That odd bid solicitation from the Portland Water Bureau that we blogged about the other day has been revised again. You may recall that the bureau is looking for a firm to do real estate appraisal work.

The two latest changes make it easier for firms to qualify. First, rather than having to knock out appraisals in 10 calendar days (an awfully short time to do anything approaching a careful job), the bidders now get 15 calendar days (big deal). Second and more significantly, rather than have five professionals who are dedicated full-time to doing commercial real estate appraisals, bidding firms need have only one such professional. Third and most significantly, a bidding firm's lead appraiser on the assignment no longer must be designated as a member of the Appraisal Institute ("MAI") -- the gold standard for real estate appraisers. Under the latest addendum, it is merely "preferred" that the lead appraiser for the bidder have the MAI designation.

Why all these fundamental changes over the course of a couple of days? It's a pretty odd sequence of events. And they still haven't fully explained whether the appraisal work is for transaction purposes, condemnation purposes, or what, despite conflicting descriptions in the request for proposals.

One can only guess what is really going on in the back rooms at 1221 SW Fourth -- oops, I mean Chavez Avenue. The whole place seems to have gone quite off its rocker -- and Adams isn't even mayor yet.