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Up-to-the-minute local stories at portlandtribune.com

Predator and prey

Bounty hunters stalk fish
that eat young salmon
— See SUSTAINABLE LIFE, C1

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2008 • TWICE CHOSEN THE NATION’S BEST NONDAILY PAPER • WWW.PORTLANDTRIBUNE.COM • PUBLISHED THURSDAY

■ More area homeowners at risk as foreclosure proceedings double

MORTGAGE 97203

121
97217

128
97211 97218
The bursting bubble
Map shows number of Portland
homes in foreclosure or seized by
banks as of early October, by zip code

LOSSES
123 51
97227 97212 97220
97230
97210
14 55
97213
135 115
17 59

MOUNTING
97209
97232 10
52
97205 4 97204 97214 97215 97216 97233
97201 0
29 39 45 158
97221 21
13 97239
97202 97206
By STEVE LAW
The Tribune 31 58 178 97266 97236

Uncle Sam is bailing out Wall

Street wheeler-dealers who invested
in home loans, but there’s no relief in
sight for the homeowners on Main
Street.
On Southeast Main east of 144th Av-
enue, stretching from outer Southeast
Portland into Gresham, 14 homeowners
have been hit with foreclosure filings in
the past year, plus scores more in near-
by blocks.
■ Judy Myer pawned her wedding
ring and stopped taking prescribed med-
icines in a futile bid to save her Southeast
Main Street home of 18 years, after hus-
band Mark Myer lost his job and his un-
employment benefits expired.
■ Judy’s son, Steve, who lives down
the street, got socked with foreclosure af-
ter his 7-year-old daughter required
heart surgery. Steve took out a second
mortgage to cover the medical bills, then
fell behind on house payments after suf-
97219
83
Source: VisionCore, a division of First American Loan Performance
fering an on-the-job injury.
■ Across the street from the Myers,
Ron Zitzewitz just got a six-month notice
to vacate his mother’s home — one
month after she died. Zitzewitz, 51, isn’t
old enough to assume his mother’s re-
versible mortgage, and can’t refinance
the loan because he’s permanently dis-
abled.
Portland is no real-estate basket case
like Las Vegas or Phoenix. But the na-
tional foreclosure crisis that initially
spared Portland has arrived here in a big
202 194
TRIBUNE GRAPHIC: PETE VOGEL
way, bringing more human suffering and an enviable 332nd- SOUND
dampening housing prices. highest foreclosure
The number of Multnomah County rating among the na- OFF
residents in jeopardy of losing their tion’s 383 metropolitan ■ Comment on this
homes has nearly doubled in the last areas. But by August and other stories
at www.portland
year, based on the number immersed in 2008, Portland jumped
tribune.com.
foreclosure proceedings. Over the spring to 254th-highest, ac-
and summer, 300 Multnomah County cording to First Amer-
homeowners a month got slapped with ican CoreLogic, which provides real
foreclosure notices — topping the peak estate data services.
levels reached in the last recession of “There’s a shakeout right now, and
2001-02.
In August 2007, the Portland area had See MORTGAGE / Page 2

“There’s a shakeout right now, and we’re failing on all cylinders.” — JERRY JOHNSON, REAL ESTATE ECONOMIST
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: PETE VOGEL

All’s quiet in Recycling roll carts ThisWeek

Online
the race for are doing the job Local stories that you
read about first at
www.portlandtribune.com

City Council ment. Although it is the only

Publicly funded contest
between Fritz, Lewis
maintains low profile
By JIM REDDEN
The Tribune
In less than three weeks,
Portland taxpayers likely will
have spent more than $1 mil-
lion to fill the City Council
seat being vacated by Mayor-
elect Sam Adams.
The two remaining chal-
lengers for the seat — Amanda
Fritz and Charles Lewis — both
are funding their campaigns
through the city’s public cam-
paign finance program.
They defeated four other pub-
licly funded candidates in the
2008 primary election. Between
them, Fritz and Lewis alone are
on track to receive and spend
more than half the public money
that will be spent in the race —
nearly $684,000.
But despite the amount of
money taxpayers are investing in
the race, it has so far generated
very little apparent public excite-
council race on the Nov. 4 gener-
al election ballot, it has not been
a referendum on the future of the
city — or even on any of the is-
sues facing it, ranging from the
economic slowdown to the possi-
ble large population increases
predicted for
the next few
decades. Inside
“It’s like ■ Measure 56:
they’ve fallen Should double-
off the face of majority rule be
the Earth,” said amended?
Mike Fahey, a Page A7
former state ■ Measure 57
legislator from and 61: Two
St. Johns who initiatives would
also ran for the boost prison
seat and re- population, for
ceived a little a price.
more than 10
Page A8
percent in the
primary.
Portland pollster Tim Hibbitts
agreed. He sees several reasons
for the lack of visibility, including
the other higher-profile races on
the November ballot.
“The race has gotten lost in the
See RACE / Page 4
Though inefficiency
still mars process,
collection rates are up
By PETER KORN
The Tribune
Some things just don’t
make sense.
Take the city’s latest recy-
cling program, spearheaded by
those new 60-gallon recycling
bins on rollers that were intro-
duced to most Portland neigh-
borhoods this summer.
They’re bigger than the old
yellow bins that collected wa-
ter in the ridges on the bottom.
Heck — you can fit just about
anything in the new ones,
which has become a problem.
More on that in a moment.
But if efficiency is critical to
recycling — and we’ve been
told it is — then how can hav-
ing people dump everything
except glass containers into
one large bin be more effi-
cient?
Somebody has to sort out the
tin cans from the magazines
from the junk mail from the
newsprint. Until the new con-
tainers rolled out this summer,
planting pots and most plastic
tubs couldn’t be recycled curb-
Workers at Far West Fibers do the initial sorting of commingled
recycled products. With the new roll carts, residential customers
don’t have to separate their trash as much, but more winnowing is
required at the sorting station.
side. Now we just throw them
right in.
Well, according to Steve
Apotheker, senior recycling
planner for Metro regional
government — which is in
charge of coordinating waste
removal for the metro area —
the new system is, and isn’t,
more efficient.
The new bins have attached
covers. Which means people
can put anything into them and
the haulers, who just dump the
whole load into their truck
TRIBUNE PHOTO: L.E. BASKOW
compactors, won’t see. They
won’t see the contraband Sty-
rofoam pellets and blocks peo-
ple have been putting in. Or the
plastic bags that aren’t sup-
posed to be in there, either.
It’s become a problem. What
Metro calls “prohibitives” have
risen from 0.5 percent before
the new cans were introduced
to about 6 percent of recycling
material people set out.
And when haulers take all
See RECYCLING / Page 5
■ NEWS — Freightliner
announces closure of
plant, layoffs — Mayor Tom
Potter announces Freightliner’s
plans to close its North Ameri-
can truck plant in Portland in
2010 and reduce its head-
quarters staff. (Published on
portlandtribune.com Tuesday,
Oct. 14.) Search word: Freight-
liner
■ A heated campaign —
Two Portland men are arrest-
ed for allegedly tossing a
Molotov cocktail at a large
John McCain campaign sign
in Southeast Portland early
Saturday morning. (Published
Saturday, Oct. 11.) Search
word: McCain
SPORTS — Vive le
Batum! — Nicolas Batum, a
19-year-old Trail Blazer rookie
from France, is earning playing
time with his defense and over-
all improve-
ment. Batum
might start at
small forward
for the injured
Martell Web-
ster. (Pub-
lished Sun-
day, Oct. 12)
Search word:
Batum BATUM

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