Jack Bog's Blog

Oooh, that smarts

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:19:01 -0800

That new digital "smart" meter that the electric company's installing on the side of your house may be a little too smart, and a little too loose, for many people's liking. For one thing, it's going to enable the folks at the power company to figure out a lot more about you than they've ever known before:

"Instead of measuring energy use at the end of each billing period, smart meters will provide this information at much shorter intervals," the report notes. "Even if electricity use is not recorded minute by minute, or at the appliance level, information may be gleaned from ongoing monitoring of electricity consumption such as the approximate number of occupants, when they are present, as well as when they are awake or asleep. For many, this will resonate as a 'sanctity of the home' issue, where such intimate details of daily life should not be accessible."

And to whom will the power company turn this data over? The police? The highest bidder? Of course, with every wireless communications device, there's going to be a security risk. What's to stop a hacker from cruising a neighborhood and figuring out which homes are temporarily unoccupied because the electricity usage is unusually low? Perhaps the biggest casualty of the new devices will be jobs. An alert reader who's been asking questions of PGE about this copied us on an e-mail message in which a company spokesperson told him: "While new jobs will be created, approximately 120 positions will be affected. To date, more than half of those have been successfully placed in new positions in and outside of PGE, or have retired. PGE will continue to need meter readers until August 2010, and we continue to provide ongoing career transition support for the employees who have not yet found other opportunities." Uh huh.

Untapped potential

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:02:31 -0800

From South America, an idea on how to cure the recession and eliminate obesity at the same time.

Another great moment on Tri-Met

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:19:22 -0800

Wherein a poorly maintained MAX train very nearly leads to disaster for a three-year-old boy. Way to go, Crocodile Hansen!

Dump Geithner

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 08:07:23 -0800

Rep. Peter DeFazio is, like many of us, sick of watching our children's future being looted by Goldman Sachs and their cronies at the Federal Reserve. He sees the current Treasury Secretary as a big part of the problem. He's right. I wish DeFazio was going to be the next governor, instead of Doctor No.

Clap off! State police pay to settle malicious prosecution claim.

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:27:09 -0800

We all had a good laugh nearly five years ago when right-wing Oregon talking head Gregg Clapper was busted on a drug-related charge in connection with an animal poaching investigation targeting another local tighty righty, motelier Mark Hemstreet. The hunting charges were dropped, but Clapper did wind up getting a citation for the evil "residue" in the four marijuana pipes that the police seized when they raided his place. Clapper and Hemstreet sued the state police for malicious prosecution in the hunting case, and their lawsuit made for a nice payday. The state settled for $295,000 in cool cash earlier this month. No one admits liability when they settle civil suits like this, but it's obvious that the troopers stepped way over some lines. (They did make hunting charges stick, however, against three people targeted by the same investigation.) Clapper's been pretty insistent that everyone who reported the original charges now be sure to report that he's been cleared. He's been sending out e-mail messages all over the place. (Funny thing, the state attorney general's office, which defended the civil lawsuit, hasn't included the latest on the Clapper matter in its daily barrage of press releases.) I asked Clapper to send along a photo of himself to illustrate my post on the settlement, and he gladly obliged. That's him on the left, and Hemstreet on the right, blissfully interacting with nature:

Rogue cop at it again

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:29:24 -0800

"Thumper" Humphreys, the Portland cop who brutally killed James Chasse, has just been yanked off the street after shooting a 12-year-old girl with a beanbag gun at close range. It's a good thing he didn't kill someone else. It's been known for years that he's got issues that put lots of people's well being in jeopardy. Will this be the end of his career as a policeman? Don't be silly. The union will probably give him another prize. Of course, they're probably only busting him now to try to soften the multi-million-dollar verdict they're looking at after a sensational trial in the Chasse civil case. This town is so sad sometimes.

All bricks, all the time

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:10:48 -0800

We got our first closeup look at downtown Portland's new Director Park today. It beats the parking lot that was there before, but we must say, it's about as sterile a public space as has ever been created in this town. It needs a fountain. Or some planters. Or something. And it doesn't have curbs, which is a little disarming at first. It's just a matter of time, we suspect, before some out-of-town grandma on a cell phone figures out a way to drive right up to where she isn't supposed to be.

Feeling the love from the creatives

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:36:17 -0800

You'll be pleased to know that Tri-Met is a blip, hard, the bomb, diggity dank, and like, totally deck.

What he wanted to hear

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:16:37 -0800

A reader writes:

I love the BBC. Their reports all always true and fact filled. This study comes at just the right time of year, holiday season.

See there? It's working!

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:30:22 -0800

I see that Portland's massive investment in streetcars and condo towers is already beginning to show important benefits.

Wii pray to the Lord

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:07:15 -0800

Lord, have mercy.

Portland dusting off the plastic for another binge

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 03:47:41 -0800

The City of Portland hasn't staged a bond issue in a while. The whole rigamarole in which the bureaucrats publish a formal offering document and go out and borrow millions from some bank or other robber baron outfit -- the last one of those that I've seen was way back in July. That was when the city borrowed about $27.8 million to help the inadequate cash flow in its cancerous police and fire retirement system. Four whole months without running to Wall Street for another eight-figure fix? My goodness! The city's long-term indebtedness appears to be stalled at a mere $2.9 billion! But don't you worry, debt fans. On closer inspection, it becomes clear that the city's borrowing machinery is still in good working order, and we'll be cracking the coveted $3 billion level in no time. There are several reasons for this prediction. First, although I'm not the world's greatest expert in this area, I think that the lawsuit over the city's abuses of the "urban renewal" processes was a big part of the temporary debt slowdown. And that lawsuit has now been bought off. Indeed, the big homeless hotel and spa down by the Greyhound station, which the lawsuit so famously stalled, is going to have its groundbreaking tomorrow. This is confirmation that a big obstacle to further reckless borrowing has been removed. Second, don't think that the city can't slither out and borrow tens of millions just because it hasn't gone through the formal bond process. As we've highlighted on this blog in the past, the city has several sizeable letters of credit outstanding, and when it needs dough without a lot of hoopla and public process, it just draws on them. No muss, no fuss, no City Council discussion, no public vetting of what the money's being borrowed for. Eventually, the city pays off the line of credit with permanent bonds, but by that time the money's been spent, and as a practical matter, there's no way to say no to the bonds. So much for public input. And since the first of the year, the city has been tapping those hidden lines of credit with great gusto. According to figures we received earlier this week from Eric Johansen, the city's debt manager, the outstanding balances on the lines of credit increased by nearly $21 million between January 1 and November 1. The breakdown of where it went is here; the biggest line items are $10.1 million for the city's "enterprise business solution" computer system (from all appearances, a classic bureaucratic money pit), and another $5.3 million for whatever is going on with "urban renewal" out in Lents. Third, there are going to be some additional bonds sold between now and year-end. According to Johansen, "[t]he City expects to sell about $19 million in limited tax revenue bonds in December for the Public Safety System Revitalization Project and the Enterprise Business Solution Project (financial system)." Cha-ching. Not to mention the permanent financing for the homeless tower; that's going to involve another $36 million mortgage. I presume that those bonds get sold next spring; in the meantime, we tap another line of credit, I guess. Finally, there's plenty of new debt on the horizon for 2010 and beyond. The city recently announced that it's looking for a new consultant who will certify the "feasibility" of new "urban renewal" borrowing. This consultant will apparently be hired to swear on a stack of IOUs that building more junk apartments will sufficiently jack up the tax base that big property tax dollars can be corralled in the future to pay off money that's being borrowed now and handed to Fireman Randy's real estate pals. Anyway, in the document requesting bids for that consulting gig, here's what the city said about the looming "urban renewal" credit card spree: Is everybody o.k. with upping the ante like this? At our house, when we start running low on cash for basics, we go easy on the toys for a while. Not in Portland. No, sir. In this town, when in doubt, you put it on plastic -- it's like getting stuff for free. No wonder the city's looking for a new CFO. A debt workout specialist would be good -- pretty soon, we're gonna need one.

Shunned by BlueOregon

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:31:18 -0800

It took a couple of months for me to notice, but I see that I'm no longer blue enough to be listed as a "Lefty Blog" by the boys and girls over at BlueOregon. Apparently I was defrocked on September 14. Was it something I said? Oh, well. Those of you who go over there regularly, please do let me know when things worth reading show up on that site. It's kind of like the Merc -- I can't bring myself to check it too often.

City tries out new lie in Chasse case

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:27:55 -0800

The "leaders" of the City of Portland are such bullies sometimes. And when they're wrong, they won't own up to it. They'll throw up one desperate lie after another, rather than face the truth. It's a cause for real civic shame, for every one of us who lives here. I'm really surprised that Fish and Fritz are sitting by and watching this happen. What they think they're achieving by letting it go on is truly mystifying. It doesn't take long to be brought over to the dark side, I guess. Nick, Amanda, you're losing your souls. Is it really worth it?

Frohnmayer's folly

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:57:10 -0800

We interrupt the relentless flow of stories of the financial disaster at OHSU with a flash from Dave Frohnmayer: He thinks the murky, semi-autonomous, nonaccountable "governance" model on Pill Hill is so wonderful that it ought to be extended to the state's other big universities. Yes, let's replicate the kind of boondoggles perpetrated by Peter Kohler and the rest of the Goldschmidt crew systemwide. Let's make the U of O public when it wants to be, and secretive when it wants to be, just like OHSU. It's working so well. And of course, the Scone, a Goldschmidt man from way back, thinks it's a wonderful idea. Just think: Maybe the U of O will soon be opening a research campus in Florida.