News Without consulting Commissioner Dan Saltzman or the Bureau of Environmental Services, Mayor Sam Adams this afternoon proposed using $20 million of BES money to help build Portland's Bicycle Plan for 2030. The last-minute move appears to have been a calculated case of retribution directed at Saltzman for his surprise funding amendment last week. And the tapping of BES certainly caught BES head ...   More

News Quick. Which City of Portland elected official charged $18.90 to his city-issued credit card at Spartacus Leathers on Oct. 29, 2009? A: Commissioner Dan Saltzman B: Commissioner Nick Fish C: Commissioner Randy Leonard D: Mayor Sam Adams Read their recent expense reports* [PDF] plus Commissioner Amanda Fritz's to find the answer. Then head to Berbati's Pan at 9 pm to see Pep Assembly, Bombs ...   More

News Commissioners Amanda Fritz and Dan Saltzman will present a new report, possibly as soon as April 7, outlining proposed changes to Portland Police Bureau policy on responding to incidents with mentally ill Portlanders. The work of drafting the recommendations, which will include a pilot program for pairing cops with social workers on service calls that involve people in mental-health crisis, predates ...   More

News Speaking to a crowd of about 50 protesters outside City Hall demanding safe and affordable housing, city Commissioner Amanda Fritz said this afternoon there simply wasn't enough money in the budget to do everything the demonstrators want. "The sad fact is, there isn't any money," Fritz said in response to protesters' call to restore money for the city's neighborhood inspections program and for ...   More

News Mayor Sam Adams is expected to release a "recalibrated" 2010-11 budget very soon. Meantime, Commissioners Dan Saltzman and Amanda Fritz are pushing ahead with a compromise on next year's sewer rates, an as-yet unresolved element of the mayor's proposed budget. This year, as part of a regularly scheduled rate review, the Bureau of Environmental Services asked the mayor to increase ratepayers' ...   More

News The City Council on Wednesday afternoon will take up a resolution that would put publicly financed elections on Portland's November ballot. The Portland Business Alliance has come out against that idea, prompting an angry reaction from Commissioner Amanda Fritz to the PBA's take. Joining Fritz, the only non-incumbent to win election to council with public financing, in that outrage is Common ...   More

News Days before City Council is scheduled to consider putting public campaign financing on the November ballot, the Portland Business Alliance has weighed in with a letter (PDF) to Mayor Sam Adams and the rest of the council. The PBA's message in that letter? Stop the 5-year-old public financing program now rather than wait for another election cycle. "In 2005, then-Commissioner Erik Sten led ...   More

News Portland City Council this morning approved a resolution calling for U.S. immigration reform and a halt to racial profiling in Arizona in the wake of that state's passage of Senate Bill 1070. The vote this morning was 4-0 because Commissioner Dan Saltzman, who supported the measure, was absent due to illness. Senate Bill 1070 [PDF] became law in Arizona in April. It calls on local law-enforcement ...   More

News Most of the City of Portland's contracts with its unions expire today, June 30. And as city officials work to settle those contract negotiations, one big-bucks issue bubbled to the surface in City Hall this morning. On the agenda was City Council's tentative agreement with Laborers Local 483. Local 483 is the first City of Portland labor group to reach a settlement, and Local 483's contract ...   More

News Portland City Council cancelled its regular morning session today due to the lack of a quorum. Commissioners Randy Leonard and Amanda Fritz, plus Mayor Sam Adams are out today. On the other side of the river, the Portland School Board has called for an executive session tonight [PDF] to discuss labor negotiations and the 2010-11 budget. Under Oregon's Public Meetings Law, members of the media ...   More