Portland

I can't resist this new survey from the Pew Research Center, which further confirms that Portland continues to be a desirable destination for people from other areas of the country. That's not particularly a surprise. It's now an article of...

This morning I was reading the Willamette Week and my stomach turned in knots and not for the reasons that you think. Apparently, the Gang Enforcement Team at Portland's Police Bureau have mandated stopping Blacks on the streets without cause: Corno and Mahuna are part of “Operation Cool Down,” an effort by City Hall to halt escalating violence between the Crips and Bloods after a slaying in a North Portland church Dec. 12. Their new mission is straightforward: to contact the kind of people involved in the shootings and make a police presence felt. Corno is frank about who they’re...

The effects of the long, slow economic nosedive are not uniformly bad. Discount businesses flourish and gas prices have dropped dramatically. Add this: rent in many metro areas is dropping, including Portland, which saw the sixth-steepest decline in the country.The economic crisis has opened up opportunities for apartment tenants. The inventory of vacant apartments is expanding, and rents are dropping quickly in major metros across the country....Landlords, as a result, are forced to offer discounts to fill vacancies. Apartment vacancies spiked in September after the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the eruption of the financial crisis.Rents in Salt Lake City,...

Sources who wish to remain anonymous are telling me with unequivocal certainty that embattled Portland Mayor Sam Adams is staying in his job. I consider these to be extremely reliable, well-connected sources. I don't think its going out on a limb to say that this is how its going to go down. No word yet on an official announcement. Update: 12:07: Offical announcements confirming Adams intends to stay should be hitting email boxes this afternoon. Update: 12:37 Willamette Week's blog has the scoop (literally) here.

By Chris Hagerbaumer of Portland, Oregon. Chris is the deputy director of the Oregon Environmental Council.When Rudolf Diesel took his peanut oil-fired diesel engine to the World’s Fair in Paris in 1900, the future of energy could only have looked cloudy at best. Would he have seen the massive modern day appetite for energy and the hotly fueled debate over what should power our vehicles? Diesel’s invention quickly became the darling of the petroleum industry. But is that era coming to a close? Does plant power have a role to play in our energy future?As the debate rages over the...

The Willamette Week is reporting that the fat dirty old man, and Democrat Portland Mayor Sam Adams, is having a divisive effect on city hall.
There was plenty of evidence to suggest the city remains...

Well, this is embarrassing. I wrote earlier in the week about a couple of Portland political consultants who did a Halloween-themed TV ad that was a finalist for a national award from Politics Magazine. They didn't win, but in the...

By Rebekah Orr of Portland, Oregon. Rebekah is a long-time communications professional for various advocacy organizations. She speaks only for herself. Over the last week much has been said, written and whispered about Mayor Sam Adams and his relationship with Beau Breedlove. Local media have called for his resignation. Calls for support have popped up on Facebook. And at 5:30 this evening supporters of Sam Adams will rally in front of City Hall. Meanwhile, the mayor himself, according to the Oregonian, is consulting with advisers about whether he should, in fact, resign from the office he newly occupies. In “breaking”...

Portland musician Thomas Lauderdale, who is organizing a rally for embattled Mayor Sam Adams Friday evening, says in a new e-mail that "Adams is regaining his confidence and is determined to stay in office," the Portland Tribune reports. Hard to...

With the ongoing story of Portland Mayor Sam Adams there are a few things you hear whispered around Portland. I don't know if the following speculations and rumors are true. But they are relevant...