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OPPONENTS SUE FEDS OVER ROSE QUARTER HIGHWAY PLAN: Even as members of the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Transportation travel Oregon to build support for a massive transportation funding bill, six groups filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court on Aug. 9 seeking to block a marquee project on the Oregon Department of Transportation’s wish list—the expansion of Interstate 5 at the Rose Quarter. Opponents led by the group No More Freeways have long argued that ODOT’s plan will create more traffic and emissions and contravene the state’s carbon reduction goals. In their lawsuit, they allege the Federal Highway Administration and the U.S. Department of Transportation violated their own rules by failing to conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement for the project, which, according to No More Freeways, is required under the National Environmental Policy Act. The new lawsuit asks the court to find that ODOT and its federal partners violated NEPA and must conduct a full EIS. At minimum, a legal victory would delay the project. It would also open scrutiny into the proposed widening of I-5 in the Rose Quarter, which critics say flies in the face of climate policy and would not ease congestion, as supporters promise. Chris Smith, one of the leaders of No More Freeways, says the lawsuit shouldn’t affect a plan proposed by the Albina Vision Trust to rebuild the historically Black neighborhood. “Portland can absolutely move forward with capping this freeway without expanding it,” Smith says. “Federally supported efforts to heal the Albina neighborhood with generational investments in Black wealth creation shouldn’t be delayed or blemished by ODOT’s stubborn insistence in doubling the width of the freeway.” Attorneys for the federal agencies couldn’t be reached immediately for comment.
STATE OPENS PROBE INTO SOBER LIVING HOME: The Oregon Health Authority has launched an investigation into the unlicensed sober living center in the Wilkes neighborhood that was featured last week in WW (“Crowded House,” Aug. 7). Like many sober homes, Wiicare’s facility operates in a gray area. State law regulates congregate housing for people with mental health or substance use disorders, but the code often goes unenforced. OHA is weighing whether to begin doing so. A debate on the matter played out in emails between a city of Portland zoning inspector and OHA officials, recently obtained by WW. The city visited the home in May following neighborhood complaints, but confusion over who was responsible for regulating the home delayed any enforcement. On Aug. 7, the city resumed its inquiry, citing WW’s reporting, and asked the state for help. “This home is not currently licensed or registered with us,” Connie Rush, a licensing manager at OHA, wrote in response. “There is sufficient information, however, that we will be investigating the home to determine if licensure or registration is required.”
OLD POST OFFICE SITE TO GET APARTMENT TOWER: Racial justice nonprofit Urban League and Home Forward, the city’s housing authority, won $42 million in local tax dollars to build a 14-story apartment building on the site of the old U.S. Postal Service mail-processing facility on Northwest Broadway. The 34-acre Broadway Corridor site, owned by the city, has been empty since 2016. Prosper has faced setbacks to turning the site into a mixed-use hub with affordable apartments, commercial space and social services. Continuum Partners, a Colorado-based developer, pulled out of plans to develop the site in 2021. Earlier this year, the Portland Housing Bureau solicited bids for the affordable housing project—the first structure expected to rise from the acreage. Urban League and Home Forward won the money with a plan for 230 affordable apartments, an early learning center, a playground, and a community garden. Most of the money for the development—$37.5 million—will come from the Metro regional government’s affordable housing bond, the Housing Bureau said. The remaining $4.5 million will come from tax increment financing.
OHSU POSTDOCS CRY FOUL: Newly unionized postdoctoral researchers at Oregon Health & Science University amped up their yearlong fight for higher wages earlier this month by filing an unfair labor practices complaint with Oregon’s Employment Relations Board. PostDoc Workers United, a unit of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, alleges the academic medical center violated labor laws by “polling” researchers about whether they intended to join a strike set to begin Aug. 15 unless OHSU met the union’s wage demands. Such questioning is tantamount to coercion, the union argues in the complaint obtained by WW. “OHSU has engaged in a series of unlawful actions that are intended to chill—or will have the natural consequence of chilling—employees’ willingness to strike,” PostDoc Workers United said in its complaint. Researchers at the Vollum Institute, a center specializing in neurological work, were “called into meetings and instructed to report to OHSU administrators whether they were planning on participating in strike activities so that their pay could be stopped,” the complaint says. The starting salary for postdocs at the university is $61,008, in line with recommendations by the National Institutes of Health. The union wants OHSU to follow the University of Washington and the University of California, which pay more than the minimum in high-cost cities like Seattle and San Francisco. University spokeswoman Sara Hottman said she couldn’t comment on an open complaint. “However, in all cases, we respect the rights of employees to engage in protected union activity,” Hottman said. “OHSU remains committed to establishing a fair contract in recognition of all postdocs’ hard work supporting the research mission.”