If the Oregon Supreme Court agrees with Gary Haugen, the death row inmate convicted twice of murder, Governor Kitzhaber will have a choice to make: Let Haugen’s execution go ahead, or refuse again. Haugen wants to be executed, he says, to demonstrate problems with the death penalty. That seems like a weird way of showing […]
The other day the Pentagon press secretary was speaking of an incident in which an Iranian fighter was tailing an American spy drone over the Persian Gulf but was warned off. He said the U.S. told Iran that “we reserve the right to protect our military assets as well as our forces and will continue […]
We have been told in the press that the new pope’s name is simply Francis. No Roman numeral behind it, like Francis I. But that’s not strictly correct, is it? Francis is not the name he took. He took the name Franciscus, after the 13th century Italian who took a vow of poverty, founded the […]
So what exactly is “new debt”? It can be hard to agree on that point even though the words themselves are not especially tricky. Albany voters approved an initiative amending the city charter on new debt. Basically, although there are some wrinkles, it says the city must get approval at an election for any new debt. […]
Voters in Albany almost cost themselves an extra $5.6 million, but the city administration deftly saved them from that expensive mistake. The mistake was to approve a debt limitation in the city charter, which ostensibly requires voter approval of any new debt even if property taxes are not pledged to repay it. If the city […]
When you drive around Albany, does it seem to you that there’s been a marked change in driving behavior since, say, 2008? No? Not to me either, even though the population, and therefore traffic, has grown a little. I’m wondering about this because there’s been a steep decline in the number of traffic tickets written […]
The final element in Albany’s long-running project to restore and rebuild Albany Station is about to be added, if the Oregon Transportation Committee goes along. The commission meets in Salem on March 20. It’s scheduled to act on a request to allocate $335,530 in federal grant funds toward the construction of a walking and […]
