Good morning, Portland. Here are some high-quality links.
Out in print as of yesterday (grab a copy!), is this news story about more lead problems in Portland: "According to test results from the Portland Water Bureau (PWB) that were quietly posted to a city website, the Portsmouth neighborhood park’s only two drinking fountains turned up lead levels of 32.3 and 72.6 parts per billion (ppb), in excess of the 20 parts per billion “action level” set by the US Environmental Protection Agency for water in schools."
Also out in print yesterday is this piece about the city's Office of Neighborhood Involvement asking for $465,000 for a new program called Portland United Against Hate: "The initiative hopes to bring the city together with eight community-specific nonprofits and groups that would work as 'rapid response hubs' to better document and deal with acts of intimidation, hate speech, and hate crimes in Portland."
Multnomah County Sheriff Mike Rees, whose department pledged not to cooperate with President Donald Trump's increased deportation effort, live-tweeted Trump's speech at the conference for the Major County Sheriff's Association and Major Cities Chiefs Association. It's costing taxpayers $2,000.
President Trump asks law enforcement to turn in the bad illegal aliens. pic.twitter.com/FK22V96iQN
— Mike Reese (@SheriffReese) February 8, 2017
The Oregonian is reporting that a "pregnant city employee courted for a job inside Ted Wheeler's administration claims she was pressured to take less time off to care for her newborn if she wanted to work for Portland's mayor."
"Two construction workers fell between 40 and 50 feet on the Ross Island Bridge Wednesday morning, suffering serious injuries and requiring a dramatic rescue by Portland firefighters,"KOIN reported. "The men, part of a crew employed by Abhe and Svoboda Inc. of Minnesota, are father and son, company officials confirmed. Around 8:15 a.m., one fell from the upper to the lower scaffolding inside the containment area, ODOT’s Dave Thompson told KOIN 6 News. That man hurt the second worker on the lower scaffolding when he fell."
There's been a few reported drugging incidents at the Killingsworth Dynasty bar in North Portland, KPTV says.
KGW on the first Somali refugee to arrive in Oregon since Trump's Muslim ban, which is currently going through the court system.
What a load of shit: "Nearly 57 million gallons of diluted raw sewage flowed into the Willamette River and area streams after heavy rains overwhelmed Salem's sewage system Sunday,"KGW reports.
Jeff Sessions was confirmed as Attorney General yesterday. Not great.
Reigning NBA MVP Steph Curry is a good basketball player who made a good, fundamentally sound joke yesterday:
Steph Curry on his endorser Under Armour CEO's pro-Trump comments https://t.co/vUB1XdeJDz via @mercnewspic.twitter.com/6IVwKmppr2
— Sara Germano (@germanotes) February 8, 2017