Look, I know we all want to get home to our families, so I’ll make this brief:

*The city’s lobbying rules may get an extreme makeover after all. During a discussion to lower the quarterly threshold for lobbyist reports from eight to 16 hours, a majority of council talked Sam Adams into reconsidering a whole host of things in the ordinance—especially who gets exempted from the rules. He’s pledged to come back in two months with a list of changes. Side note: As I predicted (and bet $5 on), Randy Leonard made a speech about why neighborhood associations shouldn’t be exempted. Instead of taking his five dollar bill, I asked him to donate it to a worthy firefighter charity—and demanded a receipt. (BTW, Commissioner Leonard, the Former Firefighter’s Beer Fund is not a real charity.)

*The long-delayed Sweat Free Ordinance, which would require that all city purchases come from non-sweatshop facilities, will finally get a hearing on August 29. But, according to Terry Richardson, Adams’ labor policy adviser, the city and sweat-free activists haven’t agreed on how to enforce the ordinance, whether by joining a multi-city consortium (the activists’ choice) or by having local enforcement. It remains to be seen if that will get hammered out by the hearing date.

*Speaking of Richardson and labor…Adams is trying to push forward on his oft-discussed resolution to require city contractors to provide health insurance for their employees. A draft resolution currently making the rounds of commissioners’ offices proposes that all construction contracts with the city over $50,000 would require either health benefits to workers or a contribution to a health care fund that would be administered by the county. Weirdly, one of the other requirements for contractors would be to “Establish a comprehensive drug-testing policy that also provides for education, prevention, and rehabilitation.” This is just a draft, and only a resolution at that, which means it’s basically just a statement of intent and not “law,” but still? Drug testing for all city contractors? That doesn’t sound like Portland. Update 5:15: The drug testing requirement has now been pulled.

*More Adams (Jesus, doesn’t anybody else do any work around that building?): The brand-spankin’ new version of a familiar bike-sharing/rental program is one step closer to reality now that a Request For Proposals has been released. Proposals to create and run the program—beginning with 500 bikes—are due by September 7. While waiting to read the bids, feel free to check out Paris’ new Velib bike-sharing program, which was championed (okay, probably railroaded through) by the city’s Socialist mayor, Bertrand Delanoe. With 10,600 bikes currently, a plan to increase by 10,000 by the end of the year, and a goal to reduce car traffic in the city by 40 percent by 2020, it’s obvious Paris isn’t screwing around. But the question still lingers…will Portlanders go for a hi-tech bike rental program?

As far as I know, the shared bikes don’t come standard with pin-up girls.

p.s. It’s weird, but all of a sudden, reporters are actually showing up to council sessions. Not only were both Matt and I there this morning, but so was WW’s Casey Jarman Corey Pein and the two new Oregonian city hall reporters, Jim Mayer and Andrew Dworkin. Even weirder? Three out of five of us were wearing black hi-top Chuck Taylors.