Here are what appear to be some of the forms that were filed showing some of the supposed "signatures" of the folks who supposedly gave money to Emilie Boyles's Portland City Council campaign.

Several of them are obviously forgeries.

Boyles should give the taxpayers' money back on Monday. Then someone should be charged criminally.

(Via The Oregonian.)

UPDATE, 4/1, 12:13 a.m.: Oh, and get this! "Blackmer said... he's not sure of the timing of any city inquiry or whether Portland has the power to take back the $150,000 given to Boyles if violations are discovered." Un-farookin'-believable.

It's obvious that there isn't going to be an agreement on who's to pay the cost overruns on the OHSU aerial tram [rim shot]. Here's the latest.

It's been two months now that we've been in this ridiculous limbo, with more than $15 million in funding unaccounted for, and yet the city keeps borrowing and paying contractors. It really, really is way past time to stop work on this white elephant until the money is straightened out. It's a disgrace.

Here's a Google search that I'm glad isn't mine.

The owners of the Rose Garden arena certainly aren't in any hurry to appease whining Trail Blazers owner Paul Allen. Yesterday the NBA announced that it was giving up on trying to broker a new lease between Allen and the creditors whom he shafted when he took his arena corporation into bankruptcy two years ago.

You know what they say about payback.

I'm sure the creditors absolutely hate carrying the Rose Garden on their books as real estate that they own. They're not in the business of owning real estate -- they're in the business of making money lending against it. If and when a new Blazers owner comes along, they'll likely be relieved to cut some kind of new deal -- probably an outright sale of the building to whoever buys the team. But they're not going to knuckle under to Allen. If they did, every other borrower they have would see it as an open invitation to renegotiate its loan agreement. Allen's not getting a new lease, and he's not getting the building back at a bargain price.

As predicted here a month ago, the Blazers are going to have either a new owner or a new city very soon. There's some talk of taking the team itself into bankruptcy now, but that might conceivably mean that the arena folks or the City of Portland could get control over the NBA franchise. The league would never let that happen; it would probably take over the team instead.

Allen's people now say they've got a good conversation going with the city (presumably, the Portland Development Commission). If by that they're implying that they're going to be bailed out by the city's taxpayers, they're fooling themselves, trying to fool prospective buyers or the league, or all of the above.

So long, Paul. As much as we want to keep Portland weird, it's not your kind of weird that we're after. (Via Couv Operator.)

Here's a chilling tale of what happens when you let something like your family get in the way of a landlord, his money, or his realtor. What a society we have become. (Via MTPolitics.)

Yesterday afternoon I wrote in outrage about reports of apparent fraud in the City of Portland's new taxpayer financing system for local politicians' campaigns. A fellow by the name of Vladimir Golovan (pictured here with the governor) claims to have collected hundreds of signatures and $5 qualifying contributions for candidate Emilie Boyles from his contacts in the Slavic community, but many of those whose names appear on Boyles's contributor list now claim not to have made the contributions. Some told a reporter that they didn't even know who Boyles was. Some of the signatures also looked forged.

Today we find out that the same guy also allegedly collected several hundred signatures (and allegedly, contributions) for Lucinda Tate, who also filed for a $150,000 handout from the taxpayers, just in time to beat yesterday's filing deadline. Some of the same purported donors who told The Oregonian that they didn't know Boyles also appear on Tate's contributor list.

Adding to the insanity are the comments of the city's elections officer, who says it's too late to do anything about the $140,000-plus that's been paid to Boyles, even if her reports were false.

Ladies and gentlemen, pardon me, but exactly what in the name of God is going on in Portland? Our city government has truly lost all semblance of rationality.

There's no sense repeating my rant from yesterday. Read it here if you like. But double it for today.

This is what happens when Erik Sten sets out to clean up municipal politics. It looks more dishonest than ever. That fellow could bungle a nocturnal emission.

Anyway, here's what I think needs to happen -- FWIW, as the kids say. The O reporter who uncovered the problems, Anna Griffin, needs to swear out a couple of affidavits on what she's learned and have them delivered to the county d.a. and the state a.g. today. A serious investigation by professional law enforcement needs to be commenced immediately, as in yesterday. And if the city cuts the check to Tate without a thorough verification of her signatures and contributions, somebody ought to go to jail.

"Clean money," my eye.

This story was embargoed until Saturday, but transaction details can already be found here.

Leave it to The Oregonian to get it exactly backward. Here one of its reporters uncovers apparent fraud in the City of Portland's new "clean money" public campaign finance system, and what do they lead their front-page editorial with? "New system working great -- really opening up the process."

Nonsense. Let's get to the real heart of the matter. Here's what the story reveals about Emilie Boyles's participation in the new taxpayer-financed system:

Nearly 950 of her seed donations came from Russian, Croatian and Slavic immigrants living in east Portland -- at least nine of whom say they don't recall contributing.

* * * * *

There's only one real requirement candidates hoping for public funding must meet: All their contributions must come from Portland residents. To verify that, city regulators pull almost a third of their donations and check addresses on www.portlandmaps.com.

Boyles passed with no problem. Yet in a quick, random survey of her donor list conducted in both English and Russian, nine people said they did not recall giving her money -- and seven said they did not recognize her name.

"I don't know who that is," said Ivan Pukay, who lives on Southeast 137th Avenue, when asked about Boyles. "I don't have work. My money is very low. When I have it, I keep it."

Alex Grainko and his wife are both listed, but he says he does not remember contributing: "How am I going to give money for someone I never heard of?"

Speaking through a translator, Mykola Chubay said someone appeared at his church seeking signatures for Boyles' campaign. But he does not recall whether he gave $5. He and another person from his household are listed as donors.

Aleksander Gorpinich, a 17-year-old high school student, also heard a pitch for Boyles at a church service. But he said he never donated to her campaign. Gorpinich said [Vladimir] Golovan [who gathered signatures and donations for Boyles] is his father.

In many cases, Golovan did the bulk of the work on Boyles' contribution sheets -- writing the donors' name, occupation and address. That's legal. But in some cases, husbands or wives appear to have signed for their spouses. And in a few instances, one person signed for an entire household -- an apparent violation.

I'm not necessarily opposed to the principle of public financing of political campaigns. I do strongly disagree wth the O's statement that it's opened up the process in Portland, for reasons I laid out here a while back, but getting the old West Hills money out of the political driver's seat in our municipal elections is not a bad goal.

The devil, of course, is in the details, and when you put a potentially decent idea into the hands of the Portland City Council -- particularly Commissioner Sten, the architect of the system as well as (surprise, surprise) one of its first three beneficiaries -- it's bound to get screwed up. Five-year-old kids signing, people signing for their spouses, candidates swearing they got cash contributions from people who have never heard of them -- it's a steaming pile of bureaucracy gone wild.

This program is to campaign finance reform what the city's water bureau billing system is to financial management.

If some of Emilie Boyles's signatures are from people who didn't give her $5 before she filed, she should not get a dime of taxpayer money. And somebody down at City Hall had better take a closer look at the veracity of her filings, before the scandal expands.

Where is the county district attorney? Where is the state attorney general? Where is the U.S. attorney?

And where is the City Council? Hey, Fireman Randy, why not take a break from your busy schedule of enforcing animal-related ordinances to take a tough stand on the enforcement of this set of rules? You've done the minks and the dogs -- what about the rats?

UPDATE, 3/31, 1:43 a.m.: It just gets weirder and weirder. Now candidate Lucinda Tate has filed at the 11th hour for "clean money," and she had the same guy that Boyles had (here he is pictured with another fine politician) out collecting alleged signatures and alleged cash contributions for her among the Slavic community. What a joke! Great job, Opie! Read the update here.

That's the last time it was this bad.

The folks behind the SoWhat development and the OHSU aerial tram [rim shot] have apparently been looking into having OHSU build a hotel as part of the condo tower jungle. You wonder how much taxpayer money has been spent on that:

A reader wrote in yesterday afternoon as follows:

I just got the word about an hour ago...

METRO: Your Government At Work

For the past several months, METRO managers have been busily conducting the organization's first-ever Performance Evaluation Program, and the results are now in.

In a truly stunning development, it turned out that the group that had the largest number of employees that consistently exceeded performance expectations were (the envelope please)... Senior Management!

Folks, I'm sure you'd like to join me now in extending a hearty round of applause to these hard-working and dedicated public servants who have selflessly dedicated their careers to improving your life.

I don't know if you've been following the controversy over the Saturday animal rights demonstrations outside Schumacher Furs in downtown Portland, but it graced the papers and the Lars Larson show today. One of the issues is whether the store operators are baiting the demonstrators (if you'll pardon the expression). City Commissioner Randy Leonard, who's suddenly become the city's wildlife expert, sends along this picture, which he says illustrates that the Schumachers aren't exactly trying to defuse the situation. Judge for yourself:

Here's a detail:

The Oregonian editorial page is always good for a chuckle, and today was no exception. That page, as you'll recall, is edited by the spouse of the chief p.r. flack at OHSU, and today's edition continues the tradition of marital harmony. Now the O is putting the heat on Portland City Commissioner Dan Saltzman to cast a swing vote in favor of additional city money toward the wretchedly over-budget OHSU aerial tram [rim shot]. Up 'til now, Saltzman's been firm in his opposition to any further city funding of the Ski Lift to Municipal Bankruptcy, but the Stickelers sense weakness there, and so they're after poor Dan.

The editorial is a real piece of work, pulling out all the stops, everything from badgering to threatening to blaming, and then to flattering. Danny, you're the only one on the council with the private sector experience. Use that experience and make all of us out here in the real world proud.

I had to chuckle over that one. Big Pipe hasn't had a real job in at least eight years, and his engineering training sure didn't help sniff out the rats in the Kohler-Coaster program when it was put over on the taxpayers three years ago. Now the signal from the old money in the West Hills (from which most Oregonian editorials emanate) is to play ball if he wants to get re-elected.

If Saltzman votes for more city money toward the tram, he'll be getting lots of private sector experience beginning January 1. Oh, well -- it's his political funeral if he takes the advice of a newspaper that also features beauties like this one, just two pages away from that fine editorial:

"Come on, Dan, more subsady for the tram."

A reader writes:

Have you heard about what the city has done to Dog Day Afternoon, a NW Raleigh dog daycare facility? I'm a customer of it and can't believe what has happened. It's located on a commercial block of NW Raleigh, next door to a George Morlan Plumbing and a dress shop. The owner of the dress shop (who lives behind it) has fought DDA continuously because of barking, enlisting the aid of Randy Leonard, and has finally gotten DDA to close down. There was a more detailed report on it last night on KATU. The owner Jennifer Day has gotten copies of emails Leonard wrote on the matter and they're pretty amazing. Apparently, the county, which enforces the city and county animal control ordinances, felt that DDA was in compliance with all applicable ordinances. Leonard wrote that he wanted all city funding to the county of animal ordinance enforcement activity to end "ASAP" unless the county did what he wanted. Not surprising, the county came down hard on Jennifer and she says they told her they'd impound all dogs at her facility after the end of the month. Hence, she's closing and laying off all of her employees.

I know there's more to the story than this and there are always two sides, but it just seems that Jennifer's getting screwed by the city and county. She invested a lot of money building out the facility, paying for permits and licenses, and now legal fees. The facility is not in a residential block, but a commercial block. Jennifer has gotten affidavits from all the other businesses, including Morlan, attesting to what a good neighbor she's been, but one complainant has gotten Randy Leonard on her side.

Given what Leonard said in the Oregonian this morning about the downtown fur shop, it's not surprising that he's coming down hard on a small business like DDA. I hope you'll write about this in your blog.

Here's a little something bubbling beneath the surface at Portland City Hall: Apparently they're getting ready to start forming some kind of new "district" or "authority" for the city's parks. Under this idea, the Portland parks would be handed over to a new governmental entity that will free the parks bureaucrats from the messy financing hassles -- and accountability -- that they have to deal with as a regular city bureau. City Commissioner Dan Saltzman is apparently down with the program, which came up last month at a Parks Board meeting. Click here and scroll down to page 3 for the lowdown.

The funniest part is how the Parks Board members don't want the current City Council to try to stop them:

Rich Brown said he didn't want the current Council to dictate if Parks goes ahead with this idea. It may take five years to make the change, and there could be an entirely different Council then.

What a "planning, engineering, and environmental sciences" firm is doing advising people on local government organization is anyone's guess. But even if they're the right consultants for the job, is this a wise move to be considering? Putting the city's parks into a Tri-Met-, OHSU-, PDC- or streetcar-like entity, full of gubernatorial or mayoral cronies, not fully accountable to the City Council and the city's taxpayers, sure sounds like a recipe for disaster to me. And seeing a familiar "facilitation" artist in the picture at the outset of the process hardly inspires confidence.

You would think that Saltzman would know enough to leave this hot potato in the oven until after the election. Apparently not.

So what if we're staying home? The joys of spring break include the chance to stretch out a little with the daily New York Times. Great coverage of March Madness, including the lowdown on who that guy George Mason was. The latest on the hapless Knicks and Timberwolves of the NBA. A firestorm over a book about the old leper colony on Molokai. Plus a neat piece on how big old clunky Windows has become so unwieldy that Microsoft can't even update it any more.

And the photos! Cinderella and cloned pigs on the front page, but they can't compete with those nuns on rollerblades (the best shot of the day, and not posted on the web as far as I can tell except in that front page image). Roll on, sisters.

I've been reading around about the Portland City Council race for Erik Sten's seat, and it seems to me it's not looking too good for Ginny Burdick. All the baggage she's carrying with her because of her employment at Gard & Gerber -- the official p.r. firm for the aerial tram, Neil Goldschmidt, PGE, OHSU, etc. -- is just too heavy. She can't beat Sten. The only hope to unseat the guy is to sell yourself as an agent of change, and let's face it, you can spend all the king's treasure and you still won't succeed in painting the Gard & Gerber crowd as that. Just ask the Scone.

If the downtown old money realy wants to get rid of Sten, it ought to take a look at Lister, and soon. Granted, he'd be a longshot in a head-to-head against Sten, but any of them will be. I'm convinced Lister would have a better chance of winning one-on-one than Burdick or Boyles. If he can get in a fall runoff with big bucks to spend, he'd be a heck of a candidate. He's smart, and he has an honest, appealing message.

Some of the business folks may figure, hey, I'll vote for Burdick in the primary, but if Lister gets in the runoff, I'll switch to Lister. Flawed reasoning. If Sten runs against Burdick, Sten will surely win 55-45, with a lot of disgruntled Portlanders sitting it out. Against Boyles it would be 60-40 or worse. At least with Lister, you'd get a real fight.

While on the subject, I understand that Lister's taking some heat for not spouting the prevailing party line on the homeless last week at the City Club. Sten apparently paints himself as the champion of the downtrodden. But ask yourself, folks, after 10 years of Opie in City Hall, are Portland's homeless better off or worse off than before he got there? To me the situation appears as bad as ever. He's had his chance, made 10 years' worth of speeches, and he's gotten next to nothing done.

Then there's his line about "I'm the only one who says he loves Portland and loves the direction it's heading." Nice try, bud. I think we all love Portland. The only question is the direction. It's pretty clear that most folks feel it's wrong these days. And you, sir, are a huge part of the problem.

This evening's Blazer game started at 6:00. The Blazers showed up around quarter to seven, by which time they were around 15 points behind. They played even with the Clippers the rest of the way for a dull, lifeless loss before a small but polite and enthusiastic Rose Garden crowd. It was their eighth defeat in a row.

That Other Team from L.A. had the Portland squad outmatched at every position. Elton Brand is having a monster season, and Old Sam Cassell has yet another team gliding toward the playoffs. Vladimir Radmanovich outhustled every Blazer in his path except Travis Outlaw. Corey Maggette was 13 for 13 from the foul line. Even Vin Baker doddered out onto the floor a few times and contributed. If the Blazers had come to play, it would have been a tough fight. But they obviously hadn't, with their hangdog, defeatist body language signalling doom from the very outset.

The Blazer starters, with the exception of Juan Dixon, stunk the place up. Zach Randolph was particularly pitiful -- it looked like he had some sort of injury or a case of the trots as he headed for the locker room after being pulled in the first quarter. Steve Blake had an off night as well.

Off the Blazer bench, Martell Webster played pretty well for a college freshman, and Outlaw actually scrapped the whole night. We even got to see Ha Seung-Jin get a few minutes in, including a very sketchy slam dunk that his mom, who was sitting near us, enjoyed immensely. You might say he played in garbage time, but that would inappropriately dignify even the first few seconds of this episode. It was solid waste all the way.

While the boys in white faxed another one in, even the Blazer Dancers stayed home. Fittingly, however, the Bankrupt Billionaire crawled out from under the stands to watch a couple more pieces fall off his crumbling empire. Another 800 grand down the drain, and the landlord's still giving him the center digit. Maybe the PDC will make him a good deal -- ha ha! We didn't have the seats right next to his this time, but we were still blessed with some eighth-row beauties that gave us a splendid vantage point on the ever-lengthening royal comb-over:

Our ancient digital camera picked up its usual share of additional blurry shots to go with that one. Here's Randolph where he spent most of the evening -- it probably would have been better if he hadn't even suited up. He reminds me of George Bush in this one:

BTW, check out the size of Ha's head next to Randolph's!

Here's the best I could do for a picture of Brand, who's playing spectacular ball these days:

There was no excuse I could see for Joel Przybilla's lousy night. When you get used up and down the floor by Chris Kaman, it's time to start biting your cuticles:

I wonder how long Mo Lucas wants to keep doing this:

Here's Nate heading into the tunnel at the end. He probably wished he could have left two hours earlier:

And you know what? As bad at the Blazers played, a goodly portion of their their modest hometown crowd stayed to the end. Like us, they had a nice night out, if somebody else was paying for the tickets. And under new ownership, the whole scene could be back to thriving in no time. Let's hope:

Not only is he right on the issues, but he makes his points with good humor. Nice going, Dave.

Nothing will get your spring break rolling like... a stopped-up toilet!

We tried all the usual tricks to coax our downstairs potty to do its job. First, the handy toilet brush semi-plunge, then the full-blown rubber plunger thrusts. But nothing worked. It was blocked.

Of course it decides to do this on a Friday afternoon at 3 o'clock. We called our usual plumber, and he said his guys could get right on it -- on Tuesday. When we asked for a referral of someone who could come out sooner, he suggested these guys, and so we called them.

Good call. Within a few hours, a nice young fellow in their uniform was on the scene. Eventually, he had our porcelain throne off its pinnings and on its side for a thorough reverse snaking (and I think we all know how difficult that can be).

Throughout the process, we were all looking with suspicion at our toddler, who was taking the Fifth when asked whether she had thrown anything down there. But it turns out, she hadn't. Apparently, the appliance is just old.

The nice young man got everything running adequately again, and we're free to... well, let's say, roam about the cabin. But a new john is likely in our future.

We'll be forced to buy one of those modern low-flow jobs, no doubt. I hate those. One of our major failures as a free society is to deprive people of their God-given right to have a good old, high-flow, manly toilet if they want one. It's right in the Bible! Where are the darn libertarians when you need them?

The sun is shining and we've got a week off from the classroom show. Ahhhh. If you're in the same boat, have a great one.

It's become old home week. First b!X appears and sees his shadow, and now guess who's back to remind us all that we're all fools and rubes, and that he told us so all along. Yes, today the Poet Laureate of Pretention graces us with his genius, on spring break from Harvard:

In Portland's internationally lauded history of public/private partnerships, this one is the biggest ever with the least amount of public money -- all on the promise of that aerial tram. Stopping it -- or even arbitrarily capping the city's two-bit contribution at $3.5 million -- might allow a few politicians to proudly bow before the peanut gallery. But don't expect the national investment community to clap for the performance -- much less trust Portland ever again in a public/private partnership.

I was kind of hoping someone on the East Coast would give this guy a job. But come on. Would you?

It was a work night, and I caught only the last 40 minutes or so of tonight's NCAA basketball tourney on TV, but wow, that was plenty. Truly amazing endings to the Texas and UCLA games. And of course, just my personal bias, it's always good to see Gonzaga lose, my friend Bill Mickey D notwithstanding. Especially given the bogus call the referees gave them down the stretch.

Tomorrow's the deadline to apply for school transfers and magnet school admissions in the Portland public school system. So what if parents make a decision about where (and whether) to apply for now, only to have their considerations radically altered by a school closure finalized over the next few weeks? This press release from the school district may shed some light on that:

Portland Public Schools' deadline for parents to apply for transfers for their elementary and middle school students is at 5 p.m. on Friday, March 24. (The high school application deadline was March 3.)

Superintendent Phillips plans to present her proposal for reconfiguring some Portland schools and closing some school buildings on Tuesday, April 4. If the Portland School Board approves changes to schools, whether at high schools or at elementary and middle schools, Portland Public Schools will reopen the School Choice Application window for two weeks in May.

Parents may wish to file a School Choice application before Friday's elementary and middle school deadline, confident that if their child's neighborhood or transfer options change, they may file another application later. Under the School Choice lottery system, the later application automatically overrides the earlier application.

Guess who's blogging about Portland politics again (at least a little). An excellent development.