City May Repay Ratepayers for Cleanup
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CHECK OUT EVENT PREVIEWS SINGER JEREMY WILSON IN WEEKEND!LIFE SEE LIFE, B1 PortlandTribune THURSDAY, MARCH 6, 2014 • TWICE CHOSEN THE NATION’S BEST NONDAILY PAPER • PORTLANDTRIBUNE.COM • PUBLISHED TUESDAY AND THURSDAY Brian Druker Youth give has big plans for OHSU’s Knight Cancer Institute Rose City should the university meet Phil Knight’s a liberal challenge grant and have $1 billion to spend. Decreasing shimmer federal funding for research Poll: Portlanders more could play into OHSU’s plan to likely to be renters, lure top scientists to young, well-educated Portland by promising they By JIM REDDEN The Tribune can work as scientists, not fundraisers. Portland hasn’t always been as liberal as it is now. TRIBUNE PHOTO: The 2013 Oregon Values & JAIME VALDEZ Beliefs Project survey shows it is far more liberal than the rest of the metro area TRIB and the rest of the state. A full 43 percent SERIES of Portlanders LEANING describe TO THE LEFT themselves as SECOND OF “very liberal” THREE PARTS on social is- THE BILLION sues, com- pared with just 11 percent of the rest of the region and 13 percent of OHSU plan the rest of the state. But it wasn’t always that DOLLAR MAN way. For most of its 153 years, Portland politics were domi- would put nated by conservative busi- nessmen, and the City Council carried out the wishes of the ■ Chamber of Commerce. It Can Brian Druker use Phil scientists wasn’t until a young legal aid lawyer named Neil Gold- Knight’s bucks to turn OHSU schmidt was elected to the back in lab council in 1970 that the tide be- gan to change. His election as into a top cancer research center? the youngest mayor of any ma- By PETER KORN jor American city two years The Tribune later signaled the growing By PETER KORN nothing: if OHSU doesn’t raise the number of liberals in Portland. The Tribune match, they don’t get anything. Imagine you’re a top-level cancer After Goldschmidt resigned Dr. Brian Druker, director of the scientist. You’ve got a lab at a major as mayor to became U.S. Secre- regon Health & Science Institute, told legislators that if research institution with three or four tary of Transportation in 1979, University two weeks ago the matching grant goes through, researchers who work for you, the however, voters replaced him went to the Legislature OHSU could become one of the na- principal investigator. Every year you with a conser- Oasking for $200 million in tion’s top cancer research institu- apply for highly competitive National Survey vative Demo- bonding authority for a new South tions. More than a few present were Institutes of Health grants to keep your results crat, Commis- Waterfront building. But what the left wondering if that wasn’t a bit operation going. sioner Frank heavyweights at OHSU also were of hyperbole on Druker’s part. The Now, imagine the Knight Cancer Insti- ■ To see the Ivancie. Al- asking for was a $200 million contri- answer? Maybe not. tute in Portland makes you a different kind original survey though Ivan- bution that can count toward the If OHSU gets its $1 billion, it plans of offer. Forget spending a lot of your time results, visit cie was re- $500 million they need to match Phil an approach to scientifi c research on seeking funding, you’re told. We’ll give oregonvalues project.org. placed by lib- Knight’s billion-dollar challenge. that could send shockwaves through TRIBUNE PHOTO; JAIME VALDEZ you the equivalent of an endowed chair for eral small- Knight announced six months ago the nation’s scientifi c community. OHSU hopes to build its research 10 years, all the money you and your team businessman that he would give the OHSU Knight Few today would say the Knight prestige around early detection and need to just focus on the science. And we’ll Bud Clark four years later, the Cancer Institute $500 million if, with- Cancer Institute is one of the na- analysis of cancer cells such as these put you in an institute where 20 to 30 other council still had at least one in two years, OHSU can raise a half- tion’s top research institutions. cancer cells from a leukemia patient, top teams are doing the same, and all of genuine conservative as late as billion dollars on its own. And the being readied for testing at the Knight 1990, Portland police Officer deal, according to Knight, was all or See CANCER / Page 2 Cancer Institute. See LAB / Page 3 Bob Koch. Ever since then, however, no member of the council could be considered conservative. Few conservatives have even both- ered to run for it. The three major candidates for mayor in 2008 — Charlie Hales, Jeffer- son Smith and Eileen Brady — City may repay ratepayers for cleanup shared so many liberal posi- tions that political reporters had trouble fi nding any signifi - cant policy differences among A cool $52 million in Superfund them. In fact, after Hales and See POLL / Page 12 bucks collected via our sewer bills By STEVE LAW city in 2011 and accused city “Chris Dudley got The Tribune commissioners of using water and sewer rates as a “slush Travis Williams around 30 percent of Portland sewer customers fund” for unrelated projects. of the Willamette the vote in Portland, have shelled out money via Now city offi cials are promis- Rivekeeper their utility bills for 13 years ing that sewer ratepayers will which is more than the (center) leads to cover city spending for fed- be reimbursed once the Super- percent of registered a recent eral Superfund work on the fund cleanup moves forward, educational tour Willamette — though the and say that was their intention Republican voters. of the Superfund sewers had little to do with all along. There are pro-choice site in Portland the toxic sediment contami- “There’s never been any un- Harbor for nating the river. derstanding that it’s all going to Republicans and right- people on canoes The city’s Superfund expendi- be on the back of city ratepay- to-life Democrats.” and kayaks. tures — topping $52 million — ers,” says Dean Marriott, direc- TRIBUNE PHOTO: were one of the big-ticket items — Kari Chisholm, Mandate Media STEVE LAW cited by critics who sued the See SUPERFUND / Page 5 “Pamplin Media Group’s pledge is to Portland Tribune deliver balanced news that refl ects the DEMOS EYE PLAYOFFS stories of our communities. Thank you Inside — SEE SPORTS, PAGE B8 for reading our newspapers.” — DR. ROBERT B. PAMPLIN JR. OWNER & NEIGHBOR 480033.030614 A2 NEWS The Portland Tribune Thursday, March 6, 2014 Cancer: OHSU may recruit ‘dream teams’ ■ From page 1 Funding from the National In- stitutes of Health’s National Cancer Institute is widely re- garded as a barometer for as- sessing the success of a re- search institution. OHSU was not even among the 60 cancer institutions that received $15 million or more from the NCI in 2012, the last year for which complete data is available. Consider OHSU’s competi- tion in the world of cancer re- search. M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston received $118 million in NCI research funding in 2012. Next up was the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Re- search Center in Seattle, which earned $86 million in cancer grant funding. In 2012, the Knight Institute received about $12 million in direct NCI grants, although OHSU officials say their grant numbers for 2013 were signifi cantly higher. Another barometer for rank- ing cancer institutes is their designation from the NCI. There are 68 NCI-designated cancer centers, including the Knight Institute. That designa- tion refl ects “scientifi c leader- ship, resources and capabilities in laboratory, clinical or popula- tion science, or some combina- tion of these three compo- nents,” according to Ryan TRIBUNE PHOTO: JAIME VALDEZ Hohman, director of policy and OHSU research assistant Michelle Degnin begins the process of taking a leukemia patient’s blood to identify its specifi c cancer pathway. public affairs for the Washing- ton, D.C.-based Friends of Can- cer Research. But only 41 of landscape just might make it universities unless they can lion to purchase the latest imag- those are designated compre- more possible than ever that a bring their entire lab team, Preliminary breakdown of spending ing and early detection tech- hensive cancer centers, which newly wealthy university such which might include four or by the Knight Cancer Institute nologies. And $250 million basically puts them toward the as OHSU could attract a dream more other scientists. OHSU, would fund a permanent en- top of the heap. OHSU has nev- team of researchers. with the Knight grant in hand, (should it realize $1 billion Knight matching grant): dowment for the cancer insti- er attained that status. First, even many top re- could afford to bring in those ■ $440 million to recruit scientists for 10-year initiative on tute, with the annual interest So OHSU would need to leap- searchers around the country teams — another bonus. early detection from that money available to frog dozens of cancer research are fi nding it diffi cult to fund “If you pull in a top cancer ■ $250 million permanent endowment scientists. An additional $60 to institutions to make Druker’s their labs in an era of diminish- researcher and he brings four ■ $100 million to expand Institute’s clinical trials capacity $70 million would be placed in claim. But $1 bil- ing federal science people under him, those four ■ $100 million investment in advanced biocomputing equipment an innovation fund, which basi- lion just might budgets.