PORTLAND DRIZZLE

Thursday Heat advisory finally breaks tonight, Thursday tops out at a downright reasonable 87 with clearing skies. Also cooling off: a dozen 2024 council candidates, after Oregon's DOJ said they likely broke campaign finance law.

Willamette Week's Best of Portland issue dropped this week, and buried inside is a genuine hidden gem: an electron microscope repair shop behind unmarked windows in NW Portland's Alphabet District. Nanographs' Adam McCombs, 27, leases part of a warehouse once run by late OMSI designer Shab Levy, whose trove of unexplained gadgets remains untouched. McCombs fixes machines magnifying up to 50 million times, Reagan-era units corporate labs tossed for negligibly better replacements. His trick: an open-source hack letting them capture digital images instead of Polaroids. Willamette Week

Portland City Council passed an ordinance this week preserving 30 city positions, in transportation, water, parks and environmental services, plus eight unarmed police support specialist jobs, extra Fire & Rescue hours, and $3 million for police training. The moderate plan, backed by Councilors Clark, Novick, Pirtle-Guiney and Smith, pulls roughly $12 million from the general fund contingency. It beat out a rival progressive plan to save 48 jobs using climate fund interest, the one Mayor Wilson killed with his first-ever tiebreaking vote. Centrists win round two. Willamette Week

The Oregon Department of Justice says 12 candidates for Portland office in 2024, including sitting Councilor Eric Zimmerman, likely broke state law by swapping campaign donations with each other to unlock public financing dollars. A DOJ letter, first reported by WW, says the group violated a law barring undue influence to induce contributions, a Class C felony. No criminal charges: state attorneys chalked it up to first-time jitters under Portland's brand-new ranked-choice council system. Their parting shot: try that again, and it's a very different conversation. Willamette Week

Have you ever wondered about this scultpture in front of the Moda Center? Little Prince, by artist Ilan Averbuch, is a 15-foot copper and steel crown installed in 1995 near the Moda Center in Portland's Rose Quarter. It was inspired by the book by Antoine De Saint-Exupery. Resting on its side, partially buried, it invites viewers to imagine their own story: a fallen relic, a trophy waiting to be claimed, or a monument to conquest and ambition.

Mae Harrington, the first woman to hold a position on a hospital staff in Oregon, was born in Cherry Hill, Pennsylvania, on this date in 1853.

I guess if you’re a city councilor you can just sort of break the law it’s fine.

by Michael Simpson Contact: [email protected]