Hello there Tuesday people! Happy 5th of November, 2019! It’s the tenth dry day in a row, for Portland, with a morning marine layer of clouds, breaking into a low-slung sun, and highs of 58. Sunrise 6:55 AM, sunset 4:52 PM. Pacific Standard Time. Weird walking with a flashlight at 5 PM!
Thanks to a temperature inversion–chilly down here, warmer up there– the stagnant air is hugging the ground and tickling our uvulas all the way from Longview and Rainier to Portland, Salem, and Eugene, and on to Medford and Ashland. Portland’s Air Quality Index at 4 AM is a high 127, which is in the unhealthy-for-sensitive people zone, and Multnomah County is hoping you’ll keep the home fires smothered at least through tomorrow. Hey, we’re all sensitive people.
Election day is here! OK, not the one that will determine the fate of civilization, that’s a year from now, but this ballot carries great meaning for your schools and your town. Portland’s voting on four measures–enshrining the protection of the Bull Run Watershed in the city charter, allowing the city to engage in mutual-aid agreements with other jurisdictions, a parks bond for Metro, and a renewal of the PPS teachers levy. Troutdale wants a new city hall, Sauvie Island has a fire levy, Happy Valley votes on a police levy, there’s both a school bond and school levy in West Linn/Wilsonville, and Clackamas County votes on vector control. Roger, Victor. Across the Columbia, Washington voters have 15 measures on the ballot including I-976, Tim Eyman’s latest, which would gut local transportation projects statewide. Camas is voting today on a controversial bond issue for a swim center, Vancouver is electing city council and school board members…and every one of those elections will have at least as much of a day-to-day effect on you as the Morning Zoo on the Potomac.
And there are statewide elections across the land, all of which will be held up as some kind of sign of what’ll happen a year from now.
Trump ally Roger Stone goes on trial today for lying to Congress.
Look! The West Linn paper mill is back in operation—two years after it abruptly shut down. It’s now the Willamette Falls Paper Company, it employs 125–most of whom worked there before the shutdown–and The Oregonian says it’s experimenting with making paper from agricultural waste instead of wood.
Portland cops have video, and are trying to find the people were running around punching holes in tires over the weekend near SE 50th and Hawthorne.
Richard Nixon was elected president on this date in 1968.
Happy birthday to Art Garfunkel (1941) Peter Noone (1947) and Bill Walton (1952).
Oooh…the Blazers fell to the hobbled Golden State Warriors 127-118.
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Good news for a chilly morning, right here!
–“BART worker rescues man from oncoming train”
–“Lady jumps off her motorcycle and pulls a kid from certain death since none of the other drivers saw him running”
–“Breast cancer may be detected by blood test five years before clinical signs show”
–“9-Year-Old Kid Who Kept Getting In Trouble For Doodling In Class Gets A Job Decorating A Restaurant With His Drawing”
–“Microsoft Japan’s experiment with 3-day weekend boosts worker productivity by 40 percent”
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Have an excellent Tuesday, friends! Remember, Dripstock III–just a friendly social hour or two–Saturday, 2-4 PM, at the Willamette Ale and Cider house!
Portland's Daily Drip 