News State Rep. Peter Buckley (D-Ashland) today redefined what a tax is. Buckley, a five-term incumbent, knows a lot about taxes—he's co-chairman of the Joint Ways and Means Committee, which writes the state's budget.But when Buckley stood today to talk about a new proposal from the Oregon School Boards Association that would cut public employee retirement benefits by $1.8 billion, he c...   More

News The May 21 election this year has something for everyone—school board races; a renewal of City Commissioner Dan Saltzman's children's levy; the fluoride war; and even a Metro ballot measure seeking some operating funds for its green spaces.
The early money is flowing towards the kids. Saltzman's raising money through ...   More

News The three-member Oregon State Bar trial panel tasked with deciding a major legal ethics case has pushed the date of its decision back to May 7. As WW reported last fall, Barnes Ellis and Lois Rosenbaum, two of the Northwest's leading securities lawyers, face conflict of interest charg...   More

News City officials finally produced details last week of a new arts tax that voters passed last November, requiring Portlanders to pay $35 a year to fund arts teachers in the public schools and suppor   More

News The campaign proposing to fluoridate Portland's drinking water is raking in hefty contributions ahead of the May 21 ballot battle over the issue.
Healthy Kids, Healthy Portland reported $5,000 checks from the Nurses United Political Action Committee; the Oregon Dental Hygienists' Association and from Heal...   More

News The Oregon Senate today approved legislation that will move the controversial $3.4 billion Columbia River Crossing to the next stage.Prior to the bill being introduced, Senate President Peter Courtney (D-Salem) took the unusual step of admonishing visitors and spectators to mind their manners, in recognition of the passionate opposition the project has generated.
After a low-key floor discussi...   More

News There are a couple of key takeaways from a quick skim of the budget that the co-chairs of the Legislature's Joint Ways and Means Committee released today. 1. There's slightly more money for K-12 education, the biggest single line item in the budget, than there was in Gov. Jo...   More

News The unmanned flying vehicles called drones get lots of bad press because of their use in killing people in Afghanistan and other global hotspots. As WW has reported, drones also provide a lot of good jobs in parts of this region that don't have great employment opportunities.In...   More

News Former Oregon Supreme Court Justice Michael "Mick" Gillette has injected some momentum into Gov. John Kitzhaber's quest to reduce public employee pension benefits by hundreds of millions of dollars during this legislative session.The back story: the big driver of Kitzhaber's proposed cuts is a plan to reduce cost-of-living increases on pension benefit that exceed $24,000 annually. Pu...   More

News Eric Utne founded the Utne Reader, a print forerunner of content aggregation sites such as the Huffington Post, in 1984. The magazine, published bimonthly, pulled in excerpts and reprints from a range of media sources. It's mission is to bring readers "the best of the alternative press."

In 2000, Utne walked away from the maga...   More