If you missed the delightful fact that local anarchists have taken it upon themselves to help speed the repair of this city's worrisomely pocked streets, well here you go. Not a great look for the city.
Only in the Mercury: Mayor Ted Wheeler pulled back on a controversial proposal to exclude disruptive people from City Council meetings last week. His reason: He wanted to meet with the ACLU to try and work out the organization's concerns. But an unexpected flight cancellation meant the group's legal director had to reschedule a meeting set for today, and Wheeler's office says it's pressing forward with the ordinance this week anyway.
The ACLU's contention is that the new exclusion ordinance flies in the face of a federal judge's 2015 opinion. The Tribune talks to a number of law professors who think that might not be the case.
The East Portland business owner who killed a homeless man battling schizophrenia last month won't face criminal charges. A grand jury found it was fine that Charlie Win Chan followed Jason Petersen out into the parking lot of his business with a gun, and fired a single shot when he was "attacked" by the unarmed man.
In response to a homophobic message scrawled on a Grant High School bathroom mural, someone put up their own graffiti yesterday—with a markedly different message.
Here's an interesting story: the Old Town Chinatown Community Association sent a letter to Mayor Ted Wheeler yesterday, asking him to allow Right 2 Dream Too to stay on its lot at SW 4th and W Burnside past a current moving deadline of April 7. That could lead to some interesting outcomes if it happens, but its a sign of the association's feeling that R2DToo has been a positive presence.
The head of the city's Office of Neighborhood Involvement is resigning, not long after the office was handed to Commissioner Chloe Eudaly. No one's saying much officially about the circumstances of longtime director Amalia Alarcon de Morris' departure, but ONI has been under fire after a fairly harsh audit found parts of the bureau in disarray. And in an atypical move, Eudaly's deputy chief of staff, Dave Austin, will be a co-interim director for the bureau.
So you know how Republicans rushed their Obamacare replacement through two committees of congress before even seeing an analyst's report on what it could do? Probably because that analyst's report, released yesterday, found the plan would result in 24 million fewer people insured in the next decade—the bulk of them far sooner than that. It would also slash domestic spending and probably, eventually, reduce premiums for those who stayed insured under the plan. But 24 million people.
Oh, and by the way. The White House did its own handicapping and arrived at a number higher than 24 million. Still, Republican boosters have decried the huge figure as a fiction.
Because of course: White House aides are now claiming that we all took Donald Trump's straight-faced claim Obama had wiretapped him FAR too literally.
And....great: Democrats are toying with the idea of a budget shutdown, in order to battle some truly repugnant spending choices they see Trump pushing for.
Hey, electorate of Iowa's 4th Congressional District: Stop electing this dude.
I know what happened. You guys saw some sun this weekend and figured our Official GMN Prediction that this will be the Wettest March On Record was sunk. Well check this out.
