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WILSON ORDERS MANAGERS BACK TO OFFICE: Portland Mayor Keith Wilson sent an email to all city managers and supervisors Jan. 14 ordering them to return to the office full time by April. The mandate will affect 700 city employees, or about a tenth of the city’s workforce. Wilson, notably, did not extend the mandate to non-managerial staff splitting time between remote and in-office work. The city is in ongoing labor negotiations with three labor unions, the largest among them, AFSCME Local 189, which represents 1,100 employees. Had Wilson extended the in-person requirement to non-managerial employees, it likely would have sparked opposition from unions still in high-stakes negotiations with the city. “This news will undoubtedly raise questions about our long-term workplace policy for other employees who remain remote and hybrid,” Wilson said in his email. “Employees who are designated hybrid will still be required to spend at least half their worktime doing in-person work. I do not anticipate making any further policy changes for non-managerial staff in 2025.”
DAIMLER RESUMES OREGON DIESEL TRUCK SALES: The nation’s largest maker of big rigs will once again sell diesel trucks in its home state. “Daimler Truck North America is resuming acceptance of all orders for new internal combustion engine vehicles intended for registration in Oregon,” the company said in a Jan. 13 statement. As the Oregon Journalism Project first reported (“Electric Slide,” WW, Jan. 8), Daimler, which is headquartered in Portland and employs 3,000 people here, halted Oregon sales Dec. 20 over a disagreement with the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality over the rules surrounding the state’s Advanced Clean Trucks rule, which went into effect Jan. 1. That policy requires truck manufacturers to sell an increasing number of electric trucks, starting at 7% of all sales for heavy trucks this year and increasing to 40% by 2032. Daimler and DEQ didn’t agree on how the agency was to credit manufacturers for the sales of electric trucks. They have now resolved that disagreement. “It has been clarified with the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality that DTNA’s understanding of the implementation of Advanced Clean Trucks is correct,” Daimler said, “and we will receive credits for vehicles it reported to the state.”
PORTLAND SCHOOLS TO DONATE 2,000 AIR PURIFIERS TO LOS ANGELES: In the wake of catastrophic fires in L.A., the Los Angeles Unified School District put out a call for more portable air purifiers. An unlikely district will answer: Portland Public Schools stands ready to donate a majority of its stock. That’s a stark change from a few years ago, when a May 2022 investigation by The Oregonian revealed that about 500, or 25%, of the district’s elementary and middle school classrooms didn’t meet minimum targets for indoor airflow. Another 750 didn’t meet the levels recommended by air quality experts—who said poor ventilation could affect the spread of disease and hurt student learning. Backlash from concerned parents culminated in the Oregon Health Authority giving the district 3,500 portable air purifiers in May 2023. At a special School Board meeting Jan. 13, PPS Superintendent Dr. Kimberlee Armstrong proposed a resolution to donate 2,000 of the district’s remaining 2,600 air purifiers to L.A. Unified. “All of our schools, all of our classrooms have air purifiers at the moment,” Armstrong said, noting the L.A. district would also cover all shipping costs. The board voted unanimously to pass the resolution. “I’m really glad we can do something concrete for that community that is devastated right now,” said vice chair Michelle DePass.
CASE OVER DISPUTED GRAVE SITES CAN MOVE FORWARD: In a contentious Jan. 10 hearing in Multnomah County Circuit Court, attorneys for Service Corporation International, the funeral industry giant whose local affiliate, Skyline Memorial Gardens, sold the same burial plot to two different families, sought to have attorneys for the second buyer, Paula Tin Nyo, sanctioned and removed from the case. Service Corporation’s attorneys accused Tin Nyo’s attorneys at the Tonkon Torp law firm of acting in bad faith and violating a confidentiality order by revealing the identity of the first purchasers of the disputed plot. Judge Christopher Ramras ruled that the Tonkon Torp lawyers did not in fact violate a court order and had done nothing improper in communicating with WW about the case. “I don’t find the defendant’s counsel violated my order,” Ramras said. “So I am not ordering any sanctions.” The other party seeking rights to the burial plot is the Reser family, heirs to a Corvallis deli-salad fortune. Following Ramras’ earlier determination that the Reser family could not participate in the case under a pseudonym, that family is now officially a plaintiff in the case. The parties will now move forward in determining how to resolve a dispute over who has a right to the burial site—the Resers, who purchased it in 2019, or Tin Nyo, who bought it in 2021 and buried her son’s remains and personal effects there that year. They are scheduled to set a trial date Jan. 22.