Jeez, I didn't know the Old Boy Network included the owner of Fantasy Adult Video, the owner of City Liquidators and the Portland Trailblazers, all of whom gave Cogen more money than Tom Imeson.

I voted for Lou, but Cogen's donation list seems like a pretty good cross section of Portland.

In honor of your earlier post Jack, on the day Hope Meadows being given Ball school and lots of Help today to the tune of several hundred thousand dollars, I will chose my favorite donation to Jeff is from Rhonda Meadows listed donating on 9/9/2005. She is listed as an HR Consultant for The HR Solution, however when you look it up the LLC by that name, Rhonda is the Registered Agent, but the business was administratively disolved on 1/30/2004. But but fear not, the HR Consultant is not unemployed, same address, on 12/20/2004 Portland Hope Meadows,LLC is formed. Guess who is the President of Hope Meadows at the same address, recipiant of today's gift from Council, Rhonda Meadows.

Silly question, on 9/9/2005 the donation date if HRSolution was disolved on 1/30/2004, and Hope Meadows was born on 12/20/2004. Shouldn't Rhonda have listed President of Hope Meadows as her employment.

Gil Johnson: Give me a break, pal. Cogen's contributors include Homer Williams, Debi Coleman, Carl Talton of "Portland Family of Funds," Mark Edlen, Comcast, Pamplin, Natural Gas PAC, Bill Furman and a Mrs. Furman, Melvin Mark, Len Bergstein's firm, Marty Brantley, Robert Ball, Tom Walsh, Steve Janik, Realtors PAC, Standard Insurance, Harold Schnitzer, Harry Demorest, Bill Scott, Kroger, Safeway, Henry Hewitt, Richard Alexander -- that's just about every Good Old Boy in the book!

If by 'old boy network' you mean 'Goldschmidt network', I draw your attention to page 26 of Lew's report. Goldschmidt, Steve... "Consultant, Self". Equipment loan and cash. This isn't to say I'm voting for Cogen...

Cogen's donor list doesn't scream 'Good ol boy network' as much as it does 'Business Association Panderer'.

Len Bergstein, Tom Walsh and Bill Scott are all from the very, very inner Neil Goldschmidt sanctum.

The others may not be Goldschmidt boys, but they're still Old Boys (and Girls).

You'll also see my name on Cogan's updated report, and I'm nowhere near an Old Boy (or Girl - I might be chronologically, but certainly not from a mover and shaker and influencer POV.)

Cogan's campaign is asking for money, and he's attended a lot of house parties thrown on his behalf (the one I attended two weeks ago was his 80-something house party.) And after listening to him speak, I know why people are supporting him financially. It's not that they think they'll get him in their pockets - it's because the man has specific, concrete ideas. He's got a rep as a behind the scenes mediator, able to get different factions to the table. And he wasn't afraid to call out the dysfunction that currently exists on the board of commissioners - something his opponent's been sidestepping, from what I understand.

I'm not on his campaign staff, nor am I a volunteer. But after speaking to him a few times one on one, and seeing him unobtrusively attend meetings for causes I care deeply about, I think he's getting tarred unfairly as a 'old boy' candidate.

C'mon, Betsy, how is "calling out the dysfunction that currently exists" (something surely everyone in the county is aware of anyway) going to help Cogan work with the three remaining exerienced commissioners if he gets elected? Lew hasn't been "sidestepping" this issue, he's been purposefully avoiding throwing gasoline on the fire, even if it would help get him elected. The way to get people to work together isn't to berate them in public, it's quietly talking behind the scenes to build respectful relationships.... as you note in your previous sentence.

Jack,

Credit to Mr. Karlock. He spent hours diligently scanning the reports you’ve posted.

I thought you might be interested in what is coming… beginning in January 2007.

From the SOS page http://www.sos.state.or.us/elections/c&e/ebs2.html

The Secretary of State becomes the filing officer for all candidates and committees, except chief petitioner committees for local initiative, referendum and recall petitions.

All committees, other than chief petitioner committees, will be required to file their campaign finance information electronically. Committees will have the option of data entering transaction information using a web-based system provided by the Secretary of State or uploading transaction information into the Secretary of State's system using an XML file format.

Multnomah County choose not to pursue the expense of an online campaign finance system after the 2005 legislature directed the Secretary of State to develop an electronic filing system for campaign finance. Currently, only the Secretary of State has campaign finance reporting on their web. We are excited too see this system come to fruition and hope it will make life easier for everyone.

There are some pretty useful page scanners that you feed en-masse like a copier... you can set them to scan 50-100 pages into one convenient PDF document. Rather efficient and affordable I might add.

There is no excuse for not doing so, unless the cost of hosting these 200 kb documents is expensive. Reeeeeeaaaaly doubtful.

The City of Portland's system has been online for quite some time.

It shouldn't be too expensive. Costco has great scanners for a few hundred bucks, and the county already has the bandwidth. The copy machines you already have can probably create the files. A tech-savvy young person could have you set up in half a day.

Anyway, good to hear that someone is getting involved.

"The way to get people to work together isn't to berate them in public, it's quietly talking behind the scenes to build respectful relationships.... as you note in your previous sentence."

I am not sure "working together" is a good in itself.It matters toward WHAT people are working together.

And I think there is already too much quiet talking behind the scenes and too much focus on relationships, relationships that lead to mutual back scratching and favor trading, not to understanding and appreciation of the general public interest. Imho, debate of these issues,however uncomfortable, ought to be squarely in the public eye.

I think the issue is time involved and searchability. The technology is there to scan, but the new online system will be searchable. Me, I'd rather do a quick data search then spend a couple of minutes waiting on a 13Mb .pdf download on a high speed connection.

Of course, but I'd like to have something crude right now rather than nothing.

CES,

Uh, a b&w scanned document, even at 50 pages, wouldn't be anything near 13mb... they don't need to be high res, just something of copier quality. Do you know of what you're talking about?

Like I said, a cheap auto-feed scanner does a passable job. They do it for other public documents, why not this?

Tkrueg There are some pretty useful page scanners that you feed en-masse like a copier... you can set them to scan 50-100 pages into one convenient PDF document. Rather efficient and affordable I might add.
JK: Care to mention something better than my $150 combo FAX/scan/printer 3 pg/min (real measured) that I use?

Tkrueg Uh, a b&w scanned document, even at 50 pages, wouldn't be anything near 13mb... they don't need to be high res, just something of copier quality. Do you know of what you're talking about?
JK: It is 130 pages scanned at 300 DPI BW, not grayscale, I am a little unclear why that file came out at around 100K/page. I’ll have to have a look at the PDF conversion settings for the next batch.

Thanks
JK

Need to check, but 72 dpi seems sufficient.

TKruegNeed to check, but 72 dpi seems sufficient.
JK: 72 DPI won't go through my OCR, 150 is poor unless greyscale (and the faxed pages start out marginal).

Thanks
JK

Currently, only the Secretary of State has campaign finance reporting on their web.

Not true. Metro has it, as well as the City of Portland.