News The Multnomah County Board of Commissioners has reached a unanimous decision to make Commissioner Jeff Cogen the new interim county chairman. He will take over early next month. The decision, finalized among the four commissioners and their staffers late last week, seeks to fill a leadership void after Gov. Ted Kulongoski tapped now-former County Chair Ted Wheeler to take over as state treasurer ...   More

News Two of the candidates in the suddenly interesting Multnomah County commission District 2 race are racking up endorsements almost as quickly as former county Chair Ted Wheeler accepted the job of state treasurer this week. The District 2 race to represent North and Northeast Portland was set off after Wheeler's decision prompted Commissioner Jeff Cogen to abandon his re-election bid in that district. ...   More

News While the Multnomah County board of commissioners this morning wades through Ted Wheeler's last meeting as county chair, the commissioners' staff members are scrambling behind the scenes to figure out how to fill the void after Wheeler is sworn in at noon as Oregon's state treasurer. All this comes in the aftermath of Tuesday's political pile-on of candidates filing to fill Wheeler's seat and ...   More

News Roberta Phillip, a newly hired staffer in County Chair Ted Wheeler's office, has filed to run for Commissioner Jeff Cogen's seat in District 2. Cogen today announced he's running to replace Wheeler, who has been appointed state treasurer. Phillip, who had no idea her boss would become treasurer when she started work Monday as a policy advisor to Wheeler, plans to stay with her job at the ...   More

News Add another name to the race: former Multnomah County Commissioner Gary Hansen says he'll run to replace Commissioner Jeff Cogen. "The county is a basic supplier of services to the most needy people in the state," Hansen says, when asked why he's running. "We're talking about the mentally ill, the disabled, seniors. The county is really where the action is." Hansen was a two-term Metro councilor ...   More

News The Multnomah County chairman's race just got one more big-name candidate. She's former state Sen. Margaret Carter, a Portland Democrat who left the Legislature last year for a job at the state Department of Human Services. Carter's filing this morning adds her name to a growing list that includes Steve Novick and Multnomah County Commissioner Jeff Cogen — all jumping into the chairman's ...   More

News Multnomah County Commissioner Jeff Cogen confirms he will run to replace Ted Wheeler as head honcho at at the county. "I've been working here at Multnomah County for three years," Cogen says. "I feel we've made a lot of progress addressing our needs. I want to step up and help continue to make Multnomah County a great government." It will be an interesting race — former Democratic U.S. ...   More

News UPDATED at 2:30 pm: In what may be a new record for the shortest local campaign ever, Steve Novick, longtime Oregon political maverick and unsuccessful 2008 Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, now says he's not running for Multnomah County chairman. Novick said this afternoon — six hours after announcing he would be in the race — that he's now decided after talking with Jeff ...   More

News Here's a political stunner: Gov. Ted Kulongoski named Multnomah County Chairman Ted Wheeler to be Oregon's new state treasurer. Wheeler takes over after the recent death of Treasurer Ben Westlund. “Ted Wheeler brings the perfect balance of expertise from both the public and private sectors to this job with an impressive record managing the county's budget to a working knowledge of the ...   More

News Promising a reign of personal humility and environmental sustainability, Jeff Cogen was sworn in this morning as Multnomah County chair. "I'm going to be guided by my personal values and the values over the last year I've discovered I share with my board," Cogen said in his acceptance speech. Cogen, who was in the final year of his first term as a county commissioner, replaces Ted Wheeler, ...   More