Street roots
May 27, 2011
3
■ I l a Y T V iM
Loretta
Smith
Multnomah County’s District 2 commissioner
is taking stock o f the needs of her constituents,
beginning with a groundbreaking forum for
African-Americans
BY JOANNE ZUHL
S T A FF W R ITE R
iven that Loretta Smith is only the
second African-American elected to
the Multnomah County Board of
Commissioners, it’s not suprising that one
of her first major events was the press the
question, why? What was needed in her
North and Northeast district - and across
Multnomah County — to help people
succeed, to get involved in government arid
to create a more positive record?
The forum was a resounding success, X
with hundreds in attendance and similar
events planned for the future for all
communities of color. Now, Smith has taken
on board the tall order of meeting those
needs, not the least of which are jobs,
housing and opportunity. Not the easiests of
tasks when budgets on all fronts are leaving
little room for trying anything new.
I y
Joanne Zuhl: Tell me about the African-
American forum you held recently.
Loretta Smith: They’ve historically not
been asked, hence the big engagement,
What we tried to do was see what they
needed to succeed. I thought it went over
well. It was well attended. There were well
over 200 plus people, standing room only. It
was very surprising so many people
attended.
J.Z.: What were the ages?
L.S.: From 12 to 77. We originally did a
call for 12 to 25. More than half of them
were, but I think when other people found
out that this was going to be a meeting to
discuss African-American males, they didn’t
care how old they were, they just wanted to
be part of the conversation. So word just ‘
spread. They showed up and they were lined
up outside the door.
J.Z.: What does that tell you?
L.S.: That tells me that they were very
excited and hungry to give their views about
what’s going on with them personally, and
that they’ve not been asked before and that
this was an opportunity to get theircvoice
heard. It also tells me that I need to make
sure that I follow up and do what Isaid I
was going to do. And I’m working on that
right now.
J.Z.: WZifl/ were they telling you?
L.S.: It was clear that they want jobs,
summer jobs for youths, opportunities for
education; housing is definitely an issue.
There were some issues about violence in
the commuhity, and gangs were talked
about, but that was not the focus of the
meeting. This was more about, if you come
in contact with county services what can we
do better to improve upon it? I wanted their
suggestion to make sure we were making
people feel included, that we were offering
the kind of services that they needed to
succeed. So I heard them loud and clear
that jobs, jobs, jobs was an issue.
J.Z.: So do you think the county, and local
government, is offering them the kind of
services that they need to succeed?
L.S.: I think t h a t w e’r e offerin g th e safety
net services and the public safety services
that we are charged to do here at
Multnomah County. I wbuld like the group
to help me put departments like Community
Justice out of business because they’re the
ones who supervise parole and probation,
and a large number of folks who are
supervised by Multnomah County, over 23
percent, are African American, when they
only make up 6 percent of the county.
That’s alarming to me.
They have the same concerns as the
public at large has, bùt they’ve never been
invited to have a conversation. I think the
civic engagement piece with communities of
color outreach has been there, but I don’t
think they have been as aggressive as we
have been to get them in here. This is not
just my one-time meeting with communities
of color. I think it was very clear that there
are different communities in addition to
African Americans and Latinos and Native
Americans (who have high foster care rates
as well). And I think you’ll be seeing a lot
from us, having very targeted conversations
with constituencies around the city, from
seniors to mental health advocates to small
business people.
J.Z.: K>w mentioned about the streets being
hot right now. Is that a byproduct of the job
situation?
L.S.: I think it’s a byproduct of a couple of
things. We have literacy issues and we have
poverty issues. And in many cases our
young people across the board, if they don’t
have money, they’re going to do what they
feel like they need to do. They clearly said,
if we. don’t have money, this is what we’ll do
to get it.
performances of the governments outside of the
county?
J.Z.: A n d we now know about the loss o f
African-Americans in the city’s core.
regulating dollars that come to the state,
everything from Medicare reimbursements
to the block grant dollars. Those are things
we don’t have any control over so we have to
be in a holding pattern, we have to be
patient, and we still have to serve the
constituency with the county services.
One of the good news pieces of this is
that a lot of our health department dollars
that come from the state and federal
government are entitlement programs. So
we may fair well in those departments. But
programs like the LIHEAP (Low-Income
Home Emergency Assistance Program) that
serves 20,000 seniors, is expected to be cut
50 percent The WIC program is expected
to be cut. A lot of the mental health
services, they may be cut as well. It all lands
on our lap. Multnomah County is the largest
provider of mental health services in the
state. And we are anxiously waiting to see
what the governor is going to do.
L.S.: We’re kind of in a holding pattern
based on what the governor’s going to do
and what the federal government is going to
a lot_of ups and down as far
a s h o w th e "hew C o n g re s s h a s b e e n '
L.S.: African Americans have moved out
to the numbers. I lost 10,00-12,000 people
in District 2 to East County. They gained
about 12,000 votes. So under a new
redistricting proposal, I am going to propose
increasing my district, instead of stopping at
122, the proposed plan calls for me to move
out to 148.1 have to pickup 10,000 or so
new people. Looking at the Census data, it’s
because of economics, and a lot of the
poverty is stretching out to East County, so
it’s going out toward the numbers and that’s
where people can afford to live.
J.Z.: What then do we do about that? How
do we become the community where anyone
can thrive?
L.S.: Well, we are a safety net government
and we need to make sure we provide
services that extend out toward East
County. I think we’ve done a pretty good job
in making sure that we have services with
the new health clinic, the new building of
the East County Courthouse. I think we’re
doing our part to make sure critical services
are out in East County and we’re able to
accept that capacity.
J.Z.: You talk to the services the county
offers. But it is at the mercy of other forces and
politics. What are your thoughts about the
J.Z.: Along those lines are the city’s urban
renewal areas, URAs, which pull money from
the county’s future tax base with tax increment
financing, or TIF, for development. How do
you feel about the relationship on URA
funding between the county and the city?
L.S.: We don’t have a direct role in how
that is crafted, but we are impacted by the
lack of dollars that are coming in for our
school districts and to the county. My goal
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CORRECTION
Street Roots strives for accuracy, but we're
human. So we also strive to correct errors in our
paper whenever possible. Please report any
errors to our managing editor, Joanne Zuhl, at
503-228-5657, or write to streetrootsnews®
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