Winners

1. Though the pan-Asian bistro Saucebox has received lots of national press, it had to come as something of a surprise for the still-evolving place to be named The Oregonian's Restaurant of the Year. But A&E editor Karen Brooks clearly loves the place. She recently held her wedding reception there.

2.Public employee union PACs are going to be loaded this year thanks to a new $3 monthly political surcharge to members. Union officials estimate coffers will increase by some $600,000 annually. The money is necessary, they say, to fight Bill Sizemore, who has sponsored a petition that would--you guessed it--make it more difficult to use union dues for political purposes.

3. It's like giving candy to a baby. Wes Cooley's political comeback gives Oregonian editorial cartoonist Jack Ohman plenty of opportunity for easy laughs between now and the May primary. The only better news for the prize-winning penman would be if Bob Packwood were to test the political waters. But we all know that will never happen.

Losers

Photo: AARON JOHANSON

1.Would-be waiters will find it tough going. The state Employment Department reports that job growth in the restaurant biz is at a six-year low.

2. When Doubletree Hotel Columbia River booked Oregon Steel Mill's annual shareholders meeting, it probably didn't expect a mob of angry union activists, but that's what's heading its way. United Steelworkers of America, on strike at Oregon Steel's plant in Pueblo, Colo., announced that 200 steelworkers will hop a bus from Pueblo to protest at the April 30 meeting.

3. It seems that Sheriff Dan Noelle was an unintended victim of our April Fool's "News Buzzed" spread. Along with several other faux-news items, we reported that the sheriff struck a deal to use the jail infirmary for people who wanted to commit doctor-assisted suicide. Someone cut that item out of the paper and began circulating it around the office, giving the impression that it was true. As one of Noelle's aides said, "We were not amused."