Isaac Laquedem

Changeover at City Hall

City Hall was stunned this morning when Mayor Katz (theme song here) and the four city councilors resigned their offices and simultaneously appointed their replacements.

"I've had it with crowded urban living," Katz told reporters as she climbed into her new Ford Expedition, waving her freshly-issued driver's license before driving off to Lake Oswego, where she recently bought a house on two acres. "It's suburban sprawl for me, folks!" She has put her Northwest Portland house up for sale, and is taking a job as project manager for Homer Williams.

Jim Francesconi will continue his campaign to succeed Katz as mayor, but is giving up his seat on the council. "I can't run against the current administration if there isn't a current administration to run against, so I have to quit."

Erik Sten, leaving office midway through his third term, will become the general manager of the Heathman Hotel. "I've always been a proponent of SRO housing, and this will extend my experience into another segment of the market."

Randy Leonard will return to his former job as a firefighter. "I'm back to putting out small fires, instead of firing small outputters," he quipped.

Dan Saltzman had no comment.

In a prearranged deal, the councilors are staggering their resignations throughout the day so that they can appoint their replacements, who will serve until a special election can be called. Portland Tribune columnist Phil Stanford will be the mayor and Willamette Week publisher Richard Meeker will be one of the four new councilors. "They know everything going on in City Hall already, so they are logical choices," Katz said. The other three new councilors will be webloggers The One True b!X, Jack Bog, and Worldwide Pablo. Why three webloggers? "We get our facts from b!X and our opinions from Pablo's site and Jack's '1221' site, so this way there won't be any big changes in policy," Sten answered.

In unrelated news, developer Homer Williams has asked the Portland Development Commission to help fund a mixed-use project in the Pearl District that would include space for newspaper offices and pressrooms on the lower floors, webhosting facilities above them, and swanky condominiums on the top.

Execute, but don't marry

The April 1 Oregonian reports that the International Court of Justice has ruled that the United States has repeatedly violated the 1963 Vienna Convention, which requires arresting officers to tell foreigners that they have a right to call their country's consulate without delay. The court was deciding a complaint filed by Mexico last year, in which Mexico challenged death sentences given by Texas and Oklahoma to three Mexican citizens. The court did not say that the death sentences must be annulled, but did say that a court (not just a governor or clemency board) must review each sentence and the faces of each case.

As governor of Texas, George Bush didn't think that Texas officers' violation of this treaty required him to commute death sentences to life imprisonment. Rick Perry, the current governor, is quoted as saying simply, "The International Court of Justice does not have jurisdiction in Texas."

And the federal government takes the position that it can't compel states to adhere to the Vienna Convention, nor can it compel states not to execute foreign citizens who weren't told of their right to call their consulate. However, the Clinton administration can pass the Defense of Marriage Act, and the Bush administration would like to enforce it.

Fascinating: the federal government can keep the states from marrying people, but not from executing them.

The $23 million hosing

Fire Station 1 (FS1) sits between Ash and Ankeny Streets, where it looks east across Naito Parkway to the Willamette. The building needs some seismic upgrades, which might cost as much as $1 million.

Perhaps to save the cost of the upgrades, for the last 18 months the City’s been looking at buying the Import Plaza – Globe Hotel block at NW First and Everett, building a new fire station there, and turning the current FS1 location over to a developer, to build 150 condos on the site. The cost would be about $26 million, minus whatever the City can get from selling the old site. (Several millions, no doubt, but a lot less than $26 million: the land value of the most valuable block downtown is only about $9 million.) Let’s say that’s $3 million.

So for a net public investment of $23 million, the City will have a new fire station about the same size as the old fire station, in about the same place as the old fire station, and serving about the same area as the old fire station. A private developer will have built 150+ units on the old site.

The City hopes to pay for this by tapping a pot of money that can be used only on downtown projects, not from general fund dollars.

Here’s an idea: Spend the first million to upgrade FS1. That leaves $22 million (net) to spend on building housing, which at $120,000 a unit pays for more than 150 units that the city would own—not a developer.

Or how about this: Spend the first million on upgrading FS1. Spend the rest of it on other downtown projects, such as: (a) rebuilding Naito Parkway, (b) building the park on the Nordstrom parking lot, (c) cleaning up O’Bryant Square, (d) building a neighborhood police station in Old Town, and (e) redeveloping the Police Block annex (that eyesore at Third and Pine).

A lot of things in downtown Portland could use $23 million. Spending it to move a fire station three blocks north doesn’t make sense.

One final note: to move FS1 to the Import Plaza site, the city needs to buy it from the Naito family, who thirty years ago started the redevelopment of Old Town when they renovated Import Plaza. The council recognized their hard work when they renamed Front Avenue to be Naito Parkway a few months after Bill Naito died. It would be ironic if the City kicked his family off the block that started it all, simply to make room for another developer a few blocks south.

If it matters to Oregonians . . .

. . . it's in the Portland Communique, and it got there because b!X found the story. Tell him "thanks."

Happy Birthday, a cappella

Grandmother Farmer was born on this date in the last third of the 19th century. The two local newspapers did not hide their political views; one was named the Democrat and the other was named the Republican.

Great-grandparents Farmer had ten sons living when Grandmother Farmer was born. She told me that they loved her dearly, but that if she had been the eleventh boy, her parents would have received a free piano: the local Democratic club had a standing offer of a free piano to any family in the area that produced eleven sons. (Only the sons qualified, because women couldn't vote.)

In the time of great-great-grandfather Farmer, in the first third of the 19th century, candidates and party organizations would "treat" voters, meaning offer them whisky from the keg, on election day.

That set me thinking: how would our current crop of candidates "treat" voters? Sam Adams' case is simple: he could offer the beer of the same name. I picture Gordon Smith handing out some sort of non-alcoholic vegetable smoothie. Grey Goose vodka came on the market too late to be of service to Bud Clark's campaigns. And no one will likely lay claim to Old Peculier.

Ideas?

Know your customer's limits

I was seated at the piano, playing for the first time the last piece in Moussorgsky's Pictures At An Exhibition. It's a majestic and stately piece for one player, called "The Great Gate of Kiev," with some awkward parallel octaves in the left hand, but most of it is a series of chords, not too difficult until near the end.

It gets difficult in the 13th measure before the end, because Moussorgsky (who died on this date in 1881) calls for the player to play three grace notes, followed by 11 simultaneous whole notes, five with the right hand and six with the left hand. Moussorgsky expects both of the player's hands to span two octaves each. That's four to five more white keys than the typical hand can span.

He calls for three grace notes and another 11 simultaneous whole notes in the next measure, and again three measures after that.

Most of Moussorgsky's customers don't have 11 fingers. Nor can they span two octaves with each hand. This isn't the only reason that Moussorgsky doesn't have the market share of Tchaikovsky or Prokofiev, but it sure doesn't help.

Whatever became of Hubert?

So wrote Tom Lehrer of Hubert Humphrey in 1965, shortly after Senator Humphrey started his term as Lyndon Johnson's vice president. Professor Lehrer continued:
"Once a fiery liberal spirit / Ah, but now when he speaks he must clear it,
Second fiddle's a hard part, I know / When they don't even give you a bow."

He was commenting on how Humphrey, who had been an outspoken and visible senator, fell silent upon becoming vice president. Humphrey comes to mind now not for the beginning of his term, but for the end of it three years later, when he was running against Richard Nixon to succeed Johnson as President. Humphrey spent the first part of the campaign defending the Johnson administration's policies, and announced his independence from Johnson only in the last month or six weeks of the campaign. Coincidentally (?) that's when his poll numbers started to rise, and the campaign ended with Humphrey and Nixon in a dead heat.

Council candidate Sam Adams has done the opposite. As the chief of staff for Mayor Katz, he was regularly seen in public promoting her programs. And as a candidate, he's not been quiet about what he's done for the last eight years -- but he's awfully quiet about whom he's been doing it for. You might think that he was chief of staff for a mayoral vacancy.

A suggestion, Mr. Adams: don't be afraid to tell Portlanders what you would do differently from Mayor Katz. A lot of people want to have a mayor and council who will do things differently, and your boss knows it. That's one reason she isn't running for a fourth term. Offending her will cost you one vote at most. Pretending the last two terms didn't exist is a card game of Crazy Eights, and the voters would rather Go Fish.

Location, location, location #2

From time to time, Jack Bog has criticized four of the Multnomah County Commissioners (nicknamed by him the "Sisters of Hawthorne") without mentioning that their office stands proudly on a street originally named "Asylum Avenue" because it led to the city's first mental asylum. Dr. Hawthorne, after whom it was renamed, was the asylum's first supervising physician.

Clean out the cellar

Uncle Farmer and his wife have owned their house for nearly 60 years. Last month the family united to make them clean out 50+ years' worth of accumulated junk. It looks much better now, and they seem a lot happier.

It's easy to see the clutter that piles up in our house. It's harder to see the clutter that piles up in our mind. Let a little fresh air into your mind today. Read something you disagree with. Listen to a talk-show host you despise. Have an outrageous thought (still legal in most of the country).

Giovanni Guareschi had one of his characters say to a political opponent, "I am not your enemy. I am merely someone who thinks differently from you."

Every once in a while, think differently.

Location, location, location

Why is Attorney General Hardy Myers willing to sue Benton County to stop it from issuing same-sex marriage licenses, but not willing to sue Multnomah County?

It couldn't be because Multnomah County hired the AG's former law partner to provide the second legal opinion, could it?

No, of course not.

We've come a long way

Forty years ago downtown Portland had two lunch places that served men, but not women.

"Two?" you say. "Not just the Mausoleum Club?"

Yes, two. The other one was a place called Perkins' Pub, in the basement of Lipman Wolfe (now the Fifth Avenue Suites Hotel). It didn't integrate until 1971, when Mildred Schwab (later a city councilor) organized a sit-in. I first ate there in 1964, a few years after arriving in Portland. It all seemed quite ordinary then; today I would wonder at a place that would welcome me but not Kim Novak. (Substitute Angelina Jolie's name here if you're under 40.)

Men have come a long way since 1964 (women were always there to begin with). Let's not give back too much of our progress now that Hooters has opened in Beaverton.

Overheard at the marriage license counter

Dishpan Dribble posted an imagined dialogue set at the San Francisco marriage license counter, which caught my fancy although she and I disagree on the underlying issue. That got me to post a response in the form of another imagined dialogue between the clerk and the next two applicants. Rather than swipe her post and place it here, I'll point you to her site, which contains her post and my riposte.

Our changing language

Once upon a time, "sport court" didn't mean the room where the Trail Blazer players get arraigned.

The Unlucky Expert

In his classic book Why You Lose At Bridge, S.J. Simon gave us the character of the Unlucky Expert. As described by Simon, the Unlucky Expert always makes the right bid and plays the right card -- he is an expert bridge player -- and it always goes wrong (hence the "Unlucky") for reasons that are not his fault.

Governor Kulongoski is starting to remind me of the Unlucky Expert. He ran a decent and technically correct campaign, he installed a good team in Salem, and he's trying to solve the state's revenue problem. But he's stuck with a state legislature that even Dr. Laura would turn away, activists who think that revenue can come from magic wands, the PERS catastrophe, decaying bridges, and a fistful of other problems left on his doorstep. And the technically correct plays (raise taxes, cut spending, reduce PERS payouts, and surcharge the gas tax to repair the roads) cause him more trouble.

Good luck, governor.

How to REALLY defend marriage

Some opponents of same-sex marriage (SSM) say that marriage as a traditional institution of one man and one woman needs to be defended. Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) to that effect, though his grasp of the concept of marriage as an exclusive relationship proved to be faulty.

Defending marriage sounds great as a concept: more people should be married and they should stay married longer. That's consistent with allowing same-sex couples to get married: get married, and stay married.

The real enemy of marriage isn't more people getting married, it's more people getting divorced. Fewer people would get divorced if more people married more selectively than they apparently do now. (Britney Spears may have been carrying a license made out in blank.)

So let's take an idea that my Republican friends assure me works, and import it to marriage. I'm thinking of the three-strikes law for repeat criminal offenders. Straight, gay, pan, bestial, appliance-oriented -- whatever your taste may be, you get three marriages. No more. Three strikes, no spares.

Too harsh? Then let the fourth-timers have a "civil union," which can be almost like marriage, but announces their second-class status in the world of relationships.

Now that's what I call defending marriage.