Paying The Copper For the second time since taking office, Mayor Vera Katz seems to be having trouble finding qualified out-of-towners who want to become Portland's police chief. As a result, she's asking the City Council to boost the annual pay by nearly $23,000. Six years ago, the three non-Portlanders who made the final cut included a Californian who didn't want the job, a Spokane police chief who was warring with that city's minority communities and a Bay Area police chief who balked at Portland's salary offer ("Chief Complaints," WW, June 17, 1993). Though there is no definitive word from City Hall on who has applied, the fact that Katz extended the application deadline may indicate she isn't happy with the list. One problem may be money. The job's current pay ranges from $94,000 to $106,000, depending on experience. Several national candidates have told the city's headhunters they'd be looking for $140,000, according to three City Hall sources. In response, Katz's office is scrambling to raise the job's salary before the new Oct. 8 deadline for applications. "We're going to have to deal with it," says Sam Adams, mayoral chief of staff. He says a recent study showed that Portland's police chief salary is 16 percent below that of cities such as Fort Worth, Seattle and Tucson. He says Katz will ask the City Council to bless a revised package that includes a starting salary of $116,779 with significant annual increases. The question is, how generous can the city be without derailing ongoing mediation with the Portland Police Association over rank-and-file pay? Katz says by the time a final round of candidates is lined up, perhaps in November, she wants to be at the point "that salary will not be the factor" keeping any candidate from seriously considering Portland. "My goal is to find the best candidates for Portland," she says, "because the community expects these people to walk on water." The mayor says none of this means that probable local candidates, such as assistant chiefs Mark Paresi and Bruce Prunk, are drowning in the application pool. --Philip Dawdy Let Sleeping Dogs Lie? FOLLOW-UP After a brief, contentious life, Multnomah County's pet-food tax has been officially put to sleep. Admitting that she should have been more involved in a process that sparked protests from pet advocates and frustration from other county commissioners, County Chairwoman Beverly Stein issued an apologetic memo to commissioners Sept. 23 saying she was shelving the tax--at least for now. The memo also announced the retirement of Hank Miggins, animal-control director and longtime county staffer. Stein would not say whether Miggins, who'll leave at the year's end, had been pushed out the door. Now Stein is doing what some observers feel she should have done in the first place: looking for an animal-control expert, rather than a career bureaucrat, to run the $2.86 million agency. In the next month, she'll also form a new "study committee," composed of everyone from animal activists to animal-control experts, that will propose changes to animal control's services and propose a new funding system--one that could ultimately double the agency's budget. But none of the extra money will come from the county's general fund, Stein says. In fact, given the county's stagnant tax base, she'd like to clip the $1.2 million of general-fund money the agency currently receives. This means the pet-food tax, or a facsimile of it, could one day rise from the dead. --Philip Dawdy Judging The Field Supreme Court Justice George Van Hoomissen's latest decision is a doozy--and it didn't come down in court. Citing plans to teach and serve as a private mediator, Van Hoomissen decided to step down from the state's top tribunal--but not until his term ends in January 2001. That ensures that his replacement will be chosen not by Gov. John Kitzhaber, but by voters in the November 2000 election, who probably won't suffer from a lack of choices. Potential candidates being talked about in legal circles include Portland plaintiff's attorney Charles Merten and state Appeals Court judges Paul De Muniz and Walter Edmonds. The Sept. 23 announcement could spell trouble for Democrats. Last November, when a Supreme Court slot was open, the Oregon Trial Lawyers Association--a traditional Democratic ally--geared up to fend off GOP candidate Bob Tiernan. (Tiernan dropped out of the race, handing Appeals Court Judge William Riggs an easy victory.) This time, the trial lawyers already have a fight on their hands: Ballot Measure 81. That initiative, which the Legislature placed on the May 2000 ballot, would allow lawmakers to restore caps on punitive damages. The Supreme Court election could siphon even more money from the Democrats, particularly if someone like Tiernan or state Rep. Kevin Mannix (R-Salem) runs. "Judicial races in Oregon have historically been pretty low-profile," said Tom Balmer of the Portland firm Ater Wynne Hewitt Dodson and Skerritt. "But that has changed recently in some other states, and it's unclear whether Oregon is going to go the direction of states like Texas, where you get millions of dollars spent in court races." --Nick Budnick Strike One! Marshall Glickman's perfect record may suffer its first blemish this week. Glickman's company, Portland Family Entertainment, is preparing to take control of Civic Stadium. To do so, however, it must provide the city proof of an agreement to purchase a AAA baseball team. And it must do so by Oct. 1. Earlier this week, Glickman said he might not make that deadline. That might not seem like a big problem, but when Mayor Vera Katz presented the deal earlier this year, city chief financial officer Tim Grewe said, "Missing any of these dates will be grounds for terminating our agreement." So far, PFE has met seven of the city-imposed deadlines. But Glickman says he may not have the acquisition agreement wrapped up until next week. Last month, PFE announced a letter of intent to acquire the Calgary Cannons of the Pacific Coast League. Glickman says converting that preliminary agreement into a definitive document has taken longer than expected but completion just requires cleaning up some legal points. "If we're late, it'll only be a day or two," he says. Calgary owner Russ Parker puts a slightly different spin on things. "We're still negotiating," he says. Could any of the remaining points quash the deal? "There are some real issues, let's put it that way," Parker says. Although Glickman says city officials know that PFE may miss the deadline, Bryant Enge of the city's office of finance and administration, who has handled many of the day-to-day details of the PFE agreement, said Tuesday that he was unaware of any potential delays. No one from Mayor Katz's office was available for comment before WW went to press. --Nigel Jaquiss   Corrections In "The Alpenrose Files" (Buzz, WW, Sept. 15, 1999), we stated that Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh used anhydrous ammonia to make his explosives. In fact, McVeigh used another common fertilizer, ammonium nitrate. The photo that accompanied last week's review of Imago Theater's Blood Wedding, Blood Wedding ("Blood Relationships," WW, Sept. 22, 1999) was actually from The Miracle Theater's version of Federico García Lorca's play Blood Wedding. WW regrets the errors.   - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Willamette Week | originally published September 29, 1999