News Portland economist Joe Cortright has taken a hard look (PDF) at a February tolling study produced for the $3.4 billion Columbia River Crossing Project by the consulting firm CDM Smith. Cortright findings cast further doubt on the assumptions about traffic volumes over ...   More

News The Economist magazine has taken notice of the Columbia River Crossing project in a piece in the current print edition. In an uncharacteristically equivocal review of the challenges facing the CRC, the magazine concludes
"Not every public-works p...   More

News Former State Rep. Mary Nolan (D-Portland) was unlikely to stay on the sidelines long after coming up short in her campaign to defeat incumbent City Commissioner Amanda Fritz last November.As WW reported, Nolan was recently a finalist for the top job at Planned Parenthood of the Columbia Willamette, but lost out on that job.
But she's now been hired by FamilyCare, a ...   More

News Gov. John Kitzhaber has been coy about whether he'll seek an unprecedented fourth term next year—most recently batting down a question at Portland City Club on March 15, by saying he'll wait until after the legislative session ends this summer to announce a decision.
Kitzhaber may indeed wait until mid-summer to say that he's running. But filings with the Secretary of State show that ...   More

News In 2007, Oregon lawmakers decided to address global warming by moving the state aggressively away from burning coal and natural gas to produce electricity. They required big utilities to gener   More

News Everybody wants to fix TriMet, the beleagured transit agency. Currently, Gov. John Kitzhaber is responsible for appointing TriMet's seven-member board. Those board members must live in geographical districts.
Now, State Rep. Chris Gorsek (D-Troutdale) wants to change that governance system. Gorsek is spons...   More

News As the calendar moves toward a sleepy May 21 election date, money is barely trickling into school board campaigns. Metro's operating levy for its green spaces has raised $70,000 so far and has no organized opposition.  Most of the noise, at least online, is coming from the bitter argument about Portland's p...   More

News As WW reported earlier this week, Lewis & Clark tax law Prof. Jack Bogdanski has filed a legal challenge in Oregon Tax Court to the $35 per person arts tax voters approved last November.
Bogdanski, better known as the blogger Bojack, has declined to c...   More

News Rep. Brent Barton (D-Oregon City) barely defeated his Republican opponent, Steve Newgard, last year, winning by just 348 votes, the narrowest margin of six hotly contested Metro-area House races.
Barton was returning to the House after losing a Senate race in 2010. He says he thought he could put the campaign behind him after November and get busy legislating.
But in F...   More

News For decades, Portland Fire & Rescue has had the political clout to fight any meaningful change in the way it does business. And, as city records show, that’s meant big budgets, slow respon   More