He's the highlight of this excellent clip from KGW. Go get 'em, Randy!

The Zari Santner interview portion of the video is also a scream. Put away your polygraph -- you won't be needing it for this one.

Unconfirmed reports -- and I stress, they are unconfirmed -- say the crown princess of "clean money" is working here.

If true, it's probably not much of a paycheck, but shouldn't the City of Portland try for at least a little piece of it?

The secret dealings between the City of Portland and Warner Pacific College over the sale of part of Mount Tabor Park continue to come to light. Here's the college's fall newsletter (a large-ish pdf file), which (on page 4) states that the city and the college signed a memo of understanding about the proposed transaction in August. Right around the same time, good ol' Tom Potter was touring the campus and being schmoozed by the college prez (see page 5).

As best I can tell, the first neighborhood association meeting at which the planned sale was even hinted at was on September 20, at which time it apparently was revealed that the college had made an offer for the property in May. That would be a long, hot summer's worth of chit-chat before the neighborhood association was clued in.

If you don't think this is a done deal, I've got an aerial tram I want to sell you [rim shot].

The college apparently has a subscription to the local newspapers. It's trying to pull the same stunt that OHSU did to get itself a billion dollars' worth of city money for its new Shangri-la in the SoWhat district: "If we don't get our way, we'll move to the suburbs."

Earth to the City Council: Call. Their. Bluff.

Happy Halloween!

The O's suddenly got religion about benzene pollution in Portland's air.

Fine. But do they really think it's going to get cleaned up if their candidate Saxton becomes governor?

They're really nice to some people.

The soccer field that we've been watching appear in our neighborhood has a fence around it now. And the soccer goals have appeared. Here's the latest look:

The school to which the new field is attached even sent us a "Dear Neighbor" note, asking us to keep an eye on the place after dark. We've lived here eight years, and that's the first "Dear Neighbor" letter we've ever gotten from the school. I think they're making some strides in the p.r. department.

Meanwhile, if you were around back when the power pole across the street from our house was replaced, we're pleased to report that sometime in the last few weeks, a crew removed the stump of the old pole when we weren't home. And so that story is over:

Man, I am going to miss Bob Borden. Maybe one of these days my sister will run into him at the laundromat in Nutley. And we'll have his jokes on The Late Show. Good luck, Bob!

“I think the council should just level with the people and say, 'We’ll listen to you when we want to, and we’ll ignore you the rest of the time.'"

-- Former Portland Mayor Bud Clark, on current Mayor Tom Potter's strategic planning exercise, VisionPDX.

Human experimentation without consent. I guess I wasn't kidding when I said we all need one of these.

The gossip swirling around the pending sell-off of part of Mount Tabor Park in Southeast Portland gets hotter by the day. A reader forwards this eye-opening e-mail message that appears to be from Cascade Anderson Geller, a defender of that park:

According to our best research efforts, given the documents that have been made available to us by the City, it appears that there are well-developed plans to relocate and sell Mt. Tabor Park Maintenance Yard. The apparent plan is to discontinue all nursery operations and dispose of nursery lands adjacent to the Yard. Although we saw one design to demolish all buildings and rebuild on the existing maintenance yard, there is apparently no plan to continue the tree nursery and plant propagation services.

Many components of the strategy to dispose of the maintenance yard appear to be either completed or well along in the process. These include: zoning and comprehensive plan changes, including removing the historical designation afforded by the National Register of Historic Places listing, environmental assessments, surveying, etc.

There is also a Memorandum of Understanding that has been drawn up between Warner Pacific College and the City of Portland. Although officials say this agreement is non-binding, and apparently is unsigned, at this point, it calls for the City and the college "to enter into a purchase and sale agreement no later than 15 November 2006."

On Wednesday, November 1, 2006, Portland Parks and Recreation (PPR) will bring before the City Council the final draft of a feasibility study, called Facilities Maintenance Report, to City Council. A "time certain" has not yet been established, but the estimate is that it should be presented about noontime. Although we have yet to see the full report, we have seen portions of it and discussed aspects of it with PPR officials. This report includes information about Mt. Tabor Park along with other sites in the City. We have been informed by Commissioner Saltzman's office that the report should be available for review tomorrow, Wednesday, October 25.

The report calls for the reorganization of the maintenance facilities throughout the city. This includes a series of buildings to be constructed in the newly established park zones throughout the City.

Some buildings will be constructed on open space in existing parks that currently don't have maintenance facilities. For example, it appears there's a proposal for an approximately 4000 square foot building to be constructed in Gabriel Park, a huge facility (maybe 40,000 sq. ft) at Washington Park, something at sites on SE McLoughlin Blvd., SE 136th Ave. and NE 21st and Pacific. The report apparently also makes a request for $650,000 to deal with "life and safety" improvements. This includes possible repair of immediate needs, such as, “water leaks at Mt. Tabor Park Maintenance Yard, etc.”

The feasibility study appears to be a part of the total restructuring of the Parks Department that is taking place internally. Citizens, other than the appointed Parks Board, apparently have not been involved in this restructuring process. The creation of zones and the redistribution of services appear to be part of the effort that PPR is making to create "park districts" and do away with the bureau per se and the oversight of an elected commissioner to be replaced by a board of some type.

At least since July, 2005, Warner Pacific College has been represented in their bid to purchase the south facing 7 - 13.5 acres of Mt. Tabor Park from the City by former city commissioner, Jim Francesconi, who was in charge of the parks bureau. Apparently, one member of the current Portland Parks Board also sits on the Warner Pacific College board of directors.

We would recommend that all parks' supporters attend the City Council meeting on November 1, 2006. When we receive word about the "time certain" of the agenda item, PPR Facilities Maintenance Report, we will post it publicly. At this point, the assumed time was about noon.

There will be an opportunity for public questions and comments at the City Council meeting after PPR’s presentation. For more information, please contact Commissioner Dan Saltzman: 503.823.4151

The meeting will be at Portland City Hall, 1221 SW 4th Avenue, Portland, Oregon.

If you would like to comment to the Mayor and your City Commissioners, here are their email addresses: mayorpotter@ci.portland.or.us, rleondard@ci.portland.or.us, sten@ci.portland.or.us,
commissionersam@ci.portland.or.us, dsaltzman@ci.portland.or.us (parks bureau commissioner)

The zoning of the system is definitely a done deal. Here's a map to which the city sent a link around on Thursday -- for the first time, to my knowledge.

Last night the Mrs. whipped up the best appetizer, out of the debris from a wonderful afternoon's artistic endeavor -- pumpkin seeds, roasted in a little butter and some Johnny's seasoning (I know, heavy on the MSG, but it's a holiday). Perfectly accompanied by a nice Oregon pinot gris. Yum!

Sam the Tram wants suggestions from the public about what to name the two aerial tram cabins [rim shot]. I suggest "Neil" and "Chapter 9."

Earlier this week, I linked to a touching "true story" that showed "how connected we all are."

I should have said, "how crooked some people are," or "how gullible I am." The story was a hoax.

Maybe somebody hacked into her website. Or maybe it's for real. But either way, it's hysterical:

Clean money, baby!

(Via b!X.)

One of our favorite troublemakers shares the latest campaign finance reports in the Multnomah County commission race between Jeff Cogen and Lew Frederick. Here's Cogen and here's Frederick. Executive summary: Cogen's got lots of money behind him, Frederick not. (They're big fat pdf files, so wait them out if you click.)

Our previous complaint that the county should be posting these reports on the internet got this response, but it's not convincing.

There's also a Metro race out there for some voters, between Kathryn Harrington and Tom Cox, and their reports are here and here, respectively. Harrington has all the money, from the developers, the unions, etc. Without even looking at the race any closer than that, you can see that she's the overwhelming favorite.

Metro officially posts at least some of the reports. Here, for example, is the page devoted to Cox, and here's Harrington's. All the more reason to wonder why Multnomah County has never gotten around to the practice.

Gordy down at RoguePundit has a neat post on the latest doings of former Portland Police Chief Charles Moose.

We got a new computer last week, and there was quite a bit of e-junk to dispose of from the old setup. And so, taking the advice of commenters on this blog a while back, today I headed down to Free Geek on SE Tenth Avenue, just a couple of blocks south of Hawthorne, here in Portland. These folks clean up old tech hardware and give it to nonprofits and others who can't afford new stuff. What can't be re-used, they dispose of responsibly.

Let me tell you, they aren't wasting any money on fancy digs. It's, shall we say, Spartan. And they hit you up for a donation as they take the outmoded gear off your hands. This seems to be the order of the day at many nonprofit thrift stores and similar operations these days -- they get you coming and they get you going. But hey, it's all for a good cause. A computer's about as essential as a toaster nowadays -- maybe even more so -- and everybody who wants one should have one. And if you can keep the castoffs out of the landfill for a while longer, it's worth it.

Oregon State just beat USC.

In football.

The freeway ride to biofuels has hit a speed bump -- E85, gasoline that's 85 percent ethanol, turns out to be pretty darn corrosive. Pumps that dispense it are corroding so swiftly that it's a safety issue. Even plastic parts are affected, apparently.

Makes you wonder how many miles you'll be able to get out of that American-made E85 car you'll be buying in a few years.

As expected, it's a union guy, John Mohlis. (It was Opie's nomination officially, and the guy's written for BlueOregon.)

But hey, try to find a decent photo of Mohlis on the web! I got only these:

I'm sure the PDC will have a fine bar mitzvah shot available soon. Anyway, good luck to him.

Here's an amazing item of junk mail that I fished out of the bottom of the old snail mail box this afternoon -- a cologne sampler card:

You want to smell like Puff Daddy? Unforgivable, indeed.

HowManyOfMe.com

There is: 1 person with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Besides, it says there's only one of me, but I know there's actually another Jack Bogdanski in Arizona. (Via TaxProf Blog.)

The two candidates for Multnomah County commission did a head-to-head at the Rose City Park neighborhood meeting the other night, and that troublemaker Jim Karlock videotaped the whole thing. Check it out.