Murmurs: None Of This News Was Lifted From Karl Rove.

1. Ride-sharing startup Uber is pushing back against Oregon Insurance Commissioner Laura Cali’s Sept. 19 warning to consumers about using the company’s services. Cali said “traditional insurance policies may not apply” to sharing-economy businesses like Uber, which allows drivers to turn their cars into de facto taxis. Uber, operating in Eugene and Salem, has faced resistance in Portland from regulators, cab companies and unions (“Them’s the Brakes,” WW, July 16, 2014). Brooke Steger, who manages Uber’s operations in Washington and Oregon, says state officials never talked to Uber before issuing the warning. “Uber carries a combined single-limit insurance policy of $1 million to cover the rider and driver,” Steger tells WW. Insurance Division spokeswoman Lisa Morawski acknowledges the state didn’t reach out to Uber but says the concerns are legitimate. “This is a growing new economy,” she says, “and there may be some gaps in coverage.”

1. City transportation officials may have found a new means to raise millions of dollars: installing unmanned radar and cameras to catch speeders in school zones and on roads with lots of car crashes. The problem is, the cameras are illegal in Oregon. The city’s lobbyist, Martha Pellegrino, tells WW that state Rep. Jeff Reardon (D-Happy Valley) plans to draft a bill to make unmanned photo radar legal. Current law allows 10 cities, including Portland, to use photo radar vans, but an officer must be inside. Seattle in two years is raising $14.8 million from $189-a-violation fines using unmanned speed cameras. Portland’s push for legislation comes as Mayor Charlie Hales and Commissioner Steve Novick are still backing a street fee to raise money for road maintenance. Money from radar cameras could go to safety projects, such as sidewalks and signals, and offset the costs of maintenance work promoted by Hales and Novick.

1. The Oregon State Sheriffs’ Association this week donated $100,000 to fight Measure 91, which would make recreational marijuana legal in the state. It’s the first meaningful contribution received by the No on 91 Committee, but it raises some questions. The Sheriffs’ Association is set up as a charitable nonprofit; the Internal Revenue Service seeks to limit such groups’ direct involvement in politics. The sheriffs also appear to be bankrolling their spending from a relatively new source. In 2011, they won legislation that allowed them to earn revenue from foreclosure notices, previously the exclusive province of newspapers. The association’s most recent tax return shows those notices brought in $75,000 in the last six months of 2012, and presumably much more since then. Sheriffs’ Association general manager Darrell Fuller says IRS rules allow for the contribution. “It’s like lobbying voters on a ballot measure,” he says. Fuller adds that the sheriffs will probably contribute more to No on 91. “It won’t be another $100,000,” he says. Meanwhile, the campaign supporting Measure 91, New Approach Oregon, has raised $1.3 million.

WWeek 2015