City Commissioner Nick Fish broke ground on the new Resource Access Center for the homeless after a 90-minute backslapping ceremony this morning. Say what you like about politicians not being able to deliver, but the guy deserves credit on this achievement. It really is remarkable.

• FISH (RIGHT) WITH (GOING LEFT) COUNTY COMMISSIONER DEBORAH KAFOURY, TPI EMPLOYEE ELVYSS ARGUETA, TPI EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR DOREEN BINDER, AND MAYOR SAM ADAMS

Fish inherited the Resource Access Center project from former City Commissioner Erik Sten, when Sten left town midway through his term in early 2008. Sten told the Mercury in 2007 that the center would be open by now, so the groundbreaking is two years late, but to give Fish credit, he had to settle an unforeseen lawsuit, in the mean time.

The new shelter will have a shelter for 90 people "whose prior address was the cold and mean streets of the city," said Fish. There will also be supported housing and services for 130 more. It will also provide 125 jobs, and make a difference to "our triple bottom line," Fish said—saving public resources (research shows it's cheaper for governments to house people), saving natural resources (it's going to be Leed Platinum, dahhling), and "literally, saving lives."

• VOODOO'S COMMEMORATIVE "GROUNDBREAKER" DOUGHNUT

Fish thanked an inordinate number of people this morning, from Housing Authority of Portland project manager Mike Andrews to Transition Projects Inc. director Doreen Binder—TPI will run the center, and Binder "is a treasure in our community," Fish said—to the lady from Wells Fargo who cut the check. But of course, the best politicians know how to give others credit for their own achievements, and it was left to some bloke in the background to finally credit Fish for the success:

"This is one of the toughest projects that has ever been attempted in my however long I've been doing this," said Mayor Sam Adams. "The person who brought this project home was newly elected, he was new to the job, he came in to budget cuts, and not only had some very difficult bureaus to manage, but an unrelated lawsuit that mangled up and delayed this project."

• T-SHIRT: $20

The ceremony was attended by many of the city's luminaries, including City Commissioner Amanda Fritz, Central Precinct Commander Mike Reese, District Attorney Mike Schrunk, County Chair Ted Wheeler, as well as plenty of folks who will actually be using the services when the center opens in 18 months. It took place in a marquee—"I'm sure we'll get criticized for spending money on the tent," Fish said, and there was even a fake pile of ground to be broken for the picture.

The $46.8million project is receiving $34million in Tax Increment Financing from the Portland Development Commission. Two percent of the $46.8million will be spent on art—to be commissioned by Eloise Damrosch, executive director of the Regional Arts and Culture Council.

"This is our day," Fish concluded. "This is our time. And people throughout Portland are counting on us to seize this moment."

CoughREELECTIONSPEECHcough. Cough.

2010 Gubernatorial candidate Bill Bradbury had a fundraiser with Al Gore at the Left Bank Building on NW Broadway earlier this afternoon.

• SUBTEXT OF BIG PINK ARROW: "SUCK IT, KITZHABER"

But I lost my nerve. Instead, I asked Bradbury was whether he felt rumors of bad blood between Gore and his opponent, John Kitzhaber, may have had more to do with Gore's endorsement in next year's primary than anything else. "I'm aware that there was some bad blood between Gore and Kitzhaber," said Bradbury. "But Al Gore doesn't normally make endorsements in Democratic primaries. I don't think it's a case of "gotcha back, Kitz," as much as people might like to think it is."

• BRADBURY: CLIMATE BUDDIES WITH GORE

So I asked for a couple of priorities on global warming, should Bradbury win election as Governor. He said "we need to stop being 40 percent reliant on coal," saying we need to close PGE's Boardman coal plant, which Sarah Mirk has done extensive reporting on, for example, in this piece on "Oregon's Filthy Secret."

Trouble is, closing Boardman isn't up to the Governor. It's up to the three-person public utilities commission. How would Bradbury influence that? "Well, you make the appointments, don't you," he said. "It's something that the Governor's voice needs to be very strong about."

Another priority for Bradbury's green agenda? "In California, the energy commission just adopted a rule on energy consumption for these 42 inch flat-panel HDTVs," he said. "They use two to three times the electricity of an old-fashioned tube television, and in California they just made a new rule that says we need to reduce their energy consumption by 50% by 2013." "There's a company called Viseo that produces flat screen TVs that already meet that standard," Bradbury continued. "It's not true that it can't be done, it's just that Sony and Panasonic have chosen not to meet the standard. So I think we should follow California's lead there, just as we have on tighter pollution standards."

Those sound like concrete enough proposals to me. It will be interesting to see if the Kitzhaber campaign chooses to make climate change a key campaign point, now, or whether they're just willing to concede it to Bradbury and focus on jobs.