and a half years, there hasn't been one month where we've been able to cover all of our shifts," Williams says. "When you call Coast to Coast, they send someone right over." Williams says MERC offered to rescind its contract with Coast to Coast if IATSE would agree to reduce its members' exempt days to five and promise to reserve workers on crucial dates like Christmas Eve. The union, however, is adamant about the scheduling issue, arguing that the ushers, who generally have other full-time jobs, need to maintain the privilege of setting aside 15 days a month. IATSE rep Christine Bachman says union members are also upset that MERC originally agreed to let the ushers take their 15 days, but then sprung the news of the Coast to Coast contract on them two months ago. Bachman fears that MERC will eventually stop using IATSE at its other venues. --JF
License to Bungle
Supporters for the state's photo radar speed traps can no longer count of the vote of state Rep. Lonnie Roberts. The East Portland Democrat got away with speeding thanks to a mess-up by U.S. Public Technologies. USPT runs the photo operation, which replaces real cops with a camera and a computer system. In theory, it's simple: Take a picture of speeders, match up their license plate number with DMV records, and send the zipsters a ticket. But it doesn't always work that way. As reported in the current issue of Car and Driver, Roberts was photographed in his Ford Bronco (license plate STATE REP 21) going 51 in a 35 mph zone on Halsey Street last August. But Roberts never got the ticket. Michael Stahlschmidt, whose Audi A4's license plate reads a plain 21, did. The USPT system is supposed to prevent such errors with a three-step verification process. In this case, it didn't work. No one at USPT was able to tell the difference between a dark-colored compact car and a sport utility vehicle that's half white. And no one caught the difference in the license plate. Roberts says after the issue was brought to his attention by Car and Driver he called ODOT to pay his fine. But he can't, because the agency won't reissue a ticket once a case has been closed. "I don't know," says Roberts. "The other guy proved he wasn't guilty and it was rescinded, but they can't reissue a ticket. Apparently that's just the way the system works." Roberts says that he voted for photo radar in 1995, but against an expansion in 1997. "That's just big brother all over again," he says. Roberts, who is now running for state Senate, says if elected he'll call for an investigation into the program. "If it were discontinued," he says, "I wouldn't miss it." --PW
Clarifications:
Last week's story on the conflict between cops and TV helicopters ("Cops & Choppers," News Buzz, WW, Feb. 4, 1998) did not include a response from the Portland Police Bureau. Police spokesman Cliff Madison called shortly after our paper went to press. Madison says it wouldn't have mattered whether the choppers were at 2,000 feet or 6,000 feet, given the strength of their cameras. He says that rather than resorting to FAA-imposed restrictions in the future, the bureau wants to work with TV stations to hammer out voluntary plans for limiting coverage. Also, an item in our Scoreboard implied that city payments for westside light rail would continueindefinitely. The final payment of the $7 million contribution is due this year.
Follow-up:
COSTLY Intentions The state Department of Corrections' decision to transfer 78 female inmates to a privately run Arizona prison may end up costing more than expected. Late last month, Portland lawyer Michael S. Morey filed a notice of intent to sue the department on behalf of four of those women, who say they were sexually assaulted while incarcerated at the Corrections Corporation of America facility. Morey's notice says the department could be liable if it failed to properly monitor the Arizona prison or quickly respond to the inmates' claims. But he hopes he doesn't have to go after the state coffers. "My focus is not the state of Oregon. It is the Corrections Corporation of America people," he told WW, saying he also plans to sue the Tennessee-based company. The clients--Barrilee Bannister, Victoria Simms, Christine Foos and Stephanie Russell--say that several CCA guards began sexual relationships with them last spring. Although only one woman claims she was forcibly raped, the rest say they felt coerced after guards slipped them marijuana and then threatened to search their cells ("Private Affairs," WW, Oct. 22, 1997). Morey agrees that the atmosphere at the Arizona prison was coercive. "I think prisoners should be treated like prisoners," he told WW. "These people were treated like sexual pieces of meat." After an investigation, the state Department of Corrections determined that the women's claims were legitimate and transferred them back home to Oregon. --MO
Sharing Wares
Silicon Valley industry analyst and guru David Coursey is the David Geffen of the software business, and his annual Internet Showcase is quickly becoming the Lollapalooza of the cyber-geek set. The second-annual showcase, held Jan. 27-29 in San Diego, attracted hundreds of investors and journalists. Fifty-four companies out of an original 1,500 applicants got eight minutes on stage to show off their wares. Along with titans like Microsoft and unknown start-ups like Tut Systems, two downtown Portland software companies--Visual Computing Corp. and WebCo--got a chance to strut their stuff. VCC, founded in 1997 by Wyatt Starnes and Gene Kim, wowed the crowd with a technology that allows computer users to walk through the image on their monitor as if it were a 3-D space. Starnes says the 360-degree rotatable environment is perfectly suited to the emerging world of electronic commerce. If you want to check out a car online, for example, just drag your mouse in a big circle and you can scope out the goods from bumper to bumper or chat with the salesman standing to your left. Portland's other newsworthy software start-up, WebCo, tied VCC for 12th place in the showcase after demonstrating its Interactive Content Recognition Technology. ICRT is the underlying technology for WebCo's Web Chaperone product, which is designed to filter out Internet porn. But the technology has broader applications. ICRT's ability to identify specific Internet information can be used as a fine-tuned search engine, plucking or screening data from the Net. The product that WebCo demoed--Web Chaperone 2.0--shields online users from Internet junk mail, or "spam." "This put us on the national radar screen," says WebCo founder Adrian Russell-Falla. "We've hit the big time." Indeed, this week Sen. Ron Wyden identified WebCo's technology in his opening remarks to the commerce committee about the problem of Internet porn. --JF |
