Apparently the only agenda item for today's Portland Development Commission board meeting is to review the many proposals that have come in for new office space to move the PDC's shrinking staff into. These include a proposal by the agency's existing landlord, Kalberer Co., for the PDC to stay put in its current location, the scene of a failed "creative class" initiative by the commission some years ago. Kalberer's offering a rent break if the PDC remains where it is.

So comically and yet so typically, the board will actually have two discussions of the proposals -- a secret one, where they'll say what's really going on, and a public one, where all sorts of evasive and outright fake pronouncements will no doubt be made. The public will then have half an hour to talk into the microphones while the commissioners eat scones, check their e-mail, meditate, and tune in occasionally.

The agency is refusing to disclose the terms of the various proposals on the grounds that they are "trade secrets," exempt from public record disclosure laws. That claim seems bogus, and worthy of a legal challenge, if anyone cares.

In any event, there's no word yet on when the actual decision, which was probably made a while ago, will actually be announced. But today's ritual dances should be at least mildly entertaining.