Isaac Laquedem

Max Birnbach (1912-2008)

The Oregonian didn't do justice to Max Birnbach in his obituary, which ran on March 19.  Mr. Birnbach is best remembered in Portland for buying Rose's Restaurant -- the original one on NW 23rd Avenue, from which calories dripped like cake frosting -- in 1968 from its founder, Rose Naftalin, and running it until 1992 when he sold it and the two other Rose's locations that he'd opened in the meantime.

Mr. Birnbach's life story went far beyond the impossibly outsize pastrami sandwiches and towering cake slices that made Rose's famous.  He was born in Vienna in 1912.  As a young man he was sent to a concentration camp by the Nazis after they overran Austria.  He escaped to Switzerland and made his way to the United States.  He entered the restaurant business and rose to become the restaurant manager of the Benson Hotel, leaving it in 1968 to buy and run Rose's.  His was a remarkable story suitable for a movie, such as this one, called "In Vienna They Put You in Jail: The Max Birnbach Story." 

He was spry and active well into his nineties.  A few months ago I spotted him lunching in a quiet corner of the Benson's London Grill restaurant.  I think he skipped dessert.

Sho off, and polls apart

I couldn't resist the punning opportunity that nearly everyone else is succumbing to.

As the local political world knows by now, a state administrative law judge has reversed the decision of the City of Portland to qualify Sho Dozono for public campaign financing.  Mr. Dozono had applied to qualify for public financing in his race against Commissioner Adams to succeed Mayor Potter.

The reason, according to the opinion (here), is that Mr. Dozono accepted as an in-kind contribution a poll that cost $27,000.  The poll was commissioned by uber-strategist Len Bergstein, apparently as part of an effort to persuade Mr. Dozono to run for mayor, and not by Mr. Dozono himself.  The City's rules allow a candidate who seeks public financing to receive only $12,000 in in-kind contributions during the primary election period, which began on November 28, 2006, the 21st day after the preceding general election.

What would happen if Mr. Dozono should return the poll to Mr. Bergstein?  He could then plausibly argue that he's returned the contribution, just as if someone had given him a supply of stationery and he returned it.  The rub is, of course, that he's read the poll and he can't un-read it.  However, polls for candidates derive value from being secret, as the questions often reveal a candidate's strategy and the answers help candidates tailor their messages to the voters.  So let's suppose also that Mr. Dozono sends a copy of the results to all the other candidates.  Could he then qualify for public financing?  I'd like to think so; whatever the merits of public financing, as long as we have the system in place the mayor's race deserves at least one candidate who's willing to go to the trouble to qualify.

"Old urban renewal district" should become an oxymoron

Professor Bogdanski writes favorably about the view of Multnomah County Commissioner Jeff Cogen that (if I may simplify Commissioner Cogen's thoughts) after a certain point, urban renewal districts ought to end.  When a city designates an urban renewal area ("URA" in the lingo, only one letter off from an organic compound), it can issue bonds to finance exciting projects and then pay the bonds from the increase in property tax revenues from the URA.  Most other local governments get shorted because the effect of the URA is that the increase in revenues goes to pay off the city's bonds, instead of being divided up among all the local districts that levy taxes on the property.  Put another way, the city is able to use money belonging to the county, the school district, and the port to pay off the city's debts related to the district. 

URAs last for limited times, just long enough to pay off the bonds.  When a URA approaches its terminus, however (the point where the bonds will be paid off), the city can extend its life and issue a new slug of bonds.  In theory the bonds are to continue renewing the area, but in practice the bonds are to finance projects less directly related to the URA than the original raft of projects.

If the city can't renew an area in 20 years, it should go try somewhere else.  I suggest two small reforms:

1.  Legislation stating that no URA shall last for more than 20 years, and no area that was part of a URA shall be included in any other URA for at least five years after the previous URA ends.

2.  Legislation stating that an entity (usually a city) that creates a URA may apply its own tax increment to paying off bonds or other debt, but may not appropriate the tax increments that would have accrued to other districts.  Put another way, cities should be prohibited from playing the big shot with the county's money.

These are far too sensible to pass the Legislature at present, which ranks basketball arenas as more significant to the state than jobs and reasonable public tort limits, but sometime in the future perhaps a city will raid the URA piggy bank so egregiously that our friends in Salem will sit up and take notice.

The Texas Democrats tell Senators Clinton and Obama to play nice

Apparently things got rough in Texas in the last few days before the Democratic primary and caucus, to the point where on Election Day the Primary Director of the Texas Democratic Party, Jim Boynton (are there any Jameses in Texas, or only Jims?), had to write this memo to the Clinton and Obama campaigns, telling them to follow the state's election law and the party's rules.

For some background on why Mr. Boynton had to tell the two campaigns to play nice, read this story from the Washington Post, which discusses the race to the caucuses and the unfortunate results of Texas Democrats not having enough people ready to run the 8,000 caucuses held Tuesday evening.

A Stanford student models the universe with rubber bands, and The Wall Street Journal notices

Stanford University organized a contest with a simple task:  take rubber bands and "add value" to them.  Entrants were to send in a video of what they did with the bands.

As reported today by Lee Gomes in The Wall Street Journal, some of the ideas resembled things already done (e.g., wear rubber bands as bracelets to promote awareness of particular diseases).  Others were inventive.  At lease one struck Mr. Gomes (and me also) as brilliant.  It was the entry of Michael Fischer, a computer science senior at Stanford, who built a series of small pendulums connected by rubber bands and then used it to demonstrate a property of the special theory of relativity.  You can watch the video of Mr. Fischer's demonstration here and you can see the other videos here.  But as Mr. Gomes cautions: "Unfortunately, you need to know what [Mr. Fischer] is talking about before you can understand what he is saying."

The Port of Portland is bigger than it thinks

When the legislature established The Port of Portland (the "T" is supposed to be capitalized) 40+ years ago, it defined its jurisdiction to be the Oregon portion of the Portland Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area (SMSA), as set by the Bureau of the Budget.  The Oregon portion of the Portland SMSA included Multnomah, Washington, and Clackamas Counties.

Since that halcyon time, the Bureau of the Budget has become the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and OMB carries out the work of defining and revising these statistical areas.

In one of those revisions, hitherto unnoticed by the Legislature, OMB did away with SMSAs and replaced them with (if I recall rightly) Combined Metropolitan Statistical Areas and simple Metropolitan Statistical Areas.  It tinkers with them from time to time.

Years ago it tinkered with Portland's MSA, and our MSA now includes Columbia and Yamhill Counties as well as the Big Three.

I don't think anyone's asked whether OMB's revision acts to automatically change the boundaries of The Port to conform to where the Portland MSA is today.  Why does it matter?  Two reasons: first, if The Port's boundaries include all of the MSA, then the Port can levy taxes in two new counties.  Second, the statute that created The Port requires the Governor to name two Port commisioners from each county within the Port district.  The commission has nine commissioners in total.

It's easy to name two from each county and add three Friends of the Governor when the Port consists of three counties, but it's more difficult to name two from each of the five MSA counties, or ten total, to a nine-member board.

I don't know, if I were Yamhill County, that I'd want to be part of The Port district and add its tax bite to my citizens' annual bills, and if I were Columbia County, I'd be in the awkward position of having territory in two port districts simultaneously.  It's still something for their governing bodies to think about.  I'd love to become a Port commissioner myself, but I don't live in Yamhill or Columbia County.

I've posted in the continuation the relevant portion of Chapter 778 of Oregon Revised Statutes, which defines the area within The Port of Portland district.  Judge for yourself whether the maritime interests of Yamhill County should be on the move.