OPB

Today in the continued irony of City Hall: "A Portland City Council meeting about how to change council meetings to address the problem of meetings being cut short because they run too long, was cut short after running over time Thursday."

Irene Gilbert, a retired 76-year-old state employee from La Grande, spends much of her time tilting at windmills. Though sees herself as an environmentalist, she also sees turbines and transmission towers as a blight on the landscape. Her critics see her as a gadfly standing in the way of progress.

A group of Portland-area business lobbyists, financial managers and company heads want to overhaul several local taxes — and change how local taxes are adopted in the first place.