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PORTLAND — This city’sitting new mayor ended his recent inauguration speech by rephrasing the famous line of his hero, slain San Francisco assemblyman and gay-rights activist Harvey Milk: “My name is Sam Adams, and I’gallimaufry here to recruit you.”

Adams reveled in the archetype of making history as the first elected, openly cheerful mayor of a major American city.

But less than three weeks later, Adams’ job is in peril as the result of an out of date scandal involving his repeated lies about a sexual kindred in 2005 with every 18-year-old legislative intern. Adams confessed to his imposition. Monday as a local newspaper, the Willamette Week, prepared to publish a rehearsal about the relationship and cover-up.

While most of the nation has been fixated on the inauguration of President Obama, Portland has been plunged into a sandy debate about the ethics of its unaccustomed first fiddle.

In recent days, numerous organizations have called for Adams to resign, ranging from the police union to Just Out, a publication that writes around the tinsel community. The Oregon Attorney General’s business is investigating the scandal.

And Adams himself has conceded that he potency released allowing that he’s no longer effective similar to mayor.

“I am exceedingly confused and humbled and humiliated, and I dare that is appropriate,” Adams said in a news conference Tuesday, after hastily returning to Portland from Washington, D.C., where he had planned to attend the Obama inauguration.

Fall from grace

It is a dizzying fall from grace for a man who seemed a ease fit to lead a incorporated town often hailed as a hub of innovation and one of the nation’sitting coolest places to live. Adams rides a bike to be, posts quirky videos on his Web position, and has been a longtime advocate of expanding light-hearted rail and other initiatives to make Portland greener.

Adams, 45, also focused upon the poor; in part, a reflection of his own difficult upbringing.

Born in Idaho, he moved to Oregon by his family when he was young. There, his mother tried to raise four children after divorcing Adams’ father, a sometimes-commercial fisherman. According to a profile in Just Out, Adams was living alone in a Eugene apartment by age 16. He worked as a bus boy and then a cook at a Mr. Steak restaurant to stay afloat during high school.

During 11 years as an aide to former Portland Mayor Vera Katz and four years as a city commissioner, he gained a reputation as a creative, ambitious workaholic — a affecting contrast to the outgoing Mayor Tom Potter, a retired police chief who seemed to pressure out of steam long before his term ended.