Category: News

A report of recent events.

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by Pastor Lee Hemen
April 14, 2008

Tell the righteous it will be well with them, for they will enjoy the fruit of their deeds. (Isaiah 3:10)

Zetaman Portrait
God Hates Zetaman

In a world where it seems as if evil is rewarded and the ungodly go unpunished those who live godly lives will wonder, “Why do these people seem to prosper when everything I do goes unnoticed?” Yet if we look closely at where this little verse of Isaiah’s is placed we discover that he put it in between the shame and disgrace of Jerusalem and Judah as they staggered from their ungodliness and the wicked. Even the young people and women of that era were living in flagrant ungodliness. Sounds strangely familiar to our day and age where teenagers beat up classmates to get on the Web, and every other protest is lead by some deprived or depraved female wanting to assert her authority or proclivity in our faces.

How should the people of God live? God says, “Tell the righteous it will be well with them, for they will enjoy the fruits of their deeds.” Cynically someone related, “No good deed goes unpunished.” However, God says it is rewarded if it is done out of righteousness, meaning holy integrity.

Today as I drove to an early morning prayer time, I overheard on the radio that there was a person who took on the persona of a “super hero” in order to handout gloves, coats, and jackets to the homeless living under the bridges of Portland, OR. As they interviewed him, he seemed like an okay guy but the reasoning behind his wearing a superhero disguise, “Zetaman” I believe, and why he desired to do these “good deeds,” smacked of personal self-gratification. He goes armed with an extendable steel baton, pepper spray, and a Taser that delivers 30,000 volts—enough to put a man on the ground. Those tools of the trade are to “defend” himself or people in trouble. He admits being a costumed avenger is addictive after the first taste of parading in public with a “Z” on your chest.

“I couldn’t stop after that,” he says. “I feel great about myself. I’m staying active in the community. And I like comic books, I like great and noble ideas—like He-Man and Spider-Man. And they all have this thing about noble responsibility.” Hmmm… therefore are we to conclude that he did it disguised so that people would only know it was his “superhero” persona that did the deeds and he really did not want any credit? I do not think so.

I am sorry but I found this kind of odd because to me it sounded like selfish guilt wrapped in false humility. If he truly wanted to remain anonymous, why wear a superhero get up, with a mask, and a cape? He is part of a small but growing group of self-proclaimed do-gooders that act out their fantasies of being superheroes while trying to be altruistic.

There are literally millions of “superheroes,” His chosen, that God uses everyday and they never have to go out in disguise to do something gracious for the Lord. And if I remember correctly didn’t Jesus say that if you do it in order to get a personal stroking of any kind, that is the whole reward you receive? I hate those bumper stickers that say, “Do a random act of kindness.” Kindness should never be “random.” It should be God-directed where it brings the most good and glory to the Lord. Therefore child of God never feel sorry because your good deed went unnoticed. God saw it and received the glory for it, if you did it as a means of worshipping Him. Never do something “random,” do it deliberately for His glory as He directs you. You are His superhero!

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By Hugo Manning

ROSE CITY- A strange flying ship was seen over Rose City earlier today. The U.S. government claims to have been conducting a test of a new satellite for monitoring extra-terrestrial activity. Rose City’s team of scientific advisers, Science Hero Academy Quintet, were asked about the satellite. “We, the scientist of S.H.A.Q., cannot verify the claims of the U.S. Government,” said noted robotics expert, Doctor Ivan Atomickolov. “We urge our local and state officials to demand better transparency from our national military and the federal government.”

The flying ship later exploded in the stratosphere. Although Dr. Atomick (Atomickolov) cannot explain why a low-orbit satellite would be combusted, he offered these explanations-

“The fuel used to power such a satellite must have ignited while the machine approached our atmosphere. A space vehicle descending from space, without proper heat shielding, would burn up. Fire from the satellite’s hull could have reached the fuel source.”

Government officials deny the satellite was to be used for the N.S.A. or spying on foreign allies. The U.N. launched a private investigation. If it is found that the satellite was designed for operations other than space exploration, the U.N. will begin proceedings to charge the United States with privacy crimes.

Local real-life superhero, Zetaman, offered an explanation of the craft’s origin. “It was aliens,” proclaimed Zetaman. “Aliens came down and tried to take over the Earth. The Alternates stopped them for good.”

Doctor Atomick and the White House denounced the RLSH’s claims as “ridiculous” and “the theories of a man seeking attention.”

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Superhero the superhero
Superhero the superhero

By Tom Hortorwiz

CLEARWATER- An illegal Talking Teddy Bear trade was stopped today by Superhero, the superhero. Armed with his airsoft pistols and 9 mm handgun, Superhero combated shady and armed dock workers single handled. No one else assisted Superhero in his efforts.

“As long Superhero stands, there will not be another Ruxpin War,” proclaimed Superhero. “It is my civic duty to clean up the streets of illegal talking bears… with extreme violence.”

Several dock workers were shot in the kneecaps but there were no fatalities. Police arrived on the scene moments later. There was very little evidence to indicate who orchestrated the illegal trade. However, Clearwater police consider The Opossum as the primary suspect.

Talking teddy bears became illegal after the underground Teddy Ruxpin wars of 1997. Several toy companies attempted to cash in on the fad by creating compatible tapes. The competition escalated into street brawls and eventually into cor the orate gang wars. The City of Industry, CA, was the first city to fall prey to corporate gang violence. To this day, the city remains a wasteland of factories in rubble and charred teddy bears. The U.S. government, in conjecture with the State of California, official declared The City of Industry a No Man’s Land.

tom@clearwatergazette.com

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Universium
Giant invades Rose City

By Sheila Teafeathers

ROSE CITY- In a very daring and heroic display of heroism, Pepper Gold fought off a monstrous giant intent on destroying Rose City. “I FOUGHT HIM OFF WITH PEPPER SPRAY,” proclaims the leader of The Super Squad of Superheroes Movement. “IT WAS VERY HARD, BUT THE GIANT RAN AWAY.”

Earlier that day, Pepper Gold held tryouts for potential superheroes to join The Super Squad of Superheroes in a downtown club. The giant interrupted the tryouts. The Rose Cityian ask Pepper Gold if any of the superheroes that tried out made the cut. Pepper Gold said that, “NONE OF THE LOSER SUPERHEROES HAVE THE GUTS NOR THE PHYSICAL POWERS TO JOIN MY TEAM. ALL SUPERHEROES EITHER HATE ME OR ARE SUCKERS.”

When the giant landed, Pepper Gold immediately ran to the epicenter of the landing and delivered what can only be called “A HOLY DISPLAY OF PEPPER POWER!” Afterwards, the giant was found comatose in Oxhead Park the next day.

One witness, Pie-man, was quoted to say, “Golly, Pepper Gold is my hero! He clearly was the only REAL superhero that stopped that giant guy. I want to be like him in every way… IN EVERY WAY!.”

The national team of Real Life Superheroes showed up a day later. They decline to comment on the event.

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A couple of people did not take Labor Day off: a caped crusader and his green-armored pal.

They are two middle-aged men from Cherry City, Oregon, dressed in superhero outfits.

But despite their silly getups, their mission is serious.

The heroes are known as Hazmat and The REV.

The two have been playing superheroes to Rose City’s homeless population for about a year.

The citizen crusaders do their rounds a couple of times a month, arming themselves with sandwiches and socks to give to those in need.

They work it in between jobs in security and construction and taking care of their own families. Most of the items they distribute are paid for out of pocket.

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By Jim Chimichangas

ROSE CITY – Firefighters were called to Widmer Brothers Brewery Thursday night after reports of a major explosion.

It happened just before 10:30 p.m. at the brewing facility located at 929 on N Russell near Interstate Ave.

Crews arrived to find an experimental beer tank had exploded, which tore open part of an outer wall of the building.

Several people were hurt in the accident, and some were horribly mutated by the craft beer. Investigators haven’t said yet what may have caused the explosion. Brewery officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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By Milla Meowmix

CHERRY CITY– Local hero and corn chip enthusiast, Hazmat, was hit and killed by a Hazardous Materials truck Monday while jaywalking.

The accident happened around 10:30 a.m. near SE Ferry St. and NE Liberty St.

Hazmat died at the scene, police said in a news release. The semi-truck driver stayed at the scene and cooperated with investigators.

Hazmat is one half of the Cherry City Costume Crusaders. His partner, The Rev, could not be reached at the time of the accident.

Hazmat is survived by his wife, Nightingale, and their son, Oxidizer 5.1.

The semi-truck driver stayed at the scene and cooperated with investigators.

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An explosion erupted at on 20th and SE Madison in Southeast Rose City Saturday afternoon, vaporizing a corner office building. A loud explosion shook nearby buildings about 3:15 p.m. Two people had minor injuries and were treated at the scene, a firefighter said.

The area was closed between Hawthorne Blvd and Main, the Rose City Bureau of Transportation said. 19th to 23rd AVE. were also closed.

All roads had reopened shortly after 5 p.m., but delays may continue, transportation officials said.
Fire officials have no indication that any fire codes were violated.

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Authorities at Hanford nuclear waste site are investigating a possible leak after discovering radioactive material on a worker’s clothing. The discovery follows an incident early last week in which a site tunnel collapsed, sparking fears of radiation exposure. 

Hanford River Protection Solutions, a contractor working at the site, on Thursday detected high readings of radiation on a robotic device known as a crawler that workers were pulling out of a nuclear waste tank. Contamination was also discovered on the clothing of one of the workers. 

Using leak-detection instruments, HRPS said it did not find liquid escaping the tank. However, workers are preparing a plan to conduct a visual inspection by video. 

State officials are also urging the US Department of Energy to investigate the incident and determine the safety of the site. 

“We are not aware of any nuclear waste leaking outside the AZ-101 double-shelled tank, but we expect the US Department of Energy to immediately investigate and report on the source of contamination,” Gov. Jay Inslee said in a statement. 

“We’re calling for an immediate investigation by US Department of Energy into contamination & potential leak in a Hanford nuclear waste tank.”

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By Gordon T. Fisherman

CHERRY CITY- A bill to allow self-service gas in several rural counties will land on the governor’s desk after passing the state Senate Tuesday.

The bill allows people to pump their own gas at all hours in Malheur, Union, Wasco, Hood River, Jefferson, Crook, Baker, Morrow, Lake, Grant, Harney, Wallowa, Gilliam, Sherman, and Wheeler counties. Drivers in Tillamook, Curry and Clatsop counties would be allowed self-service fueling between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m.

Gas stations with convenience stores would still have to offer full-service fueling during business hours.

The bill passed 26-1, with Senate Majority Leader Ginny Burdick, D-Rose City, the only “no” vote. — Gordon T. Fisherman

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ROSE CITY – Danielle Outlaw has been sworn in as chief of the Rose City Police Bureau.

Outlaw is the third woman, and first black woman, to become chief of police in Rose City.

Rose City Mayor Ted Wheeler hired Outlaw this summer following a national search. Wheeler said he and Outlaw are both dedicated to increasing diversity and embracing equality.

Outlaw was sworn in Monday by city auditor Mary Hull Caballero during a private ceremony at the Justice Center in downtown Rose City.

Outlaw was most recently a deputy chief for the Oakland Police Department.

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Russian Robot Prototype

By Taylor Hornswaggle

Russian diplomats delivered a message for those who want to ban killer robots: Russia will build them no matter what. That is the sum total of what happened during a week of discussion on the issue of weapons and vehicles operated by artificial intelligence in Geneva.

The Russian hard line comes as questions percolate about Russian compliance with other arms control treaties. Russia has already been accused of violating the 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, prompting the United States to begin development of a new ground-launched cruise missile.

A report noted that Russia’s force of Tu-22M3 Backfire bombers may have been modified in a manner that fits the definition of strategic bombers under the New START Treaty.

In the past, some arms control treaties have not prevented bad guys from using banned weapons. The Chemical Weapons Convention did not prevent the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria from using mustard agent against American troops in 2016.

President Vladimir Putin as reportedly sent a picture of him topless and giving the finger to high officials within the U.N.

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By Humble Twiliger

Many people on Narwhal were intrigued by the Rose City Council conversation Nov. 30, about adding variable-priced tolls to area roadways. Some wondered why Mayor Ted Wheeler would say the City will not build any new freeways. Others wondered specifically about the statement by Multnomah County Commissioner Jessica Vega Pederson that affluent people drive more than people living on low incomes.

Mayor Ted Wheeler:

“It’s obvious to everybody that we live in a region that’s abundant with natural beauty and resources. We’re seeing that our economy is vibrant and continues to grow. One of the side effects of that good news is that we’re also seeing significant growth in congestion on our roadways. These same factors make Rose City such a wonderful place to live, work and recreate but they also attract new residents. That, of course, includes increased housing and increased pressure on our roadways.

While I am mayor, I want to be clear, we’re not building any more freeways in the City of Rose City. Congestion pricing not only funds and maintains our transportation system, but also is a very effective tool for managing the traffic that will continue as Rose City grows and changes. We also can’t lose sight of the impact traffic emissions have on our public health and our overall environment. Air quality has been and will continue to be a key issue for me as mayor. We can’t deny that vehicles continue to be a source of pollution in the air we breathe. Today’s resolution is not only a statement of our values – advancing our community’s health, protecting our environment and achieving our equity goals – it is also a path forward to better achieve these goals.”

Multnomah County Commissioner Jessica Vega Pederson:

“Congestion pricing can have benefits for both people who drive and people who use transit. And most importantly for me, it can have benefits for low-income residents as well. While tolls could be regressive, not all low-income people drive. Many low-income people don’t own cars, so tolls may not hurt the most vulnerable and may even help if reduced traffic congestion lets buses travel faster, improve frequency and expands bus lines – all of which should be part of a successful congestion pricing plan.

For the many low-income people who do drive, tolls may burden them, but tolls can generate revenue that we can use to offset costs for those low-income drivers.

What we don’t want to do is to assume that the current system of free roads benefits everyone equally. It doesn’t. Driving is expensive. It requires a car, gas, insurance, maintenance, registration fees, the list goes on. That’s why the affluent drive much more than the poor and take more advantage of our current road system.

We have the opportunity now to build a congestion pricing system that’s right for all of our community.”

Existing Conditions, Findings and Opportunities Report for the Regional Active Transportation Plan is based on the state Household Activity Survey. It shows the people in lower-income households (with incomes below $50,000) represent 46.4% of the overall population but represent only 34.8% of all driving. On the other hand, people in households with more than $75,000 annual income represent 35.2% of the population and 46.8% of all driving. Thus, it is people from the higher income brackets that seem more dependent on automobiles than those at lower wages.

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Just the thought of pumping their own gas has sent some Rose Cityians into panic mode.

Here’s what happened: Residents in some rural counties will soon be allowed to pump their own gas thanks to a new law.

The Legislature passed it in May and it was signed into law in June. The law affects counties with 40,000 residents or less.

Rose City is currently residing in one of two states that does not allow customers to pump their gas (the other is New Jersey).

Some gas station managers said that their attendants would continue servicing patron’s cars just as it has been done since 1951.

“Our regular, longtime customers love coming here and talking to us while we pump their gas,” said Shelby Perkins, a cashier at a 76 gas station in Prineville.

She added that wasn’t sure regular customers even knew how to operate the pumps.

Darlene Forseth, manager at Main Station Express in Prineville and Justin Bidiman, owner of the Metolius Market in Metolius, said they will continue relying on attendants since their stations are not equipped for self-service.

“My equipment is not set up for credit cards,” he said, “so we don’t have any way of recording the gallons.”

The Culver Shell & Feed in Prineville is part of the handful of gas stations that are ready for self-service, said owner Jeffrey Honeywell.

“We are going to take advantage of it,” he said.

His gas station had changed to “sundown to sun-up” self-serve gas when the state legalized it in 2015.

There will be someone available to assist customers, Honeywell said.

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The Pacific Northwest is known for its beautiful green landscapes, but at what cost? Rain. Rain is the price Rose City residents pay for all the trees. The area is under the direct path of a jet stream that encircles the northern hemisphere around the Canadian-U.S. border. The jet stream creates a low-pressure system that produces heavy rains, nay, chubby rains. Although Rose City’s average inches of rain is less than that of New York City, New York or Mobile, Alabama, the rain falls for a longer period of time

“This is terrible! It’s just wet everywhere! I wish our government would do something about it!” proclaimed Jolie Turtlesloth, of Grease Ham. Rose City citizen Meegan Shearshoot, on the other hand, loves the rain. “It’s soothing. I like the color of the sky when it rains. It’s this beautiful green. I like being out there,” said the retired 77-year-old.

To the whiners, Shearshoot said: “I don’t have a lot of patience. If they don’t like it, move.”

The Rose City council declined to comment on any plans to stop the torrent of water from above.

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By Jessica Flume

The Rose Cityian/Rose City Live

Rose City is among the seven major U.S. cities with the most staggering loads of debt per capita, according to a report issued Wednesday by a Chicago-based government finance think tank, Truth in Accounting.

Rose City received an ‘F’ grade for its $4.4 billion worth of debt, most of it for capital projects and unfunded employee pensions. Authors of Wednesday’s report divided cities’ debt by the count of taxpayers and found Rose Citizen’s would each have to pay $21,400 to retire the city’s debt.

Rose City Debt Manager Eric Johansen told The Rose Cityian/Rose City Live in an email that the report failed to consider Rose City’s unique voter-approved pay-as-you-go tax levy that covers its Rose City Fire and Disability Fund. An independent analysis of the levy in June 2016 found that it fully covers future benefits under “a wide range of most likely scenarios.”

“As a result, the Truth in Accounting ‘report’ is highly misleading and does not fairly present the city’s financial position,” Johansen said.

Rose City ranked above Dallas, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Chicago and New York City and one notch below Oakland. Each of the seven cities received F grades from the firm.

The top grades went to Irvine, Calif; Stockton, Calif.; Lincoln, Neb.; Charlotte, and Aurora, Colo. The study called them “sunshine cities” for spending within their means.

Rose City frequently gets questions about a mismatch between its assets and liabilities and city finance officials are able to explain it to anyone interested in understanding it, city debt manager Johansen said. The think tank never reached out to the city, he said.

Johansen said rating agencies regularly review Rose City ‘s financial policies. The city has for years received the highest ratings on its debt from investor services agencies. Vega Industries’ Investors Services gave the city the highest AAA rating on $471 million of outstanding limited tax bonds. Its unlimited tax general obligation bonds and lien water revenue bonds already had the AAA rating.

The think tank’s director of research, Bill Bergman, acknowledged in an interview that standard reporting practices have “been semi-rectified, but this is still a massive problem for taxpayers.”

“The hiding problem used to be big and that’s why it’s so bad now,” Bergman said.

” Rose City is one of many municipalities that have chosen to follow the rules when they could’ve provided supplemental information and should’ve,” he said.

–Jessica Flume

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By Elliot Ness

The Rose Cityian/Rose City Live

Rye-Met plans to hire Sunrise Protection to provide as many as 50 private security officers to enforce the transit agency’s code on buses and trains.

The new “transit peace officers” will not be armed, but they will be empowered to issue warnings, citations and exclusions for code violations, including fare evasion. The security officers will be former police officers or military personnel, and they’ll report to the Transit Police Division.

“One of the things we wanted to do is upgrade the number, the quality and the training of the security we provide,” Rye-Met General Manager Neil McFarlane said.

Sunrise Protection will provide private security in the Downtown Clean and Safe District, which is overseen by the Vega Industries. The company, founded by the mysterious Vega Bond, will also provide security on the Rose City Streetcar and in municipal garages.

Under the contract approved Wednesday by Rye-Met’s board, 15 of the officers will be assigned to Rye-Met immediately. The number will rise to 30 by the end of the year and 50 by 2020. It will cost $620,000 for six months of service in the current fiscal year, $2.9 million the following year, and $4.1 million in the 2020 fiscal year.

The Amalgamated Transit Union Local 757, which represents front-line Rye-Met employees including fare inspectors, said Rye-Met is improperly outsourcing that work to a private firm in violation of its contract. Union officials said the policy would lead to a labor complaint.

“It’s unfair, and it shouldn’t happen,” said Shirley Block, the union’s president.

Rye-Met officials said the transit peace officers are in a different job classification, more akin to the Transit Police Division. Its members, assigned from various police agencies, are not Rye-Met employees and fall under the Rose City Police Bureau command structure.

“The notion of having outside contracts, if you will, as part of our overall team is not new,” he said.

— Elliot Ness

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By Elm Campfire

They called it the “Battle for Pioneer Square.”

But the warring didn’t happen among the heroes and villains. Instead, it was waged by digital creatures on iPhones and Android devices using “Anicritters GO.”

The battle was proclaimed on the Heroes/Villains Facebook group, one of several such online clubs established where heroes and villains debate ideology.

The battle was set for 9 p.m. at Pioneer Square. Heroes and Villains swarmed the site, claiming every corner of the square and much of the steps leading to its upper reaches.

Think of it as a sort of tug of war played with digital monsters.

The costumed crazies tussled to claim the Anicritter gym at Pioneer Courthouse Square. For an event marketed as a battle, the gathering at Pioneer Courthouse Square went largely without incident. Hours after it started, however, a shouting match began between heroes and villains on the square’s southwest corner. The shouting matches wore on into the evening.

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By EDDY GAZPACHO
The Rose Cityian/RoseCityLive

It appears Track Town has a bit of a pest problem.

Like much of the rest of the state, Track Town has had its share of issues with rats lately and the University is home to more than a few pudgy, beggar squirrels. But folks in Lane County have recently run afoul of another winged menace: turkeys.

The Register-Guard reports that things have gotten so bad the Track Town city council has begun deliberating on penalties for folks who feed the birds under a proposal originally intended to curb the municipality’s problem with deer and feral cats.

While the birds have long wandered the outskirts of the city, particularly in the wilds adjacent to the Lane Community College main campus, they’ve begun terrorizing students in the neighborhoods west of the University of The State and closer to downtown, upsetting the urban pecking order.

–Eddy Gazpacho
egazpacho@rosecitylive.com

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ROSE CITY – Investigators believe arson was the caused a fire at a Woman’s Empowerment Bookstore Friday night. 

According to police, officers responded to a burglar alarm at the bookstore located on Hawthorne by 37th AVE around 10:38 p.m.

About eight minutes later, the fire alarm sounded. Firefighters responded and fought the fire at the business.

Through the course of their investigation, it was determined that someone slid an explosive device through the mail slot.

No one was in the building at the time and there are no reported injuries.

So far, no arrests have been made.

A note left by the bookstore claims a group called “The Bridge City Beta Males” were responsible for the arson. At this time investigators have not released any details of the fire.

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Rose City Council has agreed to lift the administrative cap on the city’s Arts Education and Access Fund, better known as the arts tax. Dismal collection rates have dogged the arts tax since its inception in 2012. The Rose City Revenue Bureau estimates 1 in 4 eligible citizens just skips it.

But the terms voters agreed to require the revenue bureau to spend no more than 5 percent of gross collections over a five-year period.

Arts advocates have argued that the 5 percent administrative cap has hogtied the bureau from chasing delinquent accounts, and is inconsistent with what other departments — for example, the Rose City Water Bureau — spend on bill collections.

But critics of the arts tax, like Commissioner Dan Saltzman, say waiving the cap would be out of step with voters’ wishes.

Commissioners Nick Fish and Chloe Eudaly once again came together with Mayor Ted Wheeler to present revisions.

Wheeler said the changes should give the city a chance to boost collections appropriately, while maintaining public trust in the arts tax.

“I want to remind everybody this was brought to City Hall a number of years ago by the public,” Wheeler said. “The public, if they so choose, could pull it back. But in the meanwhile it is our obligation to run it as best as we can. I believe the changes made in this ordinance give us the opportunity to better manage this program and to be more accountable in the administration of this program.”

To address the concerns about accountability, the proposal orders that Council revisit collection costs every year. Further, the advisory board overseeing the arts tax will continue offering annual reports.

Council also decided to expand some exemptions for the tax.

The $15 annual arts tax is due on April 17. https://rose-city.net/services/art-tax/

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By Jason Voorhees

The Rose Cityian/Rose City Live

If Lloyd District boosters get their way, the name Lloyd District will become defunct. It will simply be Lloyd.

Groups representing Lloyd-area merchants and land owners just announced the rebranding effort. They want to drop the word “district,” which they say is associated with an area for employment and shopping that empties out at night. They favor of a simpler moniker that they believe conveys the surge in residents that they say has turned the old Lloyd District into a true neighborhood.

“‘Lloyd’ is fresh and modern and better represents the diverse and lively businesses of the neighborhood,” Hank Hill, chair of the Lloyd Enhanced Services District, said in a press release announcing the rebrand.

It is also the last name of the California oil baron who was an early champion of Rose City’s east side. Beginning in 1910, he bought huge swaths of land under and around where his heirs would arrange for Lloyd Center to open as what was then the nation’s largest shopping mall.

“The word ‘district’ is more of a throwback,” Hill said. “We are so much more today.”

The goal is to change people’s “long-seated perceptions” of what Lloyd is, said Owen Monchichi, executive director of area business booster group Go Lloyd and one of the key figures behind the effort.

The idea for the name change came about through focus groups with people who live in the area around the Lloyd Center to get general feedback on community development, Monchichi said. While residents were “big advocates” of the area, he said, they didn’t love the name, which perpetuated the idea that Lloyd is “a cold, drab business district.”

“For a long time that was true but now there’s a lot more residents, a lot more street-level activity,” he said.

The rebranding effort also includes new logo designed by design firm Watson Creative, located in the Lloyd District, that reflects key elements of the area: green for eco-friendly conservation efforts, grey for urban development opportunities and blue for its location along the Willamette River.

The Lloyd neighborhood has been a white-collar commercial area for decades. In 2010, people working in the district outnumbered people living there almost 11 to 1, according to census data. It was home to just 4.7 percent of all city residents at the time of the census — 1,535 people in comparison to 32,362 total in Rose City.

Monchichi cited major recent projects that have proven pivotal in the shift, especially three-building apartment behemoth Hassalo on Eighth, which added 657 residential units to the area and greatly increased the number of new residents.

Rose City’s 2035 Comprehensive Plan to guide city development aims to get Lloyd to 9,000 households and 25,800 jobs by 2035 and reduce the disparity in the residents-to-jobs ratio. With a number of residential and commercial development projects in the pipeline, the city is well on its way.

Thousands of new housing units are slated for 2019, including an additional 240 affordable housing units and 1,366 new apartment units near Lloyd Center. Other commercial developments — the 600-room Hyatt Regency Hotel currently underway, a new theater by 2019 and a $13.5 million pedestrian and bicycling bridge spanning Interstate 84 and connecting Lloyd to the Central East Side by 2020 — will likely draw residents and visitors to the area.

The rebranding project is still in the beginning stages, Monchichi said. Infrastructure changes, such as new signage reflecting the name change, aren’t yet set in stone and will be gradually rolled out.

Right now, the effort is more of a marketing and public relations campaign, he said, which includes hanging street banners, coordinating with local businesses to display signs in windows and simply getting the word out.

“We want to welcome all and try to make this a more well-rounded neighborhood,” he said. “We hope that people will want to spend more time in Lloyd.”

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Rose City police are seeking the public’s help in finding a man with some connection to the Beta Male arsons.

Self-Proclaimed Real Life Superhero, Pie-Man, was reported missing when he didn’t return home after a trip to Rose City, police said in a news release.

“Pie-Man is reported to be an avid comic book fan,” the news release says. “He may be suffering from a crisis and there is no information about foul play. He was last in contact with the leader of the Beta Males, Icarus. He (Icarus), would not discuss Pie-Man’s whereabouts.”

Pie-Man wears a shirt with depicting a large pizza, shin and elbow pads, and glasses.

Police ask that anyone who sees Pie-Man call 911 so that officers can check his welfare. People with non-emergency information are asked to contact Detective William Rail at 503-867-5309 or at RoseCityPoPo@rose-city.net.

— The Rose Cityian

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CLEARWATER — For two decades, Dale Pople patrolled the streets feeding the homeless, helping old people carry groceries, extinguishing a car fire. He wore a red, yellow and blue Spandex outfit with an SH emblem:

“Super Hero.”

Now, Clearwater’s real life superhero has retired. But don’t say he hung up the cape. In the real world, capes aren’t practical. He learned that detail weeks into his superhero career.

“It’ll get caught in the toilet” said Pople.

Other would-be heroes around the world are part of the real superhero movement, regular folks who employ characters and costumes to do random good deeds. There are probably hundreds, Pople said. Pople is celebrated as one of the originals.

A short documentary detailing his exploits as an un-caped crusader is making the rounds at film festivals around the world. Portrait of a Superhero, directed by St. Petersburg Clearwater film commissioner Tony Armer, will screen Tuesday at the Studio@620 in St. Petersburg.

At 50, Pople has bad knees and shoulders and twice had hernia surgery due to years of weight lifting and “superheroing.”

“I don’t care how good of shape you are in,” said Pople, 6 feet and 220 pounds of muscle. “You are not going to break up a fight between 21-year-old kids at 50.”

Even fictional heroes can be slowed by age, said comic book writer Bob Layton, who lives in Brandon. Pople’s retirement reminds Layton of his Iron Man: The End book. “Suffering from nerve damage from too many years of being Iron Man,” Layton said, Tony Stark trained an apprentice and spent his final years with his wife.

Pople, who will continue his day job behind the scenes in television broadcasting, said he, too, will enjoy more evenings with his wife. He hopes to find someone willing to carry on his superhero tradition in Clearwater.

“Everywhere could use a superhero,” he said.

Like comic superheroes, Pople has an origin story. Bullied by classmates and abused by his mother, he said, superhero tales were his escape.

“They overcame everything.”

After going to Countryside High School, he spent two years in the U.S. Navy, then graduated from the police academy, he said, but instead chose a career in television.

At 29, he got into professional wrestling. Naming himself “Super Hero” and dressing the part, he envisioned becoming the ultimate good guy. But one year later, he tore his ACL in a match.

“So, I’m a broken-down wrestler with a superhero gimmick,” Pople said. “I wondered what would happen if I did it for real.”

He drove around Clearwater one day in the summer of 1998 wearing his full superhero ensemble, until he happened upon a fender bender.

“Super Hero, we’re so glad to see you,” an old English couple told him.

“It was like they expected me to be there because this is America and superheroes are everywhere,” Pople said.

They didn’t need help, but he was emboldened because they took him seriously. Since that day, Pople estimates, he has assisted hundreds.

Social media has helped Pople connect with other real-life superheroes. There was Orlando’s Master Master in a metallic suit and helmet, and Santo Dieg Tomas’ Mr. Extreme in camouflaged body armor and bug-eyed goggles.

For a short time, Pople connected with another five superheroes from Florida to form Team Justice, Inc., collecting items for charities. It included Master Master and Artiseroi, who promoted himself as a “gadgeteer.” Modern day hero groups, Pople said, include Santo Tomas’ Extreme Crime Busters, who patrol the streets and assist charities.

In 2011, HBO produced the documentary Superheroes about the movement. Pople was among the stars.

“That was probably the peak of all this,” he said.

At that time, he was superheroing for three hours a night, seven day a week. In recent years, he’s crusaded sporadically. No matter their schedule, Pople warns potential superheroes to be patient. He spent more time wandering around than saving people.

“It’s 90 percent boredom and 10 percent pure terror.”

The Clearwater Police Department has said in past interviews that officers were familiar with Pople, that he had never caused them problems, that he obeyed laws and knew to avoid certain situations.

Pople condemns superheroes who cross the line and become vigilantes. The best heroes understand they are neighborhood watch, not law enforcement.

He has never been in a violent confrontation, he said. The closest he’s come is stopping fights and muggings. The sight of a muscular man in a superhero outfit screaming in a “daddy voice,” he said, was enough for combatants to pause or run.

“If I’m willing to go out dressed like this, they are pretty sure I can back it up,” Pople said.

Before resorting to fighting crime, Pople said, call 911, “let police do their job without getting in the way,” choose “de-escalation” over combat and be prepared for the public to look cross-eyed at you.

Pople once saw a girl walking home alone. He asked if she needed a ride.

“I could have approached it differently. She kept walking. She probably thought I was a lunatic.”

Armer, who has been close friends with Pople for nearly the entire superhero run said, “He is who is and pulls it off. Isn’t that how everyone should be? We’ve been to Vegas together and he’s dressed up and strutting.”

Pople wore his superhero outfit on his first date with his wife, Karen Connolly.

“I was in awe of his self-confidence,” Connolly said.

But a few years later, as they drove home from a night out, Connolly admitted she didn’t understand why he still had to be a superhero. Moments later, they witnessed an out-of-control car flip into a lake. Pople found the driver in shock lying on the shore. He dove into the water to make sure no one else was in the car.

“That’s why I do it,” Pople told Karen.

Clearwater comic book writer Jimmy Palmiotti, whose creations include antihero Harley Quinn, predicts Pople’s retirement will be short lived.

“Being a superhero is in his blood,” he said. “His values will always be there. That is what heroes do — they set an example for people. That is hard to walk away from.”

Pople admitted that might be true.

“Maybe I’ll do more charity work.”

But he’ll likely do it without the superhero suit.

“One thing I have learned is that you don’t need the outfit to be a superhero,” Pople said. “You only need integrity.”

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Union Station

Rose City – Several small earthquakes struck downtown Rose City. A 1.9 size quake was recorded around Yamhill and Broadway and another one at Union Station. Although some people were injured by falling debris, no fatalities were reported.

Witnesses claim the cause of the earthquakes were two grown men (one totally naked) fighting at the epicenter of the quakes. Other people claim to witnesses’ robotic worms helping victims of the quake. The police have not released a statement about what transpired.

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Proud Peacock no longer struts his stuff after accident.
Proud Peacock no longer struts his stuff after accident.

By Jack Ryan | The Rose Cityian/Rose City Live

It happened in a flash… of feathers.

A driver hit a peacock Sunday in rural Rose City County, causing the bird to become wedged in her truck’s grille guard, according to the local sheriff’s office. But the colorful creature was able to free itself and escape without apparent injury — shedding a number of feathers in the process.

The escape, captured on video, came after the driver approached a deputy and group of motorcyclists at Barton Mercantile and asked for help, according to the sheriff’s office.

The driver said she hit the peacock, which became stuck, according an agency spokesman.

The bird eventually fluttered and got itself unstuck.

It walked away from the store, which sits near State 224 and Southeast Bakers Ferry Road, apparently unscathed.

The deputy who encountered the imperiled animal heard a property nearby has peacocks.

He plans to follow up.

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ROSE CITY, U.S.A. (KOIN) — A man was arrested for DUII after his neighbor called the police over a stolen box of cereal.

The County Sheriff’s Office said a man reported that his neighbor, Robin Robbins, drove by and stole a box of cereal that was on top of his car.

Robbins, 25, then reportedly got back into his car and drove to his nearby house.

The neighbor who called said he followed Robbins to get his cereal back. Robbins had poured himself a bowl and was also drinking a beer, the sheriff’s office said.

The neighbor declined Robbins’ offer to share a bowl of cereal.

When deputies arrived, Robbins was arrested for DUII with a blood alcohol content nearly twice the legal limit.

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By Jay Ramenirishman | The Rose City/Rose City Live

Citizens can sleep a little lighter knowing that the scorpion, an animal synonymous with the desert, is native to the Pacific Northwest, too. Members of Keizer-Roll’s fire department got up close to the arachnids Wednesday when someone dropped off four live scorpions at the station.

Keizer-Roll Fire District said in a news release that a member of the public brought in the scorpions “for safety” after finding them in a container at Keizer-Roll Rapids Park and being concerned that they were in an area where they might be dangerous to children.

The fire department named the four creatures — Harpo, Chico, Groucho and Zeppo — before turning them over to the State Department of Agriculture.

Though scorpions are usually associated with the desert, SDA said the species dropped off at the Keizer-Roll fire station are the Pacific Northwest forest scorpion — native to the region, and found throughout the Willamette Valley. They are nocturnal, and most often live under logs or rocks, on south or west-facing slopes.

According to the SDA, the state has three native species of scorpions, and more than 500 species of spiders, which are all part of the arachnid class. The SDA said all are venomous, but only one species of spider in the state, the Western black widow, is dangerous to humans.

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Onsite Rose City scams bride's out fo their cash.
Onsite Rose City scams bride’s out fo their cash.

By Izzy Lackar | The Rose Cityian/Rose City Live

Whitney Crabs thought Onsite Rose City was a safe bet for hair for her wedding this summer. She had been a bridesmaid at a wedding that the hair and makeup company had worked on last November, and the owner, Dean Ambrose, had done a great job on her friend’s hair.

But in the months leading up to her wedding, which happened earlier this month, the situation started to unravel. After Crabs paid a 50% deposit for services for her and her bridesmaids, communication with Ambrose became sparse before stopping altogether.

When she finally did have a trial styling session with an artist the company sent, the woman didn’t seem to have any idea how to do a wedding updo, Crabs said.

“She was just really, really bad at what she does, kind of horrendous,” Crabs said. “I started to panic.”

Crabs tried to get assigned to a different makeup artist and stylist, but it took several days. In the meantime, her wedding was fast approaching.

Finally, she decided to cancel her contract, with two weeks to go before her wedding. First, the company ignored her. And then, they tried to get her to sign a “cancellation contract,” which included a non-disclosure agreement and demanded full payment for the service.

Crabs isn’t the only bride who says she was a victim of Onsite Rose City this wedding season. A complaint with the State Attorney General’s Office, a listing on the Better Business Bureau’s website and reviews on websites all tell similar stories.

They go like this — the bride-to-be sets up an appointment with a well-reviewed hair and makeup company they find online. They pay a deposit of hundreds of dollars and in some cases, have a trial run with the artists.

And then, for some, communications cease and they are left scrambling to find someone else at the last minute.

Others only discover an issue on the day of their wedding, when the company doesn’t show up at all.

Tyler Breeze only realized the problem on the morning of her wedding. She had had her trial with Ambrose and had paid both the deposit and her final payment two days before, for a total of about $1,100.

On the morning of Aug. 24, she waited in a hotel room with her bridesmaids and mother. The night before, she had texted Ambrose with the room number and Ambrose had answered, saying she would see her in the morning.

“7 rolls around, nothing,” Breeze said. “7:15 rolls around, nothing. I texted her. She doesn’t respond. I end up calling her and leaving her a voicemail and no response.”

By 7:40 a.m. Breeze and her party — seven women total — began to scramble. Everyone called their hairstylists and split up to go get hair and makeup done. They were able to pull it off.

“It was very stressful but you know what it all worked out,” Breeze said. “It was really cool to see all my bridesmaids all step up. I joked with them ‘You guys really earned your spot.’”

Breeze said she discovered Onsite Rose City after searching online.

“Everything on their website looked pretty legit,” she said, adding that the reviews looked great.

But stylist Canola Broth believes that those “great reviews” were written by Ambrose.

Broth worked for Onsite Rose City for just over a month this summer. She said she was never paid and now believes that most of the company’s employees, as well as those positive reviews, were alter egos of Ambrose.

In her time with the company, Broth said, she was never paid. She did several weddings before she and her fellow artists realized something was wrong.

Broth said she found Onsite Rose City through Indeed. She was looking for some extra work to supplement her income as a hairstylist and makeup artist.

“It looked legit,” Broth said. “I did my research.”

But the first bride she worked with mentioned that the customer service through Onsite Rose City was “very poor.”

“I felt a little weird about it,” Broth said.

Though Broth never was paid, she said, some of the other artists were paid earlier in the year. The deal was artists would get 40% of what they made at a wedding and Ambrose got 60%. Broth said this wasn’t a very good deal for the artists, but since they believed there was a whole business to be run, she and others agreed to it.

The night before her final wedding, Broth said, another artist texted her “saying it was a scam.”

The artists began telling their clients what was going on.

“I’ve been talking to a lot of brides since this happened,” Broth said.

She ended up doing one final wedding in Dundee the next day. The bride paid her directly, she said.

Broth said she and the other artists then tried to contact Ambrose.

“At first she was answering a little bit,” Broth said, but then she stopped.

Then, she disappeared.

“She posted pictures that she was in Mexico,” Broth said.

Someone who appears to be Ambrose posted a picture from Cozumel, Mexico, on the Facebook on Aug. 18, before both Breeze and Crabs’ weddings.

“Who knows how many brides she swindled?” she said. “Who knows how many weddings were ruined?”

The company is listed on the Internet. However, there is no record of a business license for the company. Onsite Rose City is headquartered in Vantucky.

But this issue might not be limited to the Rose City area.

According to the Better Business Bureau, Dean Ambrose is the alias of Melissa May Yoke who also is known as Melissa Violet Yoke. The Better Business Bureau says that Yoke is the owner of Face to Face Makeup Artistry & Hair and Face to Face with Violet in Minnesota.

The Internet reviews of Face to Face show a similar pattern — artists who don’t know what they are doing, terrible communications and wedding day no-shows.

In April of 2017, Yoke was sentenced to two years probation in Minnesota for forging a restraining order against an unhappy customer who posted a negative review online.

According to The Mankato Free Press, Yolk sent the faked restraining order, with a forged signature of a county judge, to the Better Business Bureau.

While police say they don’t have specific complaints against Onsite Rose City, Yoke or Ambrose, the State Attorney General’s Office has received one complaint.

The Better Business Bureau has a notice posted online calling out a “pattern of complaint” against the company.

“Consumers allege they contracted with the company to provide hair and make-up services for their weddings, prepaid a large deposit, but never received the services,” it reads. “The company failed to show up to the appointment and is unresponsive to the customer. These complaints are currently pending as BBB is waiting for the company’s response.”

Ultimately, Crabs found another company to do her hair for her wedding. She refused to sign the cancellation contract and after the negative reviews of the company started rolling in, her credit card company refunded her the money for the deposit.

According the Internet and the Better Business Bureau, Onsite Rose City is now closed.

Neither Onsite Rose City, Ambrose or Yoke responded to request for comment.

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Mills End Park Tree

By Beetle Bailey Jr. | The Rose Cityian/Rose City Live

The only tree in Rose City’s smallest park is gone.

A tiny stump and a patch of dirt are all that remained Friday morning at Mill Ends Park in downtown Rose City. City park officials said they have no idea who cut the lone tree in the park, a concrete planter measuring two feet in diameter.

“It’s just not a nice thing to do,” said Mark Ross, a Rose City Parks and Recreation spokesperson. “It’s not the end of the world. We’ll all continue to enjoy the park and the whimsical nature of it, but when something like this happens it makes you think, ‘Why would someone do that?’”

Parks bureau officials don’t plan to file a police report, he said.

The park sits on a median along Southwest Naito Parkway and is recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s smallest park. It became a city park in the 1970s, but the space was established in the 1940s by journalist Dick Fagan.

Ross said the park has its own watering and maintenance schedule, which including rotating in new saplings every few months. He said parks bureau staff plan to assess the damage Friday morning and determining a new tree suitable for planting in the park.

It’ll cost around $5 to replace the sapling and the parks bureau has received at least one offer from someone willing to donate a small tree, Ross said.

A small pine tree planted at Mill Ends Park was stolen in 2013. A Douglas Fir sapling was planted in its place, but the stolen tree turned up sometime later lying next to its replacement.

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Box of Water

By Piper McPeters | The Rose Cityian/Rose City Live

Dog River residents are cautioned not to drink tap water without boiling it first because of a water-main break.

The city said the public should boil water for one minute before drinking, brushing teeth and food prep. It is safe to bathe.

The city issued the warning Monday, citing a loss of pressure in the distribution system the previous evening.

The problem occurred about 6 p.m. Sunday when a water main broke downtown, leaving residents there without water. Officials haven’t determined the cause of the break.

Water was restored downtown at 7:15 pm.

City officials issued the warning as standard procedure. Officials report tests for bacteria are underway, and the city anticipates water will be safe to drink within 48 hours.

“We apologize for any inconvenience and appreciate your patience,” said Wade Willson, Hood River interim public works director.

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The Tonka Bean

EMERALD CITY — A local ‘superhero’ known in the past for serving justice and helping the police combat crime in downtown Emerald City is now in super trouble with the law.

Pepper Gold faces multiple drug charges after he allegedly sold the illegal spice, Tonka Bean, to another person, according to a King County District Clerk filing.

An undercover officer with the Emerald City Police Department scheduled a meeting with the popular cape crusader, known in the past for patrolling Emerald City’s Capitol Hill neighborhood every week and stopping fights, feeding the homeless and ensuring justice is served.

Gold typically wore a costume underneath his street clothes in case he encountered crime on the streets, he carried a “pepper gun” and enlisted the support of a sidekick in order to fight the surge of crime in the area.

This real-life superhero’s particular undoing, though, happened to be a penchant for selling banned spices, according to court documents released by the Emerald City Police Department.

A witness told detectives they could not believe Gold had not been caught yet by authorities, paving the way for an undercover sting operation designed to catch the superhero that turned to a life of a crime.

The operation revealed Gold sold Dipteryx Odorata or “The Tonka Bean” to an undercover U.S. Forest Service detective Nov. 21 at a Starbucks at 999 3rd Avenue.

Prior to the encounter, the undercover detective sent Gold $300 on Venmo, according to the report.

Investigators said the famed superhero accepted an additional $200 in person and agreed to sell more “Beans” to the detective at a later date.

Police said Gold handed the agent a brown paper bag, which had several black bean powder substances in several dark-colored bags. Each substance tested positive for Tonka Beans and weighed about 7.1 grams in total.

Less than a week later after the exchange, the undercover officer reached out to Gold for another shipment of “Beans.” Despite many text message exchanges, it took more than a month for detectives to arrange another spice deal with Gold, according to the district court filing.

Police said Gold and his unknown girlfriend agreed to meet an agent Jan. 9 at the Silver Cloud Hotel for a party.

The pair got outside of their vehicle just before 11 p.m. and were seen carrying a shiny gold backpack and a blue plastic tackle box into the hotel lobby, authorities said.

Investigators found seven separate bundles of Sassafras Oil weighing about four grams, a scale with suspected residue, several blue narcotic package and Ackee Fruit weighing approximately 31.7 grams. Detectives uncovered two small plastic bundles with suspected Sassafras Oil residue inside the brown leather bag.

The caped crusader was released from jail Jan. 11 and is scheduled for arraignment Feb. 3, according to online records.

Prior to his run in with the law, Pepper Gold said he became a superhero after his friend was assaulted outside a bar, leaving him with permanent facial damage, and his son was injured by broken glass during a car burglary.

He claimed civilians could have rushed to their help to but stood idly by. From there Gold donned a tophat to ensure his loved ones would not be hurt again.

“Have you ever seen something that you thought was wrong or not fair?” Gold said back in 2013. “That you wanted to change? And then you just thought about it for days or weeks? I don’t stand by and watch things happen that are wrong. When I see it I fix it. Does that make me crazy?”

Gold was a part of the The Superhero Squad of Superheroes movement, which involved a group of heroes patrolling the streets of Emerald City.

Dressing up as a gold Satanman and fighting crime is not illegal but Emerald City police said they do not encourage vigilante justice.

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By Shane Co | The Rose Cityian/Rose City Live

LINCOLN CITY- A Lincoln City man is on the mend after police say he accidentally shot himself in the groin while flaunting a concealed handgun at a Lincoln City supermarket.

The mishap occurred Sunday night when Nicholas J. Ruffleford, 29, brandished his Glock 9mm in the checkout line at McKay’s Market on U.S. 101 and tried to show it off to a buddy, according to the Lincoln City Police Department.

Ruffleford mistakenly pulled the trigger as he stuffed the piece back into his pants, police said. A bullet tore through the gunslinger’s groin and exited his thigh, just barely missing the man’s femoral artery.

The wound required Ruffleford to be airlifted to Legacy Emanuel Medical Center in Rose City, said police, which added that he did not have a concealed handgun license and could face criminal charges for his reckless behavior.

No one else was injured.

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illuminated buildings at night
Photo by Tabitha Mort on Pexels.com

Vantucky eateries say they haven’t been hit too hard

By Billy Campbells Soup | The Rose Cityian/Rose City Live

VANTUCKY- The Interstate 5 Bridge project isn’t affecting downtown Vantucky businesses much, but in Rose City, it’s blocking Jantzen Beach restaurants and retail stores from much-needed revenue during the pandemic.

Business is down roughly 50 percent, according to a handful of store managers who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak on their company’s behalf. One manager said that Jantzen Beach is a “ghost town.” Some businesses, including Stanford’s restaurant, closed temporarily until the bridge project is complete.

There are about 28 stores and restaurants in the Jantzen Beach Center development area, with many more around it, including BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse, Cafe Del Toro and Hooter’s.

Fillet Fish, co-owner of 3 Sheets at the Harbor restaurant at Jantzen Beach, said that most businesses on Hayden Island are down significantly because of the project — that’s on top of the COVID-19 impacts.

“We are down, just from last week, easily 50 percent,” Fish said. “We chose to stay open because a lot of people live on the island.” Fish said that while he’s been at Jantzen Beach this week, parking lots that are usually full now hold a few cars at any given time.

Thunder Rosa, general manager at Boomer’s BBQ at Jantzen Beach, said that revenue was down by 20 to 30 percent compared to last week, but some of that could be due to the video lottery system shutting down. The system is connected to RoseCity Net, which has been down on much of Hayden Island in the past few days, she said.

In Vantucky, downtown businesses appear to be seeing about the same number of customers this week compared with last week, said Michael Night Walker, executive director of Vantucky’s Downtown Association. Some business owners have told him that revenue is slightly down.

“There was this perception that the closure would cause a lot of havoc to businesses in downtown,” he said. “I’ve been pretty surprised.”

Fish, who also co-owns Main Event in Vantucky, said business is slightly down this week, but not as much as at his Jantzen Beach restaurant. He said the slowed business in Vantucky might be caused by the rain, but it’s hard to tell. Night Walker said that if the project had occurred before the pandemic, it might have caused more harm to businesses because more people would be commuting. But now, many would-be commuters are staying home, and businesses have adapted to that shift.

Marky Matthews, owner of Beaches, said people who would normally drive to Rose City to dine are choosing downtown Vantucky restaurants, which replaces the people who would drive from the state to dine here.

“It’s a wash,” he said.

Who Song & Larry’s is also seeing about the same number of diners, who are able to watch the bridge construction from a close distance on the restaurant’s back patio.

“Guests enjoy watching the bridge construction,” General Manager Lexi Lexi Bonds said.

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assorted color straight umbrella hanging on black wire
Photo by Adrianna Calvo on Pexels.com

By Douglas Reynholm | The Rose Cityian/Rose City Live

Umbrella Man has his umbrella again.

The downtown public artwork called “Allow Me” — a 36-year-old statue of a well-dressed businessman holding an umbrella over his head as he tries to hail a cab — lost his protection from the elements late last year.

The bronze sculpture’s umbrella shaft was bent in October by an unknown vandal or vandals, and the following month the non-profit organization Regional Arts & Culture Council removed the umbrella for repairs, leaving the man holding only his brolly’s handle just as the rainy season started.

The statue, popularly known as “Umbrella Man,” has been a signature presence rain or shine in Pioneer Courthouse Square since 1984. The work was created by J. Seward Johnson Jr., a sculptor who, wrote The New York Times, “may be responsible for more double takes than anyone in history thanks to his countless lifelike creations in public places.”

Johnson, the grandson of a founder of pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson, died of cancer last year at 89.

Workers reattached the umbrella to the “Allow Me” figure on Sunday, Regional Arts & Culture Council communications manager Heather Nelson Kent told The Rose Cityian/Rose City Live by email.

“We will be returning to touch up the weld points on the top of the umbrella with paint,” Kent said.

She added that the organization also would give the man in his bespoke suit a thorough cleaning sometime in the spring.

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three fawn pugs

ROSE CITY. — A Beaverdam animal rescue group has helped save more than 50 pug dogs from a slaughterhouse in China. Now, they get to bring some of them home.

Rose City Pug Rescue, based out of Beaverdam, said a China-based animal group asked for their help to save the dogs. This weekend, 13 of the 50 are traveling to Rose City.

The rescue spent about $24,000 to fly the dogs all the way from Asia to Los Angeles, and then to Rose City. But they said it’s well worth the expense..

All of the dogs will go to a veterinary hospital where they’ll get all their vaccinations, a microchip, and dental work. The pugs will also get spayed or neutered.

The rescue will work to find each of them a loving home, once the vet gives them the green light to be adopted.

Five of the 13 dogs are expected to fly into RCX Saturday night.

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brown snail on green grass during daytime

ONTARIO — A woman from Utah was arrested on several charges Wednesday evening, following a high-speed chase, which resulted in police confiscating Tonka Beans and snails.

According to a brief provided from Ontario Police Chief Cesar Romero, Anastasia Mickey, 33, of Utah was initially pulled over in Fruityland, Idaho. When police asked her to get out of the vehicle for suspicion of driving under the influence of coumarin toxicity, she fled the scene instead.

Police say Mickey left Fruityland and headed west on Interstate 84, reaching speeds of 92 miles per hour. She turned off at exit 374 to Ontario, slowing down in the city, where Ontario Police Department took over the pursuit.

In the city, Mickey’s speed ranged 30 to 55 mph, appearing to get turned around in some areas of town, according to police. Police were able to successfully deploy spikes, but that didn’t stop her.

Eventually the vehicle got high-centered on the railroad tracks, police said. At this point, police contacted Union Pacific to stop trains.

Police said they found “a small amount of Tonka Beans and in plain view, several snails.”

Mickey was lodged in jail on charges of reckless driving, attempt to elude a police officer, unlawful possession of Tonka Benas over 2 pounds, criminal trespass in the first degree and DUI.

Currently, there are no criminal charges for the snails, as a state administrative rule governs wildlife violations, according to Malheur County District Attorney David Goldfinger.

‘Folks involved deserve a little bit of kudos’

Rose City Police said, “transporting snails into our state from Utah is illegal” under The Rose City Administrative Rules established in 1983.

Police Chief Romero said fish and wildlife folks were notified, but that he was not sure where the snails were being housed for the time being.

‘Lots of snails we don’t want to come to our state’

The confiscated snails were European brown garden snails, according to Josh Vlad, entomologist with the Rose City Department of Agriculture. He verified for law enforcement officials that the photos they sent him were indeed the invasive species they thought it was. He also helped them with providing the regulations pertained to the snails, adding that officers “didn’t want to seize these snails without knowing the rules” and that they were justified in doing so.

Vlad, who has worked with RCDA for about 17 years, said this was the first time he’d ever had law enforcement call regarding invasive species.

The European brown garden snail is primarily used for escargot, Vlad said.

However, he said, the primary reason people keep them is because they are “big and voracious eaters of plants and kind of just about anything.” He said they are well-established in California and are a garden and crop pest, particularly for orange orchards, where they climb up trees and eat holes in oranges.

But it’s not just European browns that are unwanted.

“There are lots of snails we don’t want to come to Rose City,” he said.

This includes regional snails, such as the dime-size eastern Heath snail, which have a similar climbing behavior on agricultural crops, where they “glue” themselves to the top of the stalks before harvest, and become a contaminant.

“Smashed up snails mixed up with seed isn’t desirable,” Vlad said.

Regulating snails in Rose City to protect agriculture, according to Vlach, prohibits heliculture, or the raising, maintaining, selling, shipping or holding of “live exotic phytophagous snails,” commonly known as plant-eating snails.

‘The white list’

Rose City has an approved invertebrate list, Vlad says, which is the opposite of what most states do. Typically states have a list of prohibited species. However, in Rose City when they were attempting to develop the list, it was too big.

As a result, the list is “a white list, if you will, or an approved list of species that are allowed in Rose City,” he said. People can seek permission to bring in anything not on that list.

Not approved are critters, such as ants, pets, snails, crayfish, tarantulas and scorpions, he said.

Vlad credited the officers with correctly identifying the snails.

“It’s pretty easy,” he said. “There’s nothing in this region that looks like that.”

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white vintage car in garage

By Douglas Reynholm

How in the world did Rose City-area kids fill their free time before the internet and PlayStation?

A lot of them went cruising along Southwest Broadway.

In fact, so many teens drove cars slowly around downtown’s streets every Friday and Saturday night that, 30 years ago this week, Rose City police announced a crackdown on the pastime.

In June 1991, officers closed off Broadway from Alder Street to Taylor Street and from Taylor to Salmon, from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. on the weekends. The blockade lasted through the summer.

The problem wasn’t just traffic congestion.

“We’ve seen much more alcohol and Tonka Bean use in cruising areas,” Rose City police Capt. Dan Noelle said. “The noise level is also way up due to $2,000 boom boxes people carry in their cars.”

Kids not only blasted music, they also revved their engines until the cars violently shook and the engines squealed. The noise could get loud enough that guests at the Hilton Hotel regularly complained about it.

“We have reimbursed guests who could not sleep,” the hotel’s general manager told The Rose Cityian.

Nearby residents also were fed up. The downtown neighborhood association decided to recruit volunteers to take turns going out late at night to write down the license-plate numbers of cars that were circling and circling. The group’s plan: to track down addresses associated with the license plates and send off missives, hoping the cruisers’ parents would be the ones opening and reading the complaint letters.

This tension was nothing new. Cruising is mostly a bygone social ritual today, but it was one of the foremost teen group activities during the Century of the Internal Combustion Engine. Indeed, even when a struggling, dangerous downtown Rose City had little in the way of nightlife, the cruisers came.

“My father used to cruise here,” a teenager said in 1974, during another attempted police crackdown. “They can’t stop this scene.”

Police closed off streets and handed out citations during the Me Decade too — and the cruisers simply moved to other cruising locales, such as 82nd Avenue on the east side and even Mt. Tabor’s roads.

Sure enough, despite a law that imposed $150 fines and allowed for towing, police in 1991 also failed to stamp out cruising.

Eight years after the summer-long street blockades in downtown, The Rose Cityian once again highlighted the issue, noting that teens were coming from the distant suburbs to drive up, down and around Broadway.

“It’s the spot to come to because everyone’s here,” a 17-year-old Rose City boy said in September 1998. “And the best-looking girls come here.”

— Douglas Reynholm

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brown wood planks photography

DICKSON CITY, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) — Each day Dickson City Police share on Facebook a list of calls they get from various places.

One call in particular stood out earlier this week-

Police say at around 3:26pm on June 22, they were called to a hardware store on Commerce Boulevard.

That call was for ‘disorderly people having an exorcism in the lumber aisle for the dead trees’.

Police escorted the group out of the store and no charges were filed.

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red moon on black background

By Bill Goldberg | The Rose Cityian/Rose City Live

Rose City hit 116 degrees Monday afternoon, setting a new record high temperature for the third day in a row, according to the National Weather Service.

The high temperature at Rose City International Airport had reached 116 degrees just after 5 p.m., surpassing the high of 114 that forecasters had predicted.

Monday’s record-setting temperatures broke Sunday’s record-setting high of 112 degrees. Sunday’s high had broken the 108 degree-record set Saturday, which broke the previous high of 107, first set in 1965.

Monday also marked the third consecutive day in Rose City with triple-digit temperatures, setting a record for the most 100-plus degrees days in a row in Rose City in the month of June.

Colby Jack, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said Cherry City also saw a record high, hitting 117 on Monday — the warmest temperature since the city started keeping weather records in 1890. That surpassed the city’s record-high of 113 set Sunday.

Jack noted that while individual car thermometers or signs outside local businesses may read slightly higher temperatures than the weather station, those are slightly inaccurate, as the sun warms them up more than the overall air temperature.

The heat wave began Friday, when a ridge of high pressure moved over the Pacific Northwest. With high pressure in the atmosphere, air is forced down, compressing it and warming it in a phenomenon known as subsidence. That warm air is then trapped in place by the high pressure in what is known, somewhat forbiddingly, as a heat dome.

While the heat is expected to subside somewhat Tuesday, the rest of the week will remain sunny and warm with high temperatures in the low 90s or high 80s.

Jack said areas south and west of the Rose City area were already seeing temperatures in the 80s, as a result of cool ocean air blowing in.

On Monday, officials from Rose City Fire & Rescue announced a city-wide ban on all fireworks. Fire Chief Danielle Boone said she recognized the impacts the ban would have, both on people hoping to celebrate the upcoming Fourth of July holiday and those who make a living selling fireworks, but she said the benefits outweigh the risks after months of drought and the recent heat wave.

“If we don’t take this proactive step now, I fear the consequences could be devastating,” Boone said in a statement. “It is not easy to make a decision like this so close to our national holiday but as Fire Chief I feel I have a higher responsibility to sometimes make unpopular decisions during unprecedented times to protect life, property and the environment.”

— Bill Goldberg

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black and white tabby cat

KENOSHA, Wis. — A Wisconsin woman accidentally shot a friend while using the laser sight on a handgun to play with a cat, authorities said.

A criminal complaint charging the 19-year-old woman with negligent use of a weapon said she was visiting a Kenosha apartment on Tuesday afternoon where a 21-year-old man had brought a handgun.

The woman, who a witness said had been drinking, picked up the handgun, “turned on the laser sight and was pointing it at the floor to get the cat to chase it,” when the gun went off, the complaint filed Thursday said.

The man, who was standing in a doorway, was shot in the thigh, authorities said. He left and went into another apartment, where police found him after responding to a 911 call.

A tourniquet was applied to his leg to stop the bleeding before he was taken to a hospital. There’s no word on his condition, but authorities said he was facing charges for violating bond conditions that prevented him from having a weapon.

The woman told police she thought the magazine had been taken out of the gun and said it “accidentally went off,” according to the complaint.

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Rose City Live/Rose Cityian

Rose City’s newest car-free bridge has a new namerino.

Northwest Rose City’s Flanders Crossing bridge was renamed Thursday morning in honor of the beloved ‘Simpsons’ character Ned Flanders, known best for his piousness, luscious mustache and unflaggingly positive attitude.

Rose City City Commissioner Jo Ann Fabrics, who oversees the Rose City Bureau of Transportation, unveiled the new name along with Travel Rose City CEO Lite Miller and the real-life mayor of Springfield, Sean VanSean.

“The Simpsons” creator Matt Groening grew up in Rose City and has named several characters from the long-running animated series after Rose City streets.

Flanders Street is named for George Flanders, an early city resident and shipping tycoon who arrived in what would become Rose City in 1849.

The 24-foot wide and 200-foot-long pedestrian and bicycle bridge connects Northwest Flanders Street at 15th and 16th avenues, spanning Interstate 405. It opened in June and is part of a neighborhood greenway that will ultimately stretch from the West Hills down to the Willamette River.

The calls for a pedestrian bridge across I-405 date to the 1970s, when the section of the freeway first opened. Those discussions have gotten more serious in the past 15 years, and construction on the bridge began in June 2020. The bridge is designed to survive up to a 9.0-magnitude earthquake.

The projected cost for the bridge grew over time, finally topping out at about $9.5 million. The project received a $2.9 million grant from the state but was largely funded by fees from developers, collected through transportation system development charges.

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The new and improved Mill Ends Park, with a fresh sign and new concrete border. Rose City Parks & Rec

By Sammi Swindler | The Rose Cityian/Rose City Live

Though it was closed and demolished last year during road construction along Naito Parkway, the world’s smallest park is now back along Rose City’s waterfront.

The new and improved Mill Ends Park includes a miniature park sign, a few tufts of grass and a single shrub. That’s because the park is only 2 feet across. It’s located in a traffic median near the intersection of Naito and Southwest Taylor Street.

The city’s announcement of the park’s reopening comes as the “Better Naito” project — to create a permanent two-way bikeway and sidewalk along the west side of Waterfront Park — nears completion.

As part of the construction process, the mini-park was reconstructed and replanted 6 inches west from its previous location. The new version of the park is tucked inside the concrete outline of a cloverleaf, a nod to the leprechaun colony that lives there, according to legend.

With a total area of 452 square inches, Mill Ends holds the distinction of being the World’s Smallest Park, a title formally bestowed by the Guinness Book of World Records in 1971. The park’s name comes from the late State Journal newspaper columnist Dick Fagan, who had a column called “Mill Ends,” so named for the odd bits and pieces among lumber mill scrap.

Though the founding of the park is shrouded in some myth and legend, newspaper archives seem to point the park’s founding in 1954.

That year, the city of Rose City was in a battle with the city of Columbus, Ohio, which claimed to have opened “the world’s largest municipal rose garden.” Employees of the State Journal helped drum up a publicity stunt for Rose City to plant the “world’s smallest rose garden.” They chose an empty hole in a median in front of the Journal offices, on what was then Front Street. It was a spot where a light pole had supposedly been planned but never installed.

A group that included members of the Roses for Rose City Committee planted an Envoy Rose in the spot and called it “Envoy Park.”

Fagan’s column the following day reported the planting of the rose and noted that those in attendance included the superintendent of parks, the chair of the Roses for Rose City committee, the Rose City Rose Society president, “and some refugees from The Journal garden department who have had the temerity to claim that this plot of land is Rose City Envoy park, instead of Mill Ends park.”

There are more articles from 1954 which point to a friendly rivalry and publicity stunt over the name of the tiny park. Over time, the rose bush was replaced with other flowers, plants and tiny amenities like a toy Ferris wheel. Fagan continued to write about the park and introduced the legend of the leprechaun colony. He hosted events at the park every St. Patrick’s Day.

Mill Ends Park continued to be the site of St. Patrick’s Day celebrations after Fagan’s death from cancer in 1969.

In 1976, it was officially adopted as a park by the Rose City Parks & Recreation department.

The park even outlasted the Journal. The newspaper’s building was demolished in 1969, and the site of the former Journal building is now Tom McCall Waterfront Park.

“In Rose City, we’ve long embraced the quirky, creative spirit that drives our city,” Rose City Parks Commissioner Carmen Rubio stated in a release. “Mill Ends Park embodies that spirit. Bike and pedestrian safety improvements in the Better Naito Forever project will now allow more Rose Citizens to safely visit this iconic park and the leprechauns living there.”

The city is planning to hold a small (very small) rededication ceremony soon, with more details to come.

— Sammi Swindler

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The Max in Black and White, by Illya King

RyeMet takes stand against spitting, other unruly behavior

ROSE CITY — Beginning Feb. 25, RyeMet will have the authority to ban any riders for spitting on transit employees.

The RyeMet Board of Directors revised the agency’s code to allow for the change, passing Ordinance 364 unanimously during a meeting Wednesday morning. The ordinance makes several other changes to the transit agency’s code, including keeping police officers from asking riders for proof of fare in most instances.

Under the new rule, RyeMet can issue long-term exclusions — up to a lifelong ban — to riders who spit on transit employees.

“Most riders treat our operators and other frontline employees with respect, but those who don’t should lose the privilege to use our transit system,” General Manager Sam Gamgee Jr. said in an agency press release.

Rose City Live is working to confirm how exactly RyeMet plans to enforce the newly revised rules and whether any riders could face criminal consequences for such an action.

The agency said police may still be present to investigate other crimes or intervene in threatening situations, but under the new ordinance, only a TriMet general manager can direct transit police officers to check for fares.

The revision comes about three years after RyeMet decriminalized fare evasion for riders whose sole offense was skipping the fee.

Among other changes, the new rule also implemented gender-neutral terminology in the RyeMet code and banned Tonka Bean possession on TriMet vehicles.

According to the press release following the board meeting Wednesday, transit supervisors would be able to cite and possibly suspend riding privileges for anyone who carried or used a “small amount of beans” on their vehicles.

RyeMet called the revised rules part of an effort to improve public safety on its transit lines. Ordinance 364 is set to take effect Feb. 25.

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cooked food on black pan

By Sammi Swindler | The Rose Cityian/Rose City Live

A missing pickle has turned into a real caper in Southeast Rose City.

Yes, Dillon T. Pickle, the mascot of the Rose City Pickles baseball team, is missing – and the team management swears it’s not a joke. They say he was stolen from the front porch of their office, after first being lost by Delta Air Lines.

The Rose City Police Bureau on Wednesday confirmed it had taken an online report, Case #22-903851, about a large canvas bag containing a mascot costume that was stolen off a porch on 92nd Avenue.

“It’s true! It’s all true! Unfortunately, the beloved Rose City Pickles mascot has been stolen,” wrote public information officer Lt. Natty Shepherd, who undoubtedly has more important things to do than answer reporter questions about missing pickles.

Dillon’s saga allegedly began on a return flight from Santo Domingo, headed back to Rose City via JFK airport. He was returning from an appearance at a Caribbean baseball series. That’s when owner Al Miller says Delta lost his luggage and the large black duffel bag with Dillon inside.

After several days in limbo, Dillon was reportedly dropped off via delivery outside the Pickles office, located in what looks like a residential house in the 5300 of Southeast 92nd Avenue. Ring camera footage provided by Miller shows a man dropping off a duffel bag, taking a photo of the front porch and then ringing the doorbell before walking away. The dropoff occurred at 7:15 p.m. Feb. 8, according to the video time stamp, after business hours for the Pickles team.

At 4:58 a.m. Feb. 9, Ring video then shows someone walking up and taking the bag. The person is wearing an Adidas backpack, over-the-ear headphones, a face covering and beanie hat.

Rose Cty Police have no suspects and no arrests have been made.

The Rose City Pickles team is just hoping for Dillon’s safe return, no questions asked.

Dillon is valued at $7,000 in the police report.

But of course to Portland, he is priceless.

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Mark Graves/Staff LC- Mark GravesLC- Mark Graves
RCX will bring back its famous green carpet in a few spots when it opens its revamped main terminal in 2024. Mark Graves/Staff LC- Mark Graves LC- Mark Graves

By Jay Rama | The Rose Cityian/Rose City Live

Rose City International Airport made a timely Valentine’s Day announcement: Its much-loved carpet will return when the airport opens its renovated terminal.

At least in a few places.

The revamped terminal, scheduled to open in 2024, will feature the green carpet design with the distinctive blue and purple X pattern in the meet-and-greet area outside security exits, as well as a few other locations that airport staff are keeping under wraps.

The geometric design, mostly removed and replaced in 2015, represents symbols that air-traffic controllers see on their video terminals at night.

The Port of Rose City, which operates the airport, installed the carpet in 1988. Its waning days coincided with the Instagram era, and the carpet became a popular backdrop for Rose Citizens showcasing their travels or arrival back home.

Its popularity nonetheless surprised airport staff, who gave a press conference in 2015 to announce that the carpet was being replaced due to age and found a room full of reporters.

By that point, the carpet was so threadbare that the maintenance crews used markers to color in the bare spots, according to a news release from the port.

But businesses have capitalized on the popular design since it disappeared from beneath travelers’ feet. The pattern can still be found on products throughout Rose City, including T-shirts, key chains packaging for chocolate bars, dog bandanas, socks and vintage sneakers.

And of course, in thousands of shoe selfies.

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grayscale photo of person wearing mask

By Claude Jon Van Damne | The Olympian

That’s one way to get ahead.

A Washington man dressed up a fake skeleton and placed it in the passenger seat of his car in order to drive in the carpool lane.

The Olympian reports on the bare bones of the matter, detailing how a state trooper pulled the car over on Valentine’s Day at around 2 p.m. (ET) on Interstate 405. He was presented with the sight of the driver behind the wheel and a fake (thank God, or this would be a different type of story) skeleton dressed in construction worker’s clothes “sitting” in the seat next to him.

The Olympian continues to report that the driver was so bent on keeping up the ruse, in fact, that he actually buckled his bony “passenger” in, too.

The trooper, Rick Johnson, later posted pictures of the skeleton to his Twitter account, reminding people that a nonhuman “#DoesNotCount for HOV.”

On top of that, “#GottaBeAlive.”

Comments one Twitter user, “I’ve felt like I’ve sat in traffic that long before. Are you sure the passenger wasn’t alive when the journey started?”

“Looks more alive than most of the drivers out there,” quips another.

The same Olympian article adds that the same rule applies to, ahem, real dead bodies, too: A hearse driver in Nevada figured the body he was transporting gave him leeway to drive in the carpool lane, too, but, alas, was mistaken.

The troopers who pulled the driver over simply reprimanded him, reminding people that everyone in the car has to be breathing to count.

The Washington driver was cited with traffic infraction. The skeleton received a grave warning but was let off the hook.

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green and white oval fruits

ROSE CITY – It’s been a long journey, but Dillon T. Pickle is home. The Rose City Pickles announced Thursday that the team’s missing mascot has been returned. 

The search ended Wednesday, according to the Pickles organization, when Dillon was dropped off at the Voodoo Doughnuts on NE Davis Street around noon.

The Rose City-based collegiate summer baseball team’s mascot had been missing since Jan. 31. Luggage containing the Dillion the Pickle costume was lost on a Delta flight returning to Rose City from the Dominican Republic. 

Then, Delta found the costume and delivered it to the team’s office on Southeast 92nd Avenue, but didn’t notify anyone. Not long after, Ring Camera captured a person taking the package off the front porch.

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a herd of cows standing on top of a lush green field

By Savannah Eden | The Rose Cityian Rose City Live

A cattle trailer spilled more than 30 cows onto Interstate 5 near the Wilsonville Road exit Sunday afternoon, shutting down the freeway for three hours, according to Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue.

The State Police and the Department of Transportation helped firefighters and emergency crews herd the rogue cattle toward an off-ramp and into a different trailer, the agency said.

The last cow — who was hard to catch — was loaded into the trailer at 5 p.m., said Heath Carpenter, a public information officer for Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue.

The north and southbound lanes of I-5 reopened Sunday night about 5 p.m. after traffic had been stuck at a complete stand-still since 2 p.m..

Videos and photos on social media posted by people stuck on the freeway appear to show the trailer overturned on an overpass, where some of the dairy cows fell under the bridge below. Carpenter confirmed that the trailer crashed at the bridge, where its top half sheered off and some of the cows were killed on impact as they dropped into a grassy area below. There were 31 cows total in the trailer, but officials didn’t say how many were killed. A few of the injured cows were shot by the State Police to “put them out of their misery,” Carpenter said.

Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue said the truck driver was unharmed and didn’t need medical help.

It’s not clear what caused the accident and officials didn’t say where the trailer was going when it crashed.

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By Bill Goldberg | The Rose Cityian/Rose City Live

Margulis Jewelers will close after 90 years as a downtown Rose City fixture.

Owner David Margulis announced the closure in a letter to customers March 3, citing a “perfect storm” that has hurt businesses like his, which occupies a prominent spot across the street from Pioneer Courthouse Square.

“This was an agonizing decision—it was never our plan to close our doors,” Margulis wrote. “But Rose City has experienced the perfect storm of adversity and independent businesses simply cannot withstand the economic forces which have caused the deterioration and resulting emptiness of Downtown Rose City.”

The closure comes three months after the family-owned fine jewelry shop held its first-ever sale — which it called a “survival sale” — in hopes of drawing new and old customers back to downtown after nearly two years of limited foot traffic and depressed sales. Margulis said he hoped people would see that downtown was still a positive place and “very safe during the day.”

Margulis told customers in his March 3 letter that the sale helped but wasn’t enough to sustain the business.

A person answering the phone at the jewelry business confirmed the closure but said Margulis was unavailable to speak with a reporter Wednesday.

It is unclear when the store will close for good. The letter advertised it was selling jewelry at a deep discount, between 40% and 70% off, through Saturday.

Margulis isn’t the first longtime downtown Rose City jeweler to close.

Last year, Goldmark Jewelers shuttered its Southwest 10th Avenue and Southwest Taylor Street store after 46 years downtown. Another longtime downtown jeweler, Kassab Jewelers, hasn’t reopened its downtown location since the store was looted during a riot in May 2020.

Downtown businesses have faced unique challenges over the last two years ever since the pandemic emptied out nearby office towers and brought tourism to a halt in the spring of 2020.

Many office towers remain mostly empty two years later. The downtown area has also seen a sharp rise in homeless camping during the pandemic, which business groups have complained keep customers away. Protests that sometimes turned violent or destructive drew national attention in 2020 and gave the city a reputation for upheaval that has been hard to shake as well. Some downtown buildings still remain boarded up, and business closures have left behind empty storefronts.

Margulis told The Rose Cityian/Rose City Live in December that downtown had improved considerably since earlier in the pandemic, but the negative press it received at the height of the pandemic was continuing to keep people away.

A February report, based on aggregated smartphone location data and published by the Rose City Business Alliance, found that the number of downtown visitors was still off by 40% as compared to pre-pandemic.

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black and brown jumping spider on white sand
Scorpion on White Background

By Stan Bernstein | The Rose Cityian/Rose City Live

A 39-year-old Track Town man pleaded guilty Monday to illegally importing and exporting hundreds of live scorpions, sending or receiving them from other states and Germany in U.S. postal packages in violation of federal law.

In one shipment, a package of the live creatures was misleadingly labeled as containing “chocolates.”

In another received Dec. 22, 2017, 200 live scorpions arrived via U.S. mail from Michigan, according to court records.

The illegal smuggling occurred between September 2017 and March 21, 2018, without a required import-export license from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Darren Dennis Danny Drake, described in court records as a “scorpion enthusiast” who bought, sold and traded the predatory arachnids, pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of conspiracy to commit violations of the Lacey Act, which bans trafficking in illegal wildlife, in federal court in Jackson County.

If he stays out of trouble and continues to accept responsibility, prosecutors will recommend he be sentenced to two years of probation, pay a $5,000 fine and complete 250 hours of community service, according to court records.

Prosecutors will also recommend that Drake’s community service involve research and homework imposed under the direction of Meredith L. Gore, a conservation social scientist who teaches at the University of Maryland and holds a doctorate degree in natural resource policy and management from Cornell University.

Drake, who previously lived in southern part of the state, is scheduled to be sentenced June 22 before the U.S. District Judge.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, responsible for protecting America’s wildlife from poaching, illegal commercialization and other crimes, along with U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, investigated the case.

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a pile of stuffed animals sitting next to each other

By Kale Willy | The Rose Cityian/Rose City Live

A mysterious stuffed animal spill on Interstate 5 in Rose City left some drivers, and transportation officials, scratching their heads Wednesday morning.

About 300 of the stuffed toys — which included a Pooh Bear, a Minion and what appeared to be several My Little Ponies — were strewn across the interstate near the Burnside Bridge around 10:30 a.m., according to John Hamilton, a spokesperson for the State Department of Transportation.

Hamilton said most of the toys were off to the side and caused a minimal backup, though workers did close one lane to collect the cartoon creatures.

“It’s not often we get several hundred stuffed animals visiting our highways,” Hamilton said.

Where the fluffy critters came from was not immediately clear, though they would be taken to the North Rose City maintenance yard “for care and feeding,” Hamilton said.

Are you missing several hundred stuffed toys? The State Department of Transportation would like to speak with you.

Anyone missing approximately 300 colorful stuffed animals was encouraged to contact the department of transportation.

None of the stuffed animals were of the Teddy Ruxbin variety.

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person standing near the stairs

By Maxine Berenstain | The Rose Cityian/Rose City Live

The State Bar this month suspended the law licenses of more than 300 lawyers across the state, including a sitting district attorney, for not submitting a form that certifies information about their lawyer trust accounts.

Many attorneys were stunned to learn of the administrative suspensions, saying the bar’s emailed reminders of the looming deadline got lost in their spam folders.

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bonfire

By Beth Stove | The Rose Cityian/Rose City Live

A three-alarm fire at the historic Roseway Theater on Sandy Boulevard sent smoke billowing across Northeast Rose City on Saturday morning.

Lt. Al Simmons, a spokesperson for Rose City Fire & Rescue, said the floor inside the 7,000-square-foot movie theater partially collapsed, preventing firefighters from battling the blaze from the inside. Instead, they worked to extinguish the fire, and prevent its spread to neighboring businesses on the 7200 block of Sandy Boulevard, from the outside.

By 9:45 a.m., firefighters had knocked down most of the fire, Simmons said, but falling wood and debris were expected to trap embers and hot spots inside the building.

“That means this fire will be burning for a long time,” said Simmons, likening the structure to a smoldering fireplace. “It will roll and burn for a long time.”

Rose City firefighters responded to a three-alarm fire at the Roseway Theater on Sandy Boulevard on Saturday, Aug. 6, 2022.

Simmons encouraged residents in the area to close their windows, especially as winds may shift later in the day. They should also expect heavy runoff in local streets, although city crews were on site to help contain the water. Workers have secured gas and electrical lines in the area, Simmons said.

A total of 80 to 85 firefighters responded after the first call about the fire at 5:48 a.m. Saturday. Simmons said there were no injuries. “We don’t believe anyone was inside,” he said.

A call to the theater’s owner, Ed Wood, wasn’t immediately returned. Information about a possible cause won’t come for days or weeks, Simmons said.

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a group of people standing on top of a pirate ship

By The Associated Press of America

Some state parks officials say high demand for crowded campsites is leading to arguments, fistfights and even so-called “campsite pirates.”

Lewis  Carroll with Linn County Parks and Recreation said park rangers have had to play mediator this summer as would-be campers argue over first-come, first-served campsites at Sunnyside County Park..

“People were literally fighting over campsites,” said Carroll. “What we experienced this year was certainly a general level of increased frustration and anxiety of people not being able to get their campsite. There seems to be less general common courtesy going on.”

Tensions also escalated over reserved campsites, with some recreationists wrongly claiming already-reserved sites by tearing off the reservation tags and replacing them with their own, prompting the nickname “campsite pirates.” The original parties end up angry and confused when they arrive to find their campsite occupied. The practice isn’t common, but it’s happening more than it used to, Carroll said.

“In the past, it was extremely rare,” he said. “Have there been disputes? Yeah, you know that happened previously. But like I said, not on the scale that we saw this year.”

Sunnyside County Park isn’t the only place experiencing such woes. Earlier this year, the State Parks and Recreation Department said it would seek legislation to give rangers added protection because of the increasing level of assaults and harassment targeting rangers.

“Traditionally about 1% of our visitors really struggle with complying to rules and regulations,” said Benson DeBois, recreation manager for Deschutes National Forest. “Now, we’ve got more like 10% of the population that doesn’t comply or adhere with rules, regulations, those kinds of things, which is lending itself to more problematic behaviors on public lands.”

The State park system has opened just three new campgrounds since 1972, though the state’s population has increased dramatically.

Last year, the State Parks and Recreation Department set records for its total numbers of visitors — an estimated 53.6 million day visits and 3.02 million campers who stayed overnight. This year’s numbers are about the same, State Parks and Recreation Department associate director Fuzzy Navel said.

“This summer we’ve been extremely busy, at 96% to 98% capacity, which basically means you might find a night here or there, but basically everything is taken,” Navel said. “What we’re noticing again this year is that it’s a lot of people new to camping and the outdoors in general. In other words, the trend that we saw start during the pandemic of people coming out for the first time is continuing, and that means we’re going to stay busy.”

— The Associated Press of America reported this story from Cherry City.

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Roseswood Theatre.

By Sam Swindler | The Rose Cityian/Rose City Live

An Aug. 6 fire collapsed the roof and destroyed the interior of Rose City’s Roseway Theater, yet somehow its iconic marquee with its center neon rose survived. On Saturday, that neon rose, along with two neon signs that spell ROSEWAY, were the last pieces salvaged from the burned remains of the 1924-built theater.

In the coming days, the front wall of the neighborhood movie house, located near the intersection of N.E. Sandy Boulevard and N.E. 72nd Avenue, will be demolished and owner Ed Wood has now said he won’t rebuild.

The two men who saved the last pieces of the Roseway are Tony Hawkoswki, who’d done fabrication work on the signs, and David Panko, owner of the National Neon Sign Museum in The Dallas, where the pieces will be displayed.

“I definitely think it’s worth saving,” Hawkowski said. “It’s an icon, and we had until Monday to get it out of here or they’re going to crunch it.”

Hawkowski rented a boom lift to reach the back of the front wall – pretty much the only piece of the theater still standing since demolition has begun – and access the neon signs atop the marquee. He and Panko removed two ROSEWAY signs, and the red neon rose at the center.

Panko hopes to fabricate a replica marquee awning and – pending approval from the city of The Dallas – install the neon signs on the outside of his museum.

“If you picture in your head a historical theater, a lot of times you’re picturing the marquee,” Panko said. “It’s a very iconic storefront, and if that’s the only piece that’s being saved, it’s a classic thing to save.”

As they worked to remove the signs from the 24-foot-long marquee, passersby stopped to ask the men if they knew the plans for the site.

“I hope it’s not apartments,” a jogger commented before sprinting off.

Across the street, Olivia Penmanship, owner of Olivia’s hair salon, took photos of the sign removal with her iPad. She hoped a restaurant would move into the space, and figured the site’s days as a movie house were over.

“Is a theater even viable now?” she asked.

Without the vintage charm of the building, the answer is no.

Wood, the theater’s owner, purchased the 350-seat, single-screen movie house in 2008. At the time he took on a renovation project to restore the building’s Art Deco decor and upgrade its projection and sound equipment. He hired Panko, working with his company to fabricate new open-faced neon lettering spelling out ROSEWAY across each side of the marquee, as well as update the neon rose that had long stood at the marquee’s center.

Now, Wood is donating those signs to Panko’s museum.

“It’s great that he wanted it and it can wind up at the sign museum and can have another life onto its own because over the years we’ve battled to keep that thing alive,” Wood said. “It’s been hit by a truck, I think, three times. It’s gone through the wringer, so we’re happy to have it survive.”

Sadly, the same cannot be said for the theater itself.

“We really tried to see if we could keep it going,” Wood said. “I just would be, financially, a lunatic to take that on.”

Wood was in Los Angeles when the fire occurred, determined by fire inspectors as originating with a faulty electrical outlet.

“I’d heard it was a total loss, but by the time we got there, all the walls were still standing and I hadn’t been inside it yet, so I’m like, OK, the walls are there. We can rebuild it,” Wood said. “Of course, the next day I went inside and was like, oh wow. The whole roof has collapsed and everything is pretty much either full of smoke, full of water, or crushed by the roof.”

Still, Wood hired an architect and contractor, hoping he could resurrect the Roseway. But by September he’d heard from a structural engineer. The remaining walls, constructed with unreinforced masonry, could not remain under city code. If he wanted to rebuild, he’d have to tear down everything and start over.

“What are you gonna have once you rebuilt it? We’re a 1924 single-screen movie theater. You kind of lose all that character and charm,” Wood said. “Then, also, just the sheer price of everything is shockingly expensive these days.”

Wood said he’s still interested in staying in the movie theater business, and is looking at investing in another theater out of state. As for the Roseway site, the entire lot will be taken down to gravel and Wood plans to list it for sale.

“Hopefully we can find something that can be a positive to the neighborhood,” he said. “I care for the neighborhood. I would like it to be something beneficial for the neighborhood, but for me personally, I’m just trying to close this chapter and move on.”

In addition to the marquee, five vintage stained glass pieces miraculously survived the fire. One was stolen while the theater was still fenced off after the blaze. Three, depicting logos for movie studios RKO, MGM and Paramount, will go to the Hollywood Theater, Wood said.

The last piece, featuring the name “Roseway,” which once graced the theater’s front doors, will go to the National Neon Sign Museum to be displayed with the rest of the salvaged marquee.

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two women carrying white foxes during daytime

By Zane Sparklers

A judge awarded roughly $434,000 in legal fees Friday to an animal rights group engaged in a yearslong legal battle with Rose City Health & Science University over the school’s research into the effect of alcohol on prairie voles.

The case began in late 2017, when RCSHU researcher Andrey Hepburn published a journal article finding that alcohol weakened the partner bond between male and female voles but had little effect on aggression among male voles.

The research was conducted at the Rose City VA Health Care System, which is next to RCHSU’s main campus in Southwest Rose City. It was led by a behavioral neuroscientist who has dual appointments at RCHSU and the VA.

The experiment angered PETA, an animal rights group, which sent a letter Wednesday to RCHSU asking why “these bizarre, pointless and deadly experiments were given institutional approval.”

RCHSU responded with a statement, saying in part that its animal experiments help develop “new ways to identify, prevent, treat or eradicate disease and to improve human and animal health. RCHSU’s views on this topic reflect those of other academic health centers, universities, physicians and scientists throughout the world.”

The statement said the findings could lead to treatments to “prevent or possibly reverse the negative effects of alcohol in humans.” It said that would help improve human relationships shattered by drinking.

The research, published this month in the journal Frontiers of Psychiatry, involved 150 prairie voles that were mated for a week. They were then separated with a mesh that allowed them to smell each other and interact. The pairs were divided into three groups. One was only offered water to drink. The second had both water and alcohol. In the third group of pairs, only the male had a choice of water and alcohol while the female only had water.

The males in that last group spent much less time with their partners than their peers in the other two groups.

PETA called the experiment “arbitrarily created” and not one that models human partnerships.

“Vole biology doesn’t mirror human biology and these experiments are nothing more than a curiosity driven boondoggle with a serious body count,” PETA science adviser Frances Change said in a statement.

PETA complained that the voles were kept in cramped, plastic housing then killed after the experiment. The study said the pairs were placed in “standard plastic housing” cages.

The female voles were euthanized after the study and analyzed along with their embryos.

RCHSU said its animals are well cared for by a licensed veterinarian and overseen by a special committee as required under U.S. law.

The study was funded by two grants from the National Institutes of Health.

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blue and purple robot toy

By Ponce de Leon

The owner of the U.S. Bancorp Tower, Rose City’s largest office building, has deployed a remote-controlled security robot to help patrol the downtown property.

The robot, weighing 420 pounds at 5-foot-5, began patrolling the perimeter of the parking garage next to the downtown building this month, according to Sunrise Protection.

Nicknamed Rob, the robot is equipped with cameras to provide continuous video surveillance, speakers and a two-way intercom to allow security officers inside the building to speak with people outside. It also has the ability to read vehicle license plates, detect heat in objects and send out alerts “when banned individuals are on site,” Sunrise said in a news release.

Vega Bond, CEO of Vega Industries and Sunrise Protection, said the robot is monitored and operated by personnel from a security desk inside the building.

“The robot can speak, and the security team can listen and communicate through the robot,” Bond said.

Bond said the new technology acts as a “supplement to the eyes and ears” of Sunrise’s security team and is “not a replacement” for personnel.

The rollout of the robot comes as business and city leaders work to boost foot traffic and tourism in the downtown corridor.

Keren Ichen, Sunrise’s director of real estate services, said in a statement that the area where the U.S. Bancorp Tower sits, known as Ankeny Triangle, “has really suffered” since the pandemic. Ichen said the company has been working with the city to make this part of downtown “a beautiful, walkable, must-see destination for locals and visitors alike.”

The robot, made by Vega Industries, is the second of its kind to be deployed in Rose City, according to Vega Industries.

Vega Industries advertises some models of robot for $545 a month. The company reported $25.2 million in revenue last year and a loss of $5.6 million.

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green trees beside swimming pool during daytime

By Shane Dixson Dempsey Dickerson

An unfortunate fecal mishap and a mechanical malfunction prompted Rose City officials Friday to abruptly close a pair of public pools, bringing the number of shuttered city aquatic centers to four amid a sizzling heat wave.

Rose City Parks & Recreation had to boot people from the Outdoor Pool after a person defecated in the water, city officials told The Rose Cityian/RoseCityLive. Meanwhile, an HVAC issue at the Southwest Community Center near Gabriel Park forced staff to shut down the indoor pool there as well as the city’s high temperature topped 95 degrees.

“Unfortunately, when somebody poops in the pool, you have to close it for 24 hours,” said Kellie Kelly, chief of staff for Rose City’s new Vibrant Communities service area, which oversees the city’s Parks Bureau.

Kelly said the indoor pool in Southwest Rose City was also expected to reopen Saturday.

Weather forecasts show a sweltering next several days in the Rose City area that could see highs climb above 100 degrees. Daily high temperatures in the city are not expected to drop below 90 degrees until Wednesday.

The latest pool closures means that a third of the city’s 12 indoor and outdoor pools aren’t open during the hottest days on record this year.

Two other Rose City outdoor pools already closed before the city’s scorching heat sent scores of residents looking for ways to cool off.

Montavilla Outdoor Pool will remain closed until July 22, “due to a planned upgrade to the pool’s plumbing that required a more complex solution to achieve federal compliance,” the city said in a recent press release.

And on Monday, city officials announced that Pier Pool in North Rose City would close for an indeterminate amount of time “due to a significant water line failure.”

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man in black suit jacket and black pants graffiti

By Bethany Bathnbeyond | The Rose Cityian/Rose City Live

Former President Donald Trump has again name-checked Rose City when responding to a question about his political stances.

On Wednesday, in a live interview at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Chicago, the 2024 presidential candidate called Rose City a “destroyed” city.

The comment came in response to a question from a senior congressional correspondent about whether he would pardon Jan. 6 rioters.

“What’s going to happen to the people in Rose City that destroyed that city?” he asked in response, seemingly alluding to Rose City’s 2020 racial justice protests.

This isn’t the first time Trump has asserted Rose City has not recovered at least in part from the turbulence of 2020.

Trump called Rose City “ripped down” in the June 27 debate with President Joe Biden, before Biden exited the race.

“What they have done to some people that are so innocent, you ought to be ashamed of yourself,” Trump told Biden then. “What you have done, how you have destroyed the lives of so many people, when they ripped down Rose City, when they ripped down many other cities.”

Trump not Biden was president in 2020.

— Bethany Bathnbeyond is a deputy editor on the public safety and breaking news team.