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.

So says the first commenter on Jason Renaud's Friday editorial at the Oregonian. I'm inclined to agree with him.

Portland Police Association President Scott Westerman says Saltzman's proposed discipline is being done for political reasons. He's right. Saltzman appears to be holding back from what would be a more appropriate and just finding for the officers — men who deliberately kicked a man in the head and broke nearly all his ribs — in order to appease the union.

So what options do we, the public, have when an injustice has occurred? We can get angry, and some of us are angry. We can become apathetic. We can pray for Chasse's family and for the officers who hurt and failed to help him.

Or we can demand accountability and justice from our elected officials. And we can remember who failed when leadership was required.

More disturbing news suggesting state-wide conservatives have hijacked the second effort to recall Mayor Sam Adams. Auto dealer Ron Tonkin says he was contacted by Jack Kane, a long-time aide to former Republican gubernatorial candidate Kevin Mannix, just as the grass roots effort was failing on October 5.

• RECALL RECALL: BEING HIJACKED BY STATE CONSERVATIVES

"He has been the person who contacted me about the recall and about supporting it," says Tonkin, referring to Kane. "I've had some emails from him and we have gone back and forth."

Tonkin, speaking to the Mercury last night from his winter home in Indian Wells, California—a town with the highest proportion of millionaires of any city in the United States—says he has already written a check for an undisclosed amount to the new effort.

• MANNIX (LEFT): OREGON'S MR LIBERAL, 2009

The timing of Kane's approach to Tonkin—"about six or seven weeks ago"—would suggest that not only does Mannix's signature gathering firm stand to earn between $150,000 and $300,000 from collecting signatures for the second recall effort, as we reported late last week, but that Mannix's long-time aide has been coordinating it from the start.

Tonkin hasn't been to any of the strategy meetings, he says, adding that he doesn't know the depth of Kane's involvement in the effort. "I'm concerned that there is so much unrest, that Adams' credibility is suspect, and a lot of people have been very restless over this," he says.

So many, that the grass roots effort couldn't even get the targeted 50,000 signatures in three months?

"One way of the other, this will end it," says Tonkin, of the second effort. "I doubt that they are going to have the same problem this time with not getting enough signators."

Tonkin did not know of Kane's political background or involvement with Mannix when he wrote the check, he says. "He asked me if I would support the effort, and I said yes. This is a more concerted effort."

"What's important to me is, if the people want to re-vote, or make their feelings known, and there's as much unrest as there is, then I feel they should have that right to make their wishes known," Tonkin continues. "I do feel that where there's smoke, there's fire, and there's been an awful lot of smoke around this issue."

Homophobia has "absolutely nothing to do with it," says Tonkin. "What a person's persuasion is is their business, not mine."

Mannix's statewide political efforts have run the gamut from "anti-obscenity" measures, to killing taxes on the rich and corporations, to mandatory minimum sentences for drug addicts without the option of treatment over the years. If he is indeed backing the new recall effort, then he will have some strange political bedfellows: Political science student Jasun Wurster launched the first campaign to recall Adams in the wake of the Breedlove scandal, but has now taken a back seat to former Democratic turned Independent State Senator Avel Gordly, who announced her role as spokesperson for the new effort in the Oregonian in late October.

• TONKIN: 'SIGNED' RECALL 2 CHECK

Other would-be members of the recall recall have all been conspicuously press-shy over recent weeks. Mannix’s assistant told the Mercury he was “out of town” when we called his Salem office this week. Gordly did not return repeated messages left on her cell phone, seeking comment. Meanwhile, Columbia Sportswear CEO Tim Boyle “is traveling right now and will be for the next couple weeks, so is not able to talk to you for your story,” wrote his public relations manager, Leslie Constans, in an email on Monday, November 8.

It's kind of a pain that nobody reads the paper any more. I normally check the Oregonian online, but was alerted this morning to an editorial that was printed in the paper version, but that I can't find on the paper's website anywhere. We also get the O delivered here at the Mercury's offices, for the sake of, you know, lining the dog's basket, but for some reason yesterday's copy has also gone walking. Anyway.

Yesterday's O carried a blistering editorial slamming the police commissioner for his "too little, too late" response to the death in police custody of James Chasse. It begins:

City Commissioner Dan Saltzman’s decision last week to increase the penalties for two Portland policemen involved in the now-notorious death of James Chasse in 2006 was too little, too late and further underlines the need for both a deeper public inquiry into Chasse’s death and strong reform of the city’s police system.

It is too late because everything about the Chasse case is too late now.

It is too late because changes in police policy and training in dealing with mentally ill people came after Chasse’s death, not before —despite numerous indications of the need for new approaches. And it is too late because the police internal affairs inquiry into Chasse’s death took three years —three years —to complete.

It is too little because a couple of weeks’ suspension, Saltzman ’s proposed punishment for the officers, is not at all proportionate to the damage —the death of James Chasse —done here.

Update, 2:04pm Oregonian managing editor Therese Bottomly says the missing editorial was the result of "human error." It's being posted now.

Update, 3:26 Here it is!

So congressman Kurt Schrader was sitting on the fence about health care reform until the last minute, when he voted for it. Read about this in yesterday's post, "Kurt Schrader could very nearly suck it, until the last minute." Well, to thank the freshman swing districter, AFSCME and Health Care For America Now have paid for a TV ad to air for seven days on broadcast and cable in Portland, Salem, and Corvallis:

Hey, smarty pants. Want to look smart in the bar later, when someone brings up the topic of health reform? Here's how:

1.PELOSI BROUGHT IT HOME. The House of Representatives passed the house version of President Obama's health reform bill by 220 votes to 215 late on Saturday night. Broad credit is being given to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for marshaling the votes successfully. "As far as I know she never sleeps or eats," a New York Democrat told Politico. The vote took courage from some vulnerable dems, too—the Republicans began taking aim at vulnerable Democrats, almost immediately. Meanwhile the NYT has a list of all the Democrats who voted against the reform.

"It is an absolutely critical step, nothing like this has happened before," says Oregon Congressman Earl Blumenauer. "Obviously, if it were just me designing it, it would look a little different, but one should not minimize the importance of getting that bill launched on its way to the senate."

2.NO FEDERAL SUBSIDY FOR ABORTIONS. There will be no Federal coverage for abortions, under an amendment to the bill. Anti-abortion advocates are "emboldened" by their victory on this, reports the New York Times. The compromise brought tears to the eyes of some Pelosi allies, reports Politico. "Some of the lawmakers argued that Pelosi was turning her back on a decades-long campaign by female Democratic members in support of abortion rights."

"It's extremely distressing," says Laura Taylor with NARAL Pro-Choice Oregon. "It says any individual who receives even a dollar in federal subsidy can't purchase a private plan that covers abortion. It's more sweeping than any prohibition we've seen, and it really results in a de facto ban on abortion for those with subsidy." "It's primarily going to impact middle and low-income women," Taylor continues. "Who are the people we are supposed to be helping the most in this plan."

"I don't think we've heard the last word on this," says Blumenauer, who voted against the amendment. We'll keep you posted on efforts to combat the amendment as the bill moves forward.

Gubernatorial candidate Bill Bradbury has been fighting underdog perceptions ever since rival John Kitzhaber came out with an impressive set of endorsements at the end of September. Well, he now appears to have adopted the oldest playground trick in the book, which is, if your opponent is looking intimidating, set your big brother on him. Used to work for me. Might work, with a moderation from "big brother" to "Al Gore," for Bradbury, whose website is all a-flutter this morning with details of a fundraiser on the 19th, the morning after Gore's appearance at the Keller Auditorium, to promote his new book:

That's right! The country's former elected President is going to be rinsing it up with Bradbury here in Portland 13 days, hence! Here's a preview of the conversation:

BRADBURY: So, Al, buddy, tell me again, why am I so awesome?
THE ONE AND ONLY AL GORE^(TM): Because you've got a thirty inch penis, Bill, or at least, so I've heard. Also, you're a man who knows life. A man the people can trust. A man anyone could give their heart to, without worry about it being stomped on like a piece of cheap crockery.
BRADBURY: I don't stomp on anybody's heart like cheap crockery, Al. It's true. And I don't wear those ridiculous cowboy boots, like my rival. You're a big deal, right?
THE ONE AND ONLY AL GORE^(TM): Right. I'm a BIG DEAL. But not as big as you. You're a massive deal. Practically the only deal there is. There's no room in the deal house for more than your deal. If you were a deal wagon, you would break the tracks. If you were a deal truck, you would be so heavily laden with your bigness, that frankly, I don't think there's a highway you could drive down. You're that big of a deal.
BRADBURY: I am. I am. It's true. Now, about this global warming nonsense...

Etcetera. Gore's endorsement has got to sting a bit for Kitzhaber. Derek Humphrey with Kitzhaber's campaign team says "we don't comment on the events run by other campaigns," but that just sounds like sour grapes. Has Kitzhaber got plans to be endorsed by Bill Clinton or the ghost of Mother Theresa? "We're going to have lots of interesting events as the campaign moves forward," says Humphrey. Find out more at Notinteresting.com.

Meanwhile Blue Oregon's Les AuCoin speculates about reasons for the conspicuous endorsement this morning:

Gore’s move is the continuation of a decades long feud with Oregon ex-governor Kitzhaber, Bradbury’s leading primary opponent, dating back to Gore’s bitter battle against Kitz’ innovative Oregon Health Plan when Gore was a U.S. Senate.

John K. won that fight, but he never forgot his nemesis from Tennessee; when Gore ran as the presumptive favorite for president in 2000, Kitz backed Bill Bradley early and conspicuously. Twisting the knife, the Guv criticized the Clinton Administration — and implicitly Gore, the “green” VP — for inept handling of the NW salmon crisis. I'm not saying it was Kitz's sole rationale, but it was one.

After 20 years, the Bradbury candidacy gave Gore the opening to stick the knife back. Here, too, it may not be Gore's only rationale, but it is one.

City Commissioner Nick Fish stepped into the beef between his fellow commissioners Randy Leonard and Dan Saltzman about arming water bureau security earlier this week, the Mercury has learned.

Saltzman, the city's former parks commissioner, invited himself to a meeting on Wednesday morning of the city's Parks Board—a monthly group that oversees the management and development of parks in the city, with the idea of giving them his opinions on Leonard's idea.

Fish, who took over as parks commissioner from Saltzman last year, emailed Saltzman uninviting him from the meeting, and saying he did not feel it was appropriate for Saltzman to pull the parks board into the political dispute between he and Leonard.

Saltzman responded by email, telling Fish he planned to show up at the Parks Board, anyway, and he did.

"As a general policy the commissioner does not comment on conversations with his colleagues," said Fish's chief of staff, Betsy Ames, yesterday.

"He explained his concerns with what might be brought forward, which very much mimicked what he had put in his memo," says Saltzman's chief of staff, Brendan Finn, about the commissioner's talk to the Parks Board. "He wanted to talk specifically to the parks board about how the idea would affect parks users and advocates."

Finn refused to confirm or deny the existence of the email exchange with Fish, and Saltzman has refused comment. The Mercury has made a public records request for the exchange, in the mean time.

Leonard wants to give water bureau security guards training through the Department of Security Standards and Training in Salem, a story first picked up some weeks ago by Beth Slovic at Willamette Week. Saltzman issued a response to Leonard's proposal last week, in the form of an eight-page memo, listing alternatives. Broadly, he's against Leonard's move for a variety of reasons. "The creation of a second, standalone 'law enforcement unit' in the WB poses significant liabilities and costs and has the potential for confusion among the public and our police," he wrote.

Meanwhile, Leonard says Saltzman is trying to "personalize" the issue.

More—including video—after the jump.

The second recall effort has asked for an estimate to gather signatures from the same right-wing firm that used convicted sex offenders to gather signatures for 14 conservative initiatives this summer.

"We were contacted by somebody representing themselves as from the second recall campaign," says Ross Day, with Voice of the Electorate (VOTE), the signature gathering firm. "We sent them a contract about three weeks ago, but we haven't heard back yet," Day continues.

Day says VOTE's bill for gathering the 50,000 signatures required to put another Sam Adams recall on the ballot "could be anywhere between $150,000 and $300,000." "There's a lot of variables, the weather, the availability of circulators, and so on," he continues.

• KEVIN MANNIX (LEFT)

Mannix's statewide political efforts have run the gamut from "anti-obscenity" measures, to killing taxes on the rich and corporations, to mandatory minimum sentences for drug addicts without the option of treatment.

Mannix has one major patron, Nevada-based businessman Loren Parks, who has contributed over $4million to his political efforts since 1994. Parks, an eccentric, also offers sex therapy on his Youtube channel.

Day and Mannix told the Oregonian in August that they wanted to restore people's trust in the initiative system, following documented cases of signature fraud, and the jailing of Oregon's best-known initiative racketeer, Bill Sizemore.

• SIZEMORE (LEFT)

Nevertheless, VOTE is a force to be reckoned with. Their signature gatherers successfully referred tax hikes to the ballot this summer, and have forced Our Oregon to go out talking to Oregonians about why the tax hikes on the wealthy and corporations are vital to pay for basic services.

If conservatives are indeed closing in on the second recall effort, they will encounter an unlikely ally in former State Senator Avel Gordly, a Democrat turned Independent, who recently took over from Jasun Wurster as spokesperson for the campaign. Gordly is yet to return a call for comment.

I enjoyed reading the Stranger's election coverage last night, immensely. From great photos of the "yes on 71" party, to great photos of the "no on 71" party:

And guess what? The Stranger's endorsee for mayor, Mike McGinn, came out on top, too!

There's links to all the coverage here. Meanwhile, Maine voters surprised and disappointed by voting to repeal the state's gay marriage law. We'll have reaction here from Basic Rights Oregon—which is aiming for 2012, possibly, as a date to put marriage equality on the ballot here—shortly.

Boycott lobster!