The O had a little Q & A with the president of the OHSU Aerial Transit Co. yesterday. The reporter asked some good questions, albeit with tongue in cheek, and it was interesting to watch the interview subject revise history and explain what's in our future. Peter Kohler offered his comments as he wistfully prepares to leave his $600,000-a-year-plus-mansion position as the head of the state's public -- er, private -- er, why do you want to know -- medical school and soon-to-be major tourist attraction.

The good doctor's re-take on the SoWhat development was a doozy. Not too long ago, the stated reason that city taxpayers needed to borrow hundreds of millions to build a condo farm and OHSU facility down there (along with the aerial tram [rim shot], of course) was to bring thousands of biotech jobs to Portland. Now that all they're doing down there is building private doctors' offices and a health club, the story needs to change. And it has, apparently:

The pitch you made to the Legislature was that the investment would help OHSU spark a bioscience industry on the South Waterfront with 6,000 new jobs. Is that vision intact?

I think that was a 10-year plan that we are now a couple years into. I am a believer that this will occur. How much of the bioscience industry is on the waterfront versus somewhere else in the area is unpredictable. We're selling part of the OGI campus (the Oregon Graduate Institute site in Hillsboro), for instance, and that may be attractive to certain bioscience companies. There are a variety of ways this will play out. As much as possible, we'd like to have it on the river, but it may go elsewhere for other reasons.

Then there's the matter of OHSU's immunity from being sued for malpractice. Apparently they're thinking of raising their liability limits from $200,000 per botched surgery to something higher. But you've got to love the way he describes the process by which those rules will be changed:

Does OHSU's $200,000 damage liability cap limit your attractiveness for insured patients who have the option to go elsewhere?

I don't know. I don't think so. This is in the middle of change. We're in the process of disclosing it. We'll find out what's going to happen with the liability cap.

I remember back when the aerial tram [rim shot] was still being debated in the early days. The Trib dug out some communication or other about it from Sam Adams, then Vera Katz's right-hand man and now the city commissioner. Somebody was asking him whether Vera wanted the tram, and Sam said something to the effect that the mayor "felt that it was going to happen." Of course, in those days Neil Goldschmidt was representing Dr. Kohler, and the reason the Katz crew acted like these weren't their decisions was because they did whatever Neil told Vera had to be done.

Now we're debating OHSU's obscene liability limits, and the process of changing them is once again a force of nature that we'll "find out about" when OHSU is ready to "disclose" it. What arrogance. It makes Kohler's parting quote -- "humility -- that's what I've tried" -- that much more hysterically funny.

Serious doings in the World Cup soccer tournament today. Winners advance to the semi-finals, losers advance to the plane home. Germany vs. Argentina at 8 a.m. -- maybe the best match of the whole shebang so far. Then at noon, Italy vs. Ukraine -- also very interesting.

I've picked Deutschland, the host side, to go all the way, and so I'll be rooting for them to make me look smart. I'll need perfect outcomes from here on out to have any chance in our pool -- I got only 5 out of the 8 matches right so far, and hey, not to point too fine a point on it, statistically speaking a monkey would have gotten 4.

I think Italy's got the better of the second game. The Ukrainians played a very lackluster match against die Suisse, winning only when the Helvetians suddenly realized that they had forgotten to practice penalty kicks.

The winners of today's goings-on play each other on Tuesday. They have Fourth of July in Germany, but it's not that big a deal.

From Washington comes the news that the IRS headquarters building is going to be closed for a month due to flooding in the basement.

The beat goes on. They're still talking about a new bridge across the Willamette somewhere south of downtown in Portland. I suspect cars won't be allowed on it, if it's ever built. But hey, hipsters -- what about the bridge we already have that's falling down?

We'll get to that, I guess. But first -- oooh, more shiny streetcars! Plus, Opie gets to count the space under the new bridge as affordable housing.

"We are not reinventing the wheel here. What we are doing is taking a leadership role in shifting the paradigm of the oil oligarchy's influence on our society." -- Portland City Commissioner Randy Leonard

No time for that when you're being "visionary," I guess. Think big! You mark my words, municipal socialized medicine is next. You and Erik should get your heads together -- let's try a hostile takeover of Pfizer! Ban Wal-Mart! We're so-o-o-o-o-o-o "progressive"! Hey, so Jubitz may go out of business -- we don't care! We'll have Joe Weston put a condo tower there!

When it comes to making it difficult to run any business other than ugly real estate development, the City of Roses is truly world-class. Cutting-edge. I'm all for saving the earth, but right now Portland needs to give the whole Oligarchy Alteration Thing a timeout for a bit, while there are still a few taxpaying businesses left.

Here's a nasty story in this week's Double-Dub. Oh, the Stennies will be calling people "racists" over this one! (Indeed, how dare I even link to it!) But it's typical Portland -- corruption trumped by misdirected political correctness. All part of the Opie-Grampy-Cruz "visionary" wonderland. "I'm getting sick to my stomach," said one of the Mean Girls. Me, too.

I was starting to get a little worried about Willamette Week, but maybe they're getting back on track. Keep turning over rocks, guys -- there's a whole "sustainable ecosystem" under there.

Well, the Blazers made a number of good moves in the draft today. They got two quality players in big man LaMarcus Aldridge and versatile guard Brandon Roy. And they got rid of the overrated (especially by himself) Sebastian Telfair and creaky old Theo Ratliff, who pretty much couldn't or wouldn't play for them last season. So that's 4 to the good.

On the bad side, to be sure that they got Aldridge, they had to let go of Viktor Khryapa, who's going to be a great NBA player, and to unload Ratliff they had to agree to take on the crummy contract of Raef LaFrentz. That's 2 to the bad, but the Khryapa move is the worse of the two.

Anyway, for a team that's labored more than a decade under one witless general manager and another who was just so-so, these are fine moves. Go Blazers!

Now if we could just move Darius and Zach... maybe waivers...

That's what they're saying.

One down, two to go.

Before taking the Portland city auditor's report on the Portland Development Commission off my desk, there are just a couple of additional passages that deserve a few words. I've alluded to the point made by these passages before -- that the PDC either doesn't know whether its programs are actually any good, or isn't telling what it does know about that. And some of the "data" it is passing off about its "accomplishments" is suspect at best.

In particular, the report found fault in this regard with the PDC's Economic Development Department. It noted:

During fieldwork, we determined that we could not fully assess the efficiency of the Department's strategies, such as cost per job created, due to difficulty in obtaining financial information on a refined program basis and the lack of readily available actual jobs created and retained data in most programs....

Data for some reported measures is unreliable: We reviewed 30 out of 152 total Business Finance and E Zone participant files. We traced data on projected loan leverage, projected jobs, loan commitment amounts and QJP average wages. Data for projected loan leverage, loan commitments, and projected jobs did not match source documents, such as Enterprise Zone precertification and loan application reports, in over half of the cases. This is important because data from the ACT! database is used to generate reports to the Commission and the public. We found data for E Zone leverage and loan commitment amounts reliable when checked against source documents.

In addition, we also learned through interviews that some of the jobs created/retained that were attributed to efforts of the Business Retention and Expansion program and entered into the database were based on the best judgment of staff. While these estimates may be reasonable, the data lacked any source documents to support the estimates.

Some published performance data are estimates, not "actual" performance results and their current labeling may mislead readers: We found that some performance measure data presented in Department reports and the Commission budget document were not clear in terms of what the data represented. Two prominent measures the Department routinely reports, for example, are the investment leveraged as a result of business finance loans and the number of jobs created or retained. PDC staff indicated, and we found this published data to be based on initial project estimates, and not on actual program results. This was not clearly disclosed in the documents we reviewed and would likely mislead readers. The absence of actual performance data for comparison to projections hinders the ability of decision makers to make meaningful program assessments....

[T]he number of jobs reported by the Economic Development Department as "created" or "retained" are jobs projected to be established or retained by the business at the time of PDC funding. Because "jobs created" and "jobs retained" are not actual counts of jobs at each business, we could not conclude that the number of jobs reported as created by PDC-funded businesses had been realized. Additionally, we found that the Economic Development Department's reporting of funds leveraged from its Economic Development loans and enterprize zone participation is based on the investment that is projected by the business recipient. Additionally, updates to investment records for business loans were not supported by source documents; consequently it was unclear to us why updates occurred.

Big congratulations to the Oregon State University baseball team, which won the College World Series this week. A national championship is a wonderful thing, and it doesn't come without heart, sweat, and smarts. Nice going.

... I wouldn't have a blog. And I wouldn't be picking a new player from the no. 4 spot in the pro basketball draft this afternoon, because I never would have let the Blazers sink to where they've fallen. But if I were doing the picking, I would go with these four -- the top one who's still available:

1. LaMarcus Aldridge.
2. Andrea Bargnani.
3. Brandon Roy.
4. Rudy Gay.

The one bonehead thing I would not do is trade a quality player (like Jarrett Jack) to move up in the selection process. Nobody in this draft is worth that. As for the 'Stache, I think he's the next Mike Dunleavy Jr. Let Golden State (or somebody like that) have him. Plus, he won't be happy in Portland. You want to see him cry? Have him go through an NBA season with Darius Miles next to him on the bench.

Go for size, if it's there, because you'll never be playing basketball in June behind our current pistol-packin', pot-jonesed, street-racin' power forward. Never.

A blogosphere voice that was -- ahem, always distinctive and interesting -- has gone silent. Rob (a.k.a. "Acidman") of Gut Rumbles has left the building. He'll be missed.

UPDATE, 6/30, 10:36 p.m.: Looks like maybe it ended up all right.

The sea breeze is here. The Portland heat wave is on its way to being over. Open windows should make for some good sleeping tonight.

In our World Cup pool, three players have picked all of the first seven matches of "Stage 2" correctly.

And each of those players has Spain over France in the match that begins today at noon.

UPDATE, 1:51 p.m.: And they were all wrong. No perfect scores left in the pool.

We recyle religiously. Even if it didn't make economic or ecological sense -- and I have some know-it-all friends who'll tell you it doesn't -- we'd still do it. It feels like the right thing to do.

Here in Portland, we're blessed with the opportunity to recycle to the max. A few hours after the garbage men come and take our weekly canload for a ride to the Arlington dump, another truck comes and takes our recyclables to some other place. Paper, glass, metal, even plastic bottles. We take full advantage.

So seriously do Portlanders take the recycling process that the city puts out an occasional newsletter dedicated to the subject. This publication has expanded over the years, and the one that came this week was a four-page newspaper, with all kinds of color illustrations. Mostly it told us what we already knew -- which makes you wonder why we can't opt for an online version of the thing instead of one more paper item to recycle -- but there were a couple of tidbits in there that caught our eye.

First, garbage rates are going up. No kidding -- you think our man Sanitary Dave beams that stuff up to the east side via Star Trek transporter? More money to the oil companies.

Interesting item no. 2: There's a new protocol for glass. Now, the haulers have always wanted the glass separated from everything else -- it's safer that way, and it prevents broken glass from fouling up the recycling of other materials. But starting this week, they're asking that we please leave the glass out in its own hard container, separate from the yellow bins that the waste managers provide to each house. Waste basket, old paint bucket, it doesn't matter, so long as it's not paper. In typical Portland weather (not what we've got going this week), I'm sure many a brown bag has collapsed after an all-night drenching, and sent empty glass bottles and jars crashing to the pavement. Nasty. The new way, that can't happen.

We comply cheerfully. The only blue note in the whole piece is the fact that the newsette now comes from something called the city "Office of Sustainable Development." If you study local government around here, you get an automatic minor in Kafka and Orwell. The thought that the recycling program is coming from the same bureaucrats who are giving this city away to the condo developers is enough to make me want to stop recycling and send all my trash to the landfill. Office of Sustained Blight is more like it.

A while back, I asked readers to help me think about the contents of a CD devoted to the best of Motown. After cogitating on it for a couple of weeks, I determined that I couldn't really boil it down to 80 minutes -- 160 would be necessary.

Tonight I'm thinking along the same lines. I just rolled through a half-dozen Beatles tunes, and I'm starting to think it might be a good idea to raise the same issue with the Fab Four. If you had to cram all your Beatles music onto one 80-minute CD, what would be on it?

Part of one's choices, of course, would depend on that quintessential Beatles dilemma -- Lennon or McCartney? And how much George and Ringo? Without some guidelines about that, I suspect, people's mixes would be all over the lot. So let's start with that as our threshold inquiry. On an 80-minute CD, how many minutes of songs principally authored by McCartney, and how many by Lennon? How much George, keeping in mind that the Beatles always pushed him down? And how much Ringo?

I'm thinking 27 minutes each of Lennon and McCartney (truly jointly written songs to come half out of each), 16 of George, 10 of Ringo. Fair? Would one CD be feasible? Would two be required? Would even that not be enough?

And this reminds me -- I never did get the Stax CD together! Hmmm..... Some people do summer reading....

It's taken nearly 30 years of living here in Portland, but I've finally reached that point. I remember how, when I first moved here, I marveled that some of the old-timers were so adamant about this. But now I get it: I WANT HEAT, and as much of it as Portland climatology can dish out. 100 degrees in late June? No problem. I've been freezing and wheezing my sorry old butt off all winter and spring. I've fought off SAD, colds and molds of every kind, foot fungus, hydroplaning down our substandard roads, mushrooms growing out of the siding on my house, green slime and actual lichens growing around all the molding on my car -- enough! I need a dose of L.A. weather, Vegas even, and quick. And if it persists for three months instead of three days, I'll deal with it. I'm fortunate enough to have many avenues of heat relief at hand. I'm a geezer with a.c. So BAKE ME, SOL!

I'm new to The Sport Formerly Known as Soccer, but I'm not sure today's events lived up to the whole "beautiful game" deal. In the World Cup pool, I picked both England and Portugal to lose, since I'm told they're both fold artists and I figured at least one of them would take their lumps today. I was wrong on both counts. Which, although bad for my ticket, is good for my soul, since they were both sentimental favorites of mine before play started.

But back to the not-beautiful part. The second half of the Portugal-Netherlands match made Rasheed Wallace look like a model of sportsmanship. Fouls, ejections, dirty play, and oh, the whining. The Dutch were supposed to be a talented team, but their only consistent move on offense was falling to the ground and crying after every missed opportunity -- a play they executed many a time. Kuyt, go fly yourself!

Just like that, either England or Portugal will be in the final four (or whatever they call the semi-finals). Go figure. Scratching my head, I headed down to the kitchen and fixed myself a nice sardine sandwich in honor of the lads from Lusitania.

If you're up late on Friday night or early Saturday morning, there's still time to get in our World Cup soccer pool, here. The deadline is 8:00 a.m. PDT. We've got more than 20 entrants on board so far, and there's room for more. One player chose the winners alphabetically -- not an entirely implausible system, but it gives Australia quite an advantage. They can beat anybody but Argentina!

In Saturday's action, every single one of our players has picked Germany to beat Sweden in the 8 a.m. game. A few of us are picking the German side to go all the way, and so a Sweden win would be crushing.

The noon ga -- er, match -- Argentina vs. Mexico, isn't perceived as such a sure thing. Four brave souls in the group have Mexico taking that one.

I'm compiling all the entries in an Excel spreadsheet, which I hope will make my scoring duties easier. Here's what I've got so far. If you've entered the pool, please check to see that I got your selections and tiebreakers right, and e-mail me if you see anything amiss.

UPDATE, 1:00 a.m.: We just received an entry that picks Sweden over Germany in the morning. It came in before this post went up, and so it wasn't influenced by knowing what our others players said. Indeed, I'm not sure what is was influenced by.

Everybody into the pool. There are 16 teams left in the World Cup soccer tourney, and here's your chance to predict the winners. Enter the pool on this blog. It's free. If you're the winner here, we'll get together for a couple of drinks of one's choice at a suitable location here in Portland after the results are official, and (although it would be wrong to gamble for an item of value) I might even be inclined to buy for the winner.

There are 16 games in the pool: eight this weekend through Tuesday; four quarterfinals next Friday and Saturday; one semi-final on the Fourth of July and another on the 5th; a game for third place on July 8; and the big finale on the 9th.

To play, check out the official brackets at the FIFA site here, or on my Excel spreadsheet here. Note that each remaining match has a number assigned to it (49 to 64). Send your picks for each game, plus the four tiebreakers, to me electronically. One way to do so would be by leaving your choices in a comment to this post. You could also e-mail me a filled-in version of the Excel spreadsheet linked to above. Or e-mail your selections to me any old way. On your entry form, please use the official match number for each match, and don't forget the four tiebreakers.

Scoring will be as follows:

One point for every correct selection in the round of 16 (49 to 56).
Two points for every correct selection in the quarterfinal round (57 to 60).
Three points for every correct selection in the semi-finals (61 and 62).
Two points for the correct selection in the third-place match (63).
Five points for the correct selection in the final match (64).

The tiebreakers will be consulted only in the case of a tie in scoring. They will be applied in numerical order, with the earliest of the four breaking the tie. They are:

1. Total number of goals (not including goals in penalty shoot-outs) scored in Match 64.
2. Goals (not including goals in penalty shoot-outs) scored by winning side in Match 64.
3. Goals (not including goals in penalty shoot-outs) scored by losing side in Match 64.
4. Total number of goals (not including goals in penalty shoot-outs) scored, all 16 matches.

Here are the matchups, in a narrative form. If you like, you can cut and paste this to get your entry together:

Entries must be posted by kickoff of the first game tomorrow -- 8 a.m. PDT! Hope to hear from you this afternoon and evening. Good luck, everybody!

A reader writes:

You may not have seen this gem on page 2 of Thursday's Business section in the O -- a quote from OHSU's always credible Steve Stadum: "We're not trying to game these numbers."

So what was he talking about? If you guessed the costs for the aerial tram, you'd be wrong. He was referring to OHSU's "study" on what it would cost them if they lose tort claims immunity. The estimated range was $8.7 - 43 million per year, plus $14 - 50 million in one-time costs. One would think that at a level of precision that low, they could have done the study for less than the $35K they spent.

But what is curious to me is that they seem to think that a high number is more compelling for their argument that they shouldn't lose their immunity. Without getting into the well-worn substantive arguments on OHSU's very low percentage of public funding and charitable service, it seems illogical to argue that if OHSU causes *that* much harm to people, it is *more* deserving of immunity from civil liability. If any institution causes the public persistent serious harm, doesn't it seem like it should be held up to higher scrutiny, not lower responsibility?

Yes, funny thing, Mr. Stadum, justice isn't free.

UPDATE, 3:10 p.m.: The pool is on! Enter here.

The early, "group," round of the World Cup "football" tournament in Germany ends this afternoon, at which point we will have all 16 teams who will move on to the single-elimination rounds starting tomorrow. As of this writing, 12 of the 16 are known, with Italy, Ghana, Brazil, and Australia all having become official yesterday. (The USA side continued its anemic performance on its way out the door.) The last two groups are largely up for grabs, although Spain looks to be a pretty sure bet to advance, and Togo is a no-go.

Once today's matches wrap up (around 2 p.m. PDT), you're invited to join an informal pool on this blog to call the winners of the remaining matches in the tournament, which winds up with the championship game on Sunday July 9. It would be illegal to gamble for something of value, of course, but there's no law against our getting together for a couple of drinks of one's choice at a suitable location here in Portland after the results are official, and I might even be inclined to buy for the winner.

There will be 16 games in the pool: eight this weekend through Tuesday; four quarterfinals next Friday and Saturday; one semi-final on the Fourth of July and another on the 5th; a game for third place on July 8; and the big finale on the 9th.

Given my limited internet skills, I'm afraid I don't have a fillable bracket for you to submit (other than my feeble attempt at an Excel spreadsheet, here), and so here's how to enter:

1. Check out the official brackets at the FIFA site here.

2. Note that each remaining match has a number assigned to it (49 to 64).

3. Submit your pick for each match in the comments to the "official" entry post on this blog, which will go up around 2:00 this afternoon -- DO NOT SUBMIT YOUR PICKS ON THE POST YOU ARE READING NOW. But do feel free to use the comments to this post to discuss whom you might pick, and why. On your entry form, please use the official match number for each match.

Scoring will be as follows:

One point for every correct selection in the round of 16 (49 to 56).

Two points for every correct selection in the quarterfinal round (57 to 60).

Three points for every correct selection in the semi-finals (61 and 62).

Two points for the correct selection in the third-place match (63).

Five points for the correct selection in the final match (64).

Here are the matchups, in a narrative form. Perhaps you can cut and paste this to get your entry together. I'll fill in the missing teams as they become known:

If you can fill out a March Madness bracket, you can do this. Entries must be posted by "kickoff" (what's the start of a soccer match called? I'm so hopeless) of the first game tomorrow -- 8 a.m.! Hope to see you this afternoon and evening.

The recent Portland city auditor's report on the Portland Development Commission revealed some pretty impressive-looking numbers concerning the effects of urban renewal districts on property tax values within them. Examining five such districts in Portland over the period 1996 to 2004, the auditor, using county tax data, charted a property value increase of more than 138%. Citywide, the eight-year increase was much lower (though still nice), at 56%, and in three selected "control areas" chosen for comparison -- areas similar to the urban renewal districts, but without PDC handouts -- the increase was 64%.

Not all urban renewal areas are equal, of course, and the gains were more pronounced in some of the subsidized areas than in others. Here's the tale of the tape -- real property values in 1996, in 2004, and the percentage increase, in the five areas studied. "MM" means millions:

Airport Way: $409MM in 1996; $1,057MM in 2004; a 158% increase
Central Eastside: $496MM, $791MM, 59%
Downtown/Waterfront: $644MM, $1,918MM, 198%
Convention Center: $934MM, $1,734MM, 86%
River District: $408MM, $1,395MM, 242%
Total of five districts: $2,891MM, $6,895MM, 138.5%

All told, there was about a $4 billion increase in property values in the five districts over the eight-year period. The PDC's "investment" in the areas over that time was estimated to be around $400 million. That's 10 bucks of property value increase for every dollar PDC says it spent.

Where did the value increase come from, besides the PDC? Private investors put in lots of dough (much of it borrowed, no doubt), and there was plenty of raw appreciation when the real estate markets in the districts got hot (some of them did, at least). Did the private property owners in these areas put up another $3.6 billion beyond the PDC's $400 million? I suspect they put in less than that, and the difference between the $4 billion value increase and the private investment, whatever it was, was pure profit for some private party or another. You know me -- I figure it all went to Arlington Club dues.

What about the rest of us schmoes out here? Was the property value increase good for the taxpayers? It's a pretty hazy picture, but some very rough calculations on the back of an envelope indicate that it's been a good, but perhaps not great, deal for taxpayers in the city and county.

Here's what's on that envelope. It's math, people, and very crude math at that. If a guy on the no. 9 bus asked me what I thought, here's what I'd be able to tell him by the time we turned left on 24th:

Although real property values may have gone up by $4 billion, that's not $4 billion of additional tax base. Under state Ballot Measures 5, 50, and the like, even when there's big construction on a given parcel of land, property values are multiplied by a "changed property ratio" (CPR) to make sure that they aren't taxed more heavily than nearby properties that haven't been updated recently. It's pure conjecture on my part how much the $4 billion gets cut back because of this rule -- maybe readers can help me out here -- but let's say that shaves the $4 billion of value increase down to $3 billion of tax base. I suspect the ratio knocks it down to less than that, but let's give urban renewal the benefit of the doubt, for argument's sake.

If property taxes are 2% on that $3 billion of new tax base, all taxing jurisdictions combined will net $60MM of new revenue every year. The present value of all that future tax (discounted at 5%) is $1.2 billion, which makes the PDC's $400MM outlay look pretty smart.

But to this, a number of caveats must be added. First, although I have assumed that all taxing authorities combined will get $60MM a year, the City of P