This is a radio question, but since it's inherently tied to (local) politics, I thought I'd ask this here.
Is any station planning on covering the press conference tomorrow morning live at 11:30? I'm keenly interested in whatever the announcement happens to be (running, not running, ???).
Thanks in advance if anyone knows.

News at noon on TV? Oregonlive.com? Can you wait that long? Did you make a big money/lunch bet? (Good luck either way it goes)

Seriously, I'd ask on the radio side...

Hopefully, he will be announcing his resignation, and apology to the fine men and women of the Portland police dept, who he has failed to support!

Potter has the support of the majority of Portland voters. He also would win rather easily should he choose to run for re-election. Voters apparently are satisfied with Potters handling of the PPB as the only people calling for Potter's head are, well, cops! The mayor serves the voters, not the PPB.

worst mayor ever. he killed baseball in this town and he does a pretty good job of screwing oner the Portland police on a daily basis.

Potter's sort of like Vera, eh? The other "worst mayor ever" who got re-elected 3 times. Too bad the people of Portland don't agree with you. Next.

Well I am one of those people you are talking about and yes i think he the worst as well. I liked Vera, not our best mayor but atleast shr isnt running this city into the ground. I think you are either on potters pay roll or you have been swinging from his nuts.

I don't even live in Portland. Look at the city -- alive, and vibrant! The envy of many other larger cities.

But hey, you've your opinion. Just don't think that we're gonna let you turn Portland Oregon into something like Dallas, Texas. Just do the next best thing and move to Vancouver and pick on Mayor Pollard.

Who?

mc74 and cochise (who by the way, still owes us an explanation).( Or if you're asking about Mayor Pollard, he's the Mayor of Vancouver.)

I was asking about the mayor of Vancouver, since I figure most people over here couldn't name him/her and don't care.

"he killed baseball in this town"

Wasn't Vera still mayor when my tribe wanted to bring MLB and a casino to Portland?

Here's a bit of good news about him . . . Mayor Royce Pollard now SUPPORTS extending light rail into Clark county. In fact, he won't support a new I-5 bridge over the Columbia river unless it includes light rail.

This, of course, flies in the face of most Clark county residents (even though he has made a smart decision). So, instead of picking on Potter, they've a liberal in their own back yard they need to lynch.

No Loot Rail in Vancouver.

UNLESS it is built as a private business and generates and survives off its own revenue.

ABSOLUTLEY no tax dollars should go that socialist program.

I would support a Subway and/or elevated system but not one that would restrict vehicle traffic on our already overcrowded streets. Take a drive down Interstate Avenue from Going to Delta Park some day between 3:00 and 6:00pm and you'll see what I mean.

DT, I've driven that may times. That road was nuts when there were two lanes in each direction.

Now there is a stop light ever 30 feet and none of them are synchronized and only 1 lane in each direction.

Traffic engineering at its finest!

Over here in Vancouver/Clark County, there is an intelligence test for the traffic engineers. If you pass it, they don't hire you.

I think a kindergartner could do a better job than these morons.

If I could wish one thing on Vancouver/Clark County's traffic engineers it would be that they spend the rest of their lives, 8 hours a day, driving in the Vancouver area. Then they would see how stupid what they have done is!

vera was a huge baseball fan and could often be found at beaver games.

I'm serious about he subway/elevated mass transit system though, i'd support that so long as it left all of the current roadway's fully functional!

I like that idea. Those things can get ugly --and I think they are more expensive than ground based ones.

One thing I always wanted to see more of was over passes. Pick a few totally saturated routes and just make one. We trade ability to turn off for getting somewhere to turn in the first place.

Skybill writes:
No Loot Rail in Vancouver.

UNLESS it is built as a private business and generates and survives off its own revenue.

ABSOLUTLEY no tax dollars should go that socialist program.

I agree! We need to send our tax dollars to support the coming Shiite theocracy in Iraq. Piss as many billions as you want down a rathole in Iraq, but not ***ONE NICKEL*** for a light rail train!

Andrew

Skeptical writes:
Here's a bit of good news about him . . . Mayor Royce Pollard now SUPPORTS extending light rail into Clark county. In fact, he won't support a new I-5 bridge over the Columbia river unless it includes light rail.

This, of course, flies in the face of most Clark county residents (even though he has made a smart decision). So, instead of picking on Potter, they've a liberal in their own back yard they need to lynch.

I support public transportation, but I do not support extending MAX to Vancouver. Why? Well, if I lived there, for one, I'd have trouble justifying why I'd want to abandon my fast, efficient C-Tran express bus from downtown Vancouver to Portland in favor of a train that would take 2X to 3X longer to make the same trip? There's nothing wrong with those buses - I've been on them. It's too bad "bus" is a bad word to Metro.

MAX has serious design limitations. It can't be extended beyond two cars (the size of one city Portland city block). There is no provision for any sort of express train system. The system is just going to be slow. I think it's silly to spend any more money expanding the current system. Metro should have designed it properly in the first place, to take future expansion into account. I'm not sure if it's even possible to re-design the current MAX system to handle longer trains and/or an express system - even so, it would cost tens of Billions and probably require digging underground in downtown Portland to bypass traffic.

Andrew

Almost every day, I ride my bicycle to work past where Kendra James was murdered by the PPB. A nervous, poorly trained officer shot a mother with a child, instead of her front tire when he thought she was going to drive off. Now, there is still an orphan, and coincidentally, a whole lot of out of town jaspers pushing every Black face out of the neighborhood around Mississippi.

Coincidence? No, not at all. Vera Katz emulated Rudy's corporate dystopia in New York. Of his many misguided ideas, she loved the idea of a business militia. Look around folks, we now have layer after layer of it with the PPB right in the middle. She came within a remark or two of a full blown race war, so if Potter is cautious, it is because he is less of a corporate lackey than Vera and actually listens to Black people.

Mayor Potter also knows that many people were easily duped by Major League Baseball. For the last damn time folks, MLB has no intention of moving a franchise to Portland. The only remote and distant possible exception is the Oakland A's. This is assuming that they do not build a new facility, the Giants win a claim with MLB on the whole Bay Area, and Portland -- like Tampa in 1986 -- builds a park without a team. It had also better be a damn sight nicer than Tropicana.

However, the money that builds the park is gonna have to come from somewhere. If you think for one minute that a tie-in with a gambling casino would ever ever ever ever ever ever make it across Bud Selig's desk, you are an idiot. In fact, a bigger idiot than Bud Selig.

Every city in the original Pacific Coast League has a team except Portland. Yes, there was a glimmer of hope when the PCL was given AAAA status for a brief time in the 1950s. However, instead of promoting the existing franchises, MLB balked, backed out of a splendid idea, and we were left in the cold. We were not alone.

Before you cry in your beer, remember, New York lost the Giants to San Francisco, Brooklyn lost the Dodgers to Los Angeles, and Kansas City lost the Athletics to Oakland. Now, there are the Mets and Royals, but it tore the soul from those cities. Only the Angels and Padres kept their PCL names because they were expansion teams.

Portland was not very important in 1969 when the Pilots spent a season in Seattle. Soon, they were moved to Milwaukee to replace a Braves team that had moved south to Atlanta. Portland was not very important in 1977 when the taxpayers built the Kingdome and the Mariners debuted in Seattle. At the same time, another bigger baseball city, Toronto, launched the Blue Jays. Portland was not very important in 1986 when the Chicago White Sox were saved from being moved to Tampa by the Illinois legislature.

Portland only returned to the vocabulary of MLB rumors after Miami, Tampa, Phoenix and Denver were awarded teams. Portland -- and even more of a laugher, Las Vegas -- became a pawn in the game when eager and naive migrants began to scheme and weave hopeful visions. The Expos were going to Washington all along, but they had to keep Angelos happy in Baltimore, so name dropping Portland became just a part of the process.

If you are actually from Portland, your baseball tastes were dictated by the radio. Generations of hardcore Giants fans were already firmly in place before whippersnappers like me fell in love with the hapless Mariners. I have a friend who is in his late 40s, and I am in my late 30s. He wears the orange and black, and I wear the trident.

Neither of us realistically think that the MLB has us at the top of the list, but then again, we also do not care. We love our Beavers, and have been blessed to see phenomenal talents like Jason Bay and Jake Peavy before they got to the show. True students of the game love all levels of the sport. Like millions of other Americans, we love to travel to see our favorite Major League teams play, and we support our local club. We are already part of a fanbase. So were you, before you moved here. Do you finally get it yet? Go Bevos!

You do not have to love Tom. I disagree with him on some issues too. Still, whining about big league baseball, wanting a casino in our town, or pretending our police force does not have a very brutal record is ignorant and thoughtless. It shows how new you actually are to Portland, or worse yet, how little you have actually seen of the streets of our home. We need infrastructure, urban renewal and a dedicated, well trained and fair police force. All of this ought to happen long before we fret one more bit about horsehide and hickory.

Andrew gotta love those MAX stops from Lloyd Center to the Rose Quarter. I got off at Lloyd Center once and walked to the Rose Garden to see just how much quicker it was. MAX beat me by about a block and half and I wasn't walking fast.

The Europeans have this light rail thing down because they did right to begin with or made the right corrections when they had too.

so, what happened at the press conference?

Chris, the Europeans as you know have much more extensive train systems than we have. London has an extensive Tube system augmented with buses. Cities like Amsterdam, Vienna, Prague, and Budapest have trams (street cars), buses, AND fast subway trains. Portland's MAX is a hybrid combo of a fast subway train and a streetcar, but it is more of a long-distance streetcar. Compared to the ultra-efficient trains we saw in Vienna, MAX is kind of a joke, isn't it?

Andrew

We did have a great system at one time -- with a smaller population. Here's a place to start:

http://www.trainweb.org/oerhs/history/portland.htm

Ok, ok, I had to google since nobody here knows . . .


Potter isn't running for re-election.

So, lets all welcome our new Mayor Sam Adams!

thank god he isnt running again, probably knows he isnt well liked. I'll take will Sam Adams anyday over the current moron doing the job.

One does wonder if mc74 knows . . . well, maybe I'll keep my mouth shut a bit longer.

You mean about the fact that Sam Adams is a FAIRlY good city commissioner?

Andrew

Yeah, and Sam Adams will never march in a GLBT parade because of something trivious such as a lesbian daughter like Potter does. It'll have to be a deep personal utmost and compelling conviction before we see Adams marching.

bump!

SA intends to maintain his wide stance, politically that is, by assuring every restroom in City Hall will be open for business during Republican fund raisers.

A gay mayor? He will be attacked daily by Lars and Victoria.

Do they have nothing better to do than to attack him because he's gay?

Maybe Herb writes their shows for them ...

Well, he is an avid bicyclist, too.

A gay bicyclist would send Lars over the edge.

In that case, I'm voting for Sam Adams!!

Didnt know he is gay but doesnt matter, I would still vote for him

Good for you!

I used to ride a bike a lot, but since the bike taliban have taken over, I quit. And Potter along with Adams are to blame. They refuse to have the police enforce traffic laws against bicyclists. Along with allowing bike overcrowding on Max. I've taken to taking pictures of bikes blocking the exits on Max, and I e-mail them to the city, so when in the future theres an accident and someone gets hurt because they cant get off the Max in a timely manner, the ciy wont be able to say, we didnt know. I will gladely supply copies of all my e-mails to the lawer of whoever gets hurt.

Those pesky Trial Lawyers can come in handy someties, Eh?

MAX belongs to everybody, not just non-bike riders.

okie sez: "They refuse to have the police enforce traffic laws against bicyclists."

You're making this up. The PPB HAS cracked down on bike outlaws. The bike boards are FILLED with anti-police rants for writing out $350 tickets for blowing stop signs.

Get back on your bike. There are just as many bike outlaws as there are car outlaws. Further, Car outlaws that lose their drivers license often get on bikes and ride MAX. Geez!

Max has posted rules on where bikes may be, they are not supossd to block exits.

Max has posted rules on where bikes may be, they are not supossd to block exits.
It's just like the other rules on MAX - unenforced. Try telling someone to stop eating on the thing, or please turn their ghettoblaster off, and you might not make it off the platform alive when you get off the train.
BTW, the reason the "Bike Mafia/Taliban" seems to have a lot of say in things is because these are the folks that show up to the meetings which demand these things in public policies. At a Portland Dept. of Transportation meeting, a good 90% of the participants were bicyclists, dressed in their bicycle gear. They've also set up several non-profit and for-profit organizations.
I bet if the people who claim they're the majority showed up to meetings, and decided that it was as much an investment to their lives as their retirement plan or their kids, then maybe things would be different.

newf, I bet if NWOkie gets into trouble trying to tell someone to turn down their boombox, the Bike Mafia/Taliban on board the MAX train will rush to his defense.

nwokie, so, what about those $350 tickets issued to stop-sign-blowing-cyclists?