One of the better things about Portland's city council is that anyone—even you!—can show up and speak their mind to the commissioners for three minutes at the beginning of every meeting. Recently, the highly recognizable Michael Krupp has been showing up regularly to council, using his three minutes to deliver intense messages in speech that resembles polemical prose poems.

Today's poem got a round of hearty applause from the social justice and homeless advocates who packed the council chambers. And for good reason: It uses an allegorical Star Trek bar scene to describe race in America. At least I think it does. Here's my transcription of Krupp's three-minute oration; I think I missed a couple words at the beginning:

This is based on a social construct built on a nonexistent number zero, that diabolically opposes the flow and direction of our lives, a sordid invisible dam to humanity that sucks the life energy from the living for us to better feed and maintain the plans of water. We strangle business for hydroelectric power. We strangle people for the power of empire. All of science is based on the sacred mathematics. Two thousand years ago, the men of the Gupta Empire proposed the zero. Bad idea. My prealgebra teacher said the number one divided by the zero equaled [unintelligible]. In simple terms, from zero, you cannot reach one. Yet we are taught that it is the same mathematical distance from zero to one as from one to two. Apparently science is fiction. The terrestrial dam erected by the war god is Wall Street, to which human and natural resources are traded to just extract money. This must be undone. Tear down that wall, Mr. President, tear down that Wall Street. Two brief facts: Human is spelled "hueman" to include all the beautiful colors of our people, in particular black, which is the only optically pure color, whereas white is a mix of all the other colors. Apparently, we are the mud race. Or mother is our creator, our father will not interfere in her world, he can only love her and we through her are the children who must come to aide of our mothers. White today is the bar in Star Trek, the Next episode with Picard, warlike Klingons, growling over chops and worms while Venutians sing at the next table. Everyone eats, no fighting. Never a monopoly, how it's seen as statisically the bank rollers want. Hm. We now leave the Lucifery that blows the streets to Hell, to the Rape-publicans and the Demon-crats. We are now the people's peace party of Portland, Oregon. P3PO. A sort of golden Trojan robot that will bring honesty to city hall and beyond. It is from Portland that the new Crusade will never get a chance to begin.

The letter asked Mayor Sam Adams to publicly release a draft of whatever that report looks like two weeks before the council is scheduled to vote on it, a long enough span to allow residents to pick it apart as needed. It also asked that the report be, what's the word, useful: As in, filled with nonconfidential details like how many officers have been assigned to terror cases and whether and how often they questioned if their work for the feds was violating state civil liberties laws.

In an interview with the Mercury after Wednesday's vote, Adams offered an encouraging response. At least on the first request. "Absolutely. I will try," Adams said of providing two weeks in between the release of the report and a hearing.

But as for what that report will contain? Adams wouldn't say much other than that he "wants to get it right," because the first report will set "a precedent" for what future annual reports look like. He said both he and Police Chief Mike Reese, along with the city attorney's office, have been too busy with other work to get the report done any sooner.

"I'd like as much detail as possible to ensure our legal rights have been protected," Adams said, "but not so much detail that we undermine our ability to protect ourselves from terrorism."

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The Portland Loo pushed out a big announcement on its Facebook page this afternoon:

So I rang up Commissioner Randy Leonard's office to ask about those forthcoming "more details." Staffer Anna DiBenedetto said the Loo is headed for the northwest corner of NW Eighth and Couch, with the first flush planned for about 1 pm January 31. The door art will be drawn up by schoolkids from nearby Emerson Elementary, and the kids will probably attend the flush.

It'll be the fifth 24-hour Loo in Portland—and the second one west of Broadway. The city opened its first in 2008 on NW 5th and Glisan, and then opened three more back in 2010, at SW Taylor and Naito, at SW Ash and Naito, and in Jamison Square.

As I mentioned last spring, planners have had their eyes on the Park Blocks for months, conducting a slow dance with neighbors before settling on the final location.

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Next week, among the more serious items on their agenda, Portland city commissioners will officially decide which changes to the city's charter (essentially, Portland's constitution) voters will get to decide on come this May.

None of the proposed changes is world-shattering. In fact—aside from two amendments that would open to scrutiny a pair of secretive, if small, discretionary funds used by the mayor and council—they're impossibly small. But you know what else? The changes are educational. And unintentionally hilarious.

For instance! Did you know Portland's charter currently charges the council with clamping down on vagrants and paupers? Also obscenity. And, for good measure, "the exhibition of deformed or crippled persons." Now you do. And now, in May, you'll be able to say yes to all those things. Sort of.

• Sarah Mirk

In a feisty, tightly worded letter (pdf) dropped off today at the Bureau of Development Services, organizers say the city has incorrectly decided to treat the site as an illegal recreational campsite. They also ask for help in tackling the other violation found by the city: a fence along West Burnside (made of donated, and painted, doors) that's two feet higher than the city's six-foot limit.

Our area is intended to serve a population that has no option other than sleeping outside. There is a wide gulf between operating a recreational facility with the goal of sheltering people on vacation and operating a facility with the goal of sheltering people who can not otherwise obtain safe shelter and experience a restful sleep. It is illogical to lump them under the same set of administrative rules. We strongly object to language that suggests anything we are doing is in any way related to recreational activities.

Organizers note that the campsite has had no public safety complaints—something even the city acknowledges—and that unlike, say, Occupy Portland, R2D2 comes with a one-year lease. In a twist of timing, the letter was dropped off the day before city council takes up Nick Fish's plan for small-scale overnight sleeping in vehicles parked on church/nonprofit lots.

City officials, meanwhile, are taking a circumspect view of R2D2's notice. BDS officials will take about two weeks (although that may stretch longer because of the holidays) to investigate and issue a response. If organizers disagree with that response, says BDS spokesman Ross Caron, they can then seek an administrative hearing. Caron said it was too soon to comment on the points raised in the R2D2 letter.

In the meantime, the city is preparing what Caron says will be a $641 fine on January 1—a sum he said would double after three months.

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Making good on a promise to find a way to allow small-scale "overnight sleeping" sites in Portland, Commissioner Nick Fish will present a resolution next week that allows qualifying churches and nonprofits to host homeless Portlanders living in cars, RVs, and motor homes.

The resolution, obtained by the Mercury, was crafted with input from Commissioner Dan Saltzman's office, which runs the Bureau of Development Services (BDS). It would direct code inspectors "to not enforce code violations associated with these activities." The pilot program would be managed by Fish's housing bureau and be reviewed in a year.

Fish's chief of staff, Betsy Ames, says Saltzman is on board, and that Randy Leonard, the only other commissioner who will attend next Wednesday's Portland City Council meeting, also is expected to say yes. (Commissioner Amanda Fritz and Mayor Sam Adams will both be absent but also have expressed support.) The resolution would take effect immediately, with a companion resolution planned for the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners the following day.

The idea is modeled on a similar program in Eugene. Ames acknowledged that Fish failed to win support when he first tried to import the idea a few years ago. This time, she says, interest from churches—and the highly visible example of the very successful Right 2 Dream Too tent city at NW Fourth and Burnside—persuaded Fish to try again, but now with the support of BDS.

Instead of rewriting city code, like Fish first tried, "we'll use existing authority under city code to prioritize enforcement," she says.

Fish's office is being very careful not to call this a "camping" program, given that the city remains mired in litigation over its current camping ban. While some advocates have been briefed on the plan, and indeed have been asking for something like it, no sites have been firmly proposed.

A copy of the resolution, as well as comment from Street Roots, is after the cut.

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• illustration by jon sperry

The announcement, as well as an outside audit and other statements meant to help rehabilitate FHCO's image before the city presumably rehires the group, mark another twist what's been a delicate, awkward and contentious series of events for both parties.

First, everyone flipped out when two shocking findings were handed to the city this spring: Latinos seeking rental housing reported facing discrimination in 17 of 25 tests compared to prospective white tenants, while blacks said they were treated differently in 15 of 25 tests.

Weeks later, the Oregonian and others got wind of the publicly announced results and led a crusade pushing the city to take action against the landlords, with the city releasing their names (a list we were the first to publish). But it turned out the test results weren't substantive enough for that kind of action, as experts suggested the Mercury back in May.

By August, the state Bureau of Labor and Industries had waded in to say FHCO's results were flawed and contained errors—and that there'd be no action taken on discipline. And that was about when the city, in a move that some saw as trying to save face, decided to announce it was putting contract talks with FHCO for more landlord tests on hiatus.

But today Moloy Good, FHCO's executive director, said contract talks had quietly resumed with the city. He pointed to the outside audit, which actually blessed some of FHCO's methods and also included recommendations on how to improve communication and fix mistakes going forward.

"It was kind of a mutual reaching out to each other," Good said. "I don't know their intent was ever to end the relationship."

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Mayor Sam Adams, for whatever reason, decided it would be worthwhile to spend half an hour with Lars Larson yesterday. He didn't quite make it.

The first few minutes are feisty—all about Occupy Portland and the latest plan to reoccupy. But then comes talk of a decision this week to lower the flag at City Hall for a slain 13-year-old boy swamped by gang life.

Lars, sounding as handsome as he looks in person, calls the kid a "thug." The mayor says Lars should be ashamed of himself. And it all goes to hell from there, until Adams hangs up because he's too "disgusted" to keep chatting.

Listen for yourself!

Commissioner Dan Saltzman's office is pushing back, a bit, on a story in this week's Portland Tribune that noted—rather emphatically—that the Right 2 Dream Too tent refuge at NW Fourth and Burnside "may be about to gain semi-permanent status."

Matt Grumm, a policy adviser for Saltzman, confirmed it's possible the campsite could receive a city permit, as a nonprofit "community service," but that the application process is more arduous than the Trib's story indicated: just $700 for an application and a smaller fence along Burnside.

Grumm said the state would first need to sign off, according to its own rubric for concerns like sanitation, electricity and density. Grumm also noted the owners of the camp's private lot had yet to begin the approval process and would probably need to spend heavily on whatever infrastructure would be required to win state approval. That's pretty much what the Mercury reported a week ago—that there's a path forward, but it won't be easy.

"There's no reprieve," he said. "The clock's still ticking."

The Bureau of Development Services warned the lot's owners last month that the campsite currently isn't legal and could eventually face monthly fines of $583. Grumm said applying for a permit wouldn't stop any fines from accruing; it would just keep the city from trying to collect them.

"If they get through the process, it's all forgiven," he says. "But if they say 'forget this process,' we throw the fines back on them. Those fines will continue to accrue until they get legal."

The camp, meanwhile, has been winning over its critics since it opened up October 10, thanks to a stringent code of conduct banning drugs, alcohol, and violence, but also by working to become a conscientious neighbor.