Nurse Amanda, staring at a serious chance of losing her Portland City Council gig, is making the state's liquor regulators, the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, her new punching bag. She's on their case not only for flipflopping on the state and city's authority to impose special regulations on downtown liquor sales, but also for their allowing alcohol sales from the city's ubiquitous food carts.

"The latest bait-and-switch by OLCC is another example of the agency showing indifference to problems linked to alcohol sales in local jurisdictions, and a disgraceful lack of transparency and accountability," Fritz said in the statement.

Hell hath no fury like a former psychiatric nurse scorned, apparently. Meanwhile, yesterday we tried to put a face on the OLCC with this post, and as so often happens, a reader who's more in the know than we are e-mailed us to fill in some of our knowledge gaps:

Pharo is a good guy. I have met with him a number of times over neighborhood impact issues. He is an ex-Marine, and as upright and scrupulous as they come. He is honest, fair, circumspect but an excellent communicator, and very dedicated to running a quality organization that will serve the public well. Action-oriented but scrupulously well organized. Good problem solver. Of course, that scrupulous bit puts him at odds with our temporizing politicos who want rule by fiat and only worry about law when the recall gets filed. Pharo knows exactly what his authorities are, and will be creative about trying to get traction without violating them, but he won't violate them. That Kitz wants rid of him is the last nail in the coffin of my respect for Kitz.

I've heard all kinds of wild stories about what is going on behind the green curtain. I'm sure you would have to subpoena Pharo to get him to talk about any of it. Heard that Grocery Outlet wanted to bypass the distributors, but Oregon law doesn't allow it, and Kitz wanted Pharo to green light it by simply pretending it wasn't illegal. Same with the impact area. Law? What law? Heard that the Police Bureau sent a letter endorsing food cart permits, which reached the Commission timely, whereas Council's letter opposing it didn't reach the Commission timely. Heard something about a personal relationship between a Commission member and one of Pharo's subordinates and someone trying to interfere with his supervisory authority. I have no idea how much of any of this is true, but it all sounds believable. Not all smoke means fire, of course, but that's a hell of a lot of smoke. Starts to sound like a script for "The Good Wife." Maybe we could get McDonald on it.

If you like politics, it's pretty interesting stuff.