Isaac Laquedem

A thought on lender licensing

Does it strike you as odd that to protect the public, the State of Oregon licenses and regulates the poor sods on the front lines who originate home loans, but not the top brass of the banks that crashed and burned after buying too many of them?

Anno domini defeats the Ancient Uncle

What the dangers of ocean fishing, hunting, machining, and (according to whispered family rumor) rum-running could not do, the ills of old age finally did, and earlier this month they claimed the Ancient Uncle.  In keeping with the character of a man who grew his own food, caught his own fish, shot his own game (not always in season), and repaired his own engines, he made it clear that he would die in his own home.  And so he did, fading away gently a few days after taking to his bed.  His skills, alas, went with him, though he was willing to pass them along; one of his fishing tricks is memorialized in a novel, and last year he taught the Laquedemitasse how to drive a tractor.  There's a lot more that I could write about his life, but not right now.

Another goal for the folks who issue building permits

Having directed my attention to Portland's Bureau of Development Services, I'd like to suggest as a performance standard for the Bureau something like this, with the numbers subject to adjustment:  BDS will set and achieve the goal of issuing 95% of permits to build or remodel a single-family home within one business day after the application is submitted and complete, and will set and achieve a similar goal of issuing 95% of permits to build small commercial and multi-family structures in areas not subject to design review within five business days after the application is submitted and complete.

Not that I don't like dogs, but . . .

If I had pleaded guilty to mail fraud in a case that cost investors $355 million, and spent two years in a federal prison because of it, I'd be reluctant to have the Wall Street Journal print on its front page last Saturday that the family dog cost $2000.

Each dollar spent shows what the Councilors think is important

I'd like to carry my previous thought farther.  The Council, when it debates whether to rename 39th Avenue after Cesar Chavez at a cost to the City of $150,000, should not be asking itself whether Mr. Chavez's memory is worthy of some commemoration, nor even whether his thin connections to Portland merit the Council honoring him, rather than another prominent labor leader, with a street.  (I answer the first part of this question affirmatively, but not the second.)

Rather, the Council should be discussing whether this is the best use of $150,000 that it can think of.

SImilarly, when it comes time to vote on turning PGE Park into a soccer field and building a replacement baseball field in some other location, apparently to be chosen by the Flying Dutchman, the question is not whether the City should subsidize a soccer field and a baseball field, but whether helping to pay for two sports fields is the best use of $40 million (or whatever higher number the City's contribution, calculated according to generally accepted accounting principles, actually is).  The issue is not soccer or no soccer, but $40 million here or $40 million there.  It would be nice to hear any of the councilors grasp that principle of budgetary prudence.

A modest reason not to rename a $treet

The news that the City of Portland is cutting 90 jobs from the Bureau of Development Services because fee income isn't adequate to pay the cost of running the department is protective cover that the Council can use, if it chooses to, to reject the proposal to rename 39th Avenue, because in rejecting the proposal, the Council also rejects spending $150,000 of scarce cash (about equal to the cost of one mid-level employee, including fringes and PERS, for two years) for no tangible public benefit.

"My car was speeding, not me," but the judge doesn't agree

A Portland lawyer, stopped by Clatsop County for doing 76 mph in a 55 mph zone on Sunset Highway in his BMW, told the court that it wasn't his fault -- it was the car's fault for handling so well at high speeds.  The judge, however, didn't agree, and fined the lawyer $182 for speeding.

The judge's decision was reasonable --  the car does, after all, have a speedometer -- but he had another option open to him, which was to accept the excuse that it was the car's fault, acquit the driver, and then (since the defendant himself said that the car was to blame) sentence the car to 30 days in custody.  It's probably been a long time since the Clatsop County Sheriff's office has had the use of a Beemer for an undercover car.

Sam Adams is introduced by his former opponent, with one extra word included

Portland is a small town, and political Portland is even smaller.  At the annual dinner of the Japan-America Society of Oregon, held last night at the Benson Hotel, the master of ceremonies was Sho Dozono, who ran unsuccessfully for mayor last year.  Among his tasks was to introduce the head table to the dinner guests, including, at one end of the table, the man who beat him in the election, Sam Adams.  Mr. Dozono handled his introductory duties with distinction, though an eyebrow or two went up when he introduced Mr. Adams, barely stressing the word, as "our current mayor."