If they realigned their purpose to be more customer service oriented, they wouldn't need such an intensive public relations campaign. Isaac, Our Friend at the University Club, had a great proposal the other day, essentially that the BDS should make it their goal to issue all SFR project permits within a day of application, and all multi-unit residential and small commercial permits within 5 days. That would be a good start.

Hey, how else would you know:
"Palestinians facing worst water shortage in 80 years"
"Shrinking Dead Sea Creates Dangerous Sinkholes"
"Water Quality Inspires Boy Scout"
"Tap Water Sticker Makes it to Hot-Lanta!"

I almost miss Randy's recipes. How this blogmistress can honestly cash her paycheck mystifies me.

WW's Jul1st Murmurs column offers this observation:

Jobs aren’t the only thing being cut at Portland’s Bureau of Development Services. As part of cost-cutting at the bureau, city officials are also slashing cash for “nuisance abatement,” a program that lets the city clean up neighborhood eyesores like garbage piles in front yards. The $300,000 planned in the 2009-2010 budget for the program has been cut to $40,000, which has one neighborhood activist in Northeast Portland scratching her head. “I can’t imagine they would do anything so foolish,” says Valerie Curry, Argay Neighborhood Association president. “This is what makes the city halfway-civilized.”

A few weeks ago, Mr Adams suggested that the abandoned vehicle program should be discontinued even though it appeared to more than pay its own way while actually providing a useful service for city residents. Fortunately, that program was not axed and remains "for at least another year."

There has never been an effective noise control effort in Portland, owing in large part to the feckless head of the program that has migrated between ONI and BDS, allegedly misplacing its records during its relocations.

Nuisance abatement, abandoned vehicle removal, and noise control are critical services in an urban environment where density is the shibboleth. While Mr Adams intransigently espouses density, he routinely ignores the social consequences of his unexamined belief in density as an organizing principle and unassailable goal. Mr Leonard simply nods his approval, although it is a bureau in his portfolio that is immediately responsible for all of these deficient or threatened programs.

There are so many reasons to recall and remove city commissioners who do not work for the benefit of those who live in the city they would presume to lead.

Are you sure your not thinking of TRIMET?

Oh yea, sorry, they operate with the same philosophies.