WINNERS 1. Just when gay-rights advocates thought they'd lost their favorite bogeyman, Lon Mabon popped up last week with a proposed ballot measure for the 2000 election. Mabon's initiative would prohibit teaching about gay lifestyles in public schools. Basic Rights Oregon is sure to get a great fund-raising letter out of Mabon's latest attack. 2. Tipping his helmet to local cyclists, city transportation czar Charlie Hales urged county officials to keep temporary bike lanes open on the Morrison Bridge after repairs are done on the Hawthorne Bridge. "Let's not go back to the dark days of little or or no safe bicycle access and use of the Morrison Bridge," Hales wrote in a memo to Bev Stein and gang. "We should try it. We might like it." 3. Heading toward a November vote, north-south light rail got a couple of big boosts last week. First came Metro's traffic analysis for the next 20 years, showing that drivers will be stuck in far more jams; congestion in the north-south corridor is projected to increase 300 percent. The day after this report, the Oregon Environmental Council endorsed the rail project as a "good investment" to reduce congestion and pollution.

LOSERS 1. Lane Powell Spears Lubersky, one of Portland's largest corporate law firms, is losing its entire labor law team. Paula Barran, Richard Liebman and 10 other Lane Powell attorneys--who have earned a national reputation defending clients like Intel and Louisiana-Pacific in sexual harassment suits--are leaving to start their own firm Sept. 1. 2. Reading Frenzy owner Chloe Eudaly got word last week that her neighbor, the chain restaurant Taco del Mar, will take over the space that houses her nationally renowned 'zine shop early next year. Eudaly, who says she was never offered a fair chance to renew her lease, isn't sure if she's going to set up at a new locale. 3. As even police chief Charles Moose acknowledged, the Portland Police Bureau couldn't have picked a worse time to release its first-ever report on less-lethal weapons. Although the Wednesday presentation to City Council was planned well in advance, it came in the midst of criticism against the bureau for firing less-lethal beanbag "bullets" during a recent protest in Northeast Portland.

 

originally published August 26, 1998