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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 13, 2019)
NEW CRAFT BREWERY JOINS LINEUP DailyAstorian.com // TUESDAY, AUGUST 13, 2019 147TH YEAR, NO. 19 $1.50 State workers object to PERS changes Ask for review by the Oregon Supreme Court By CLAIRE WITHYCOMBE Oregon Capital Bureau Nicole Bales/The Astorian Hundreds of people gathered outside the Washington County Courthouse in Hillsboro on Monday to call for an end to immigration enforcement actions at county courthouses. Civil liberties activists want to block ICE from courthouses An arrest in Clatsop County cited as an example By NICOLE BALES The Astorian H ILLSBORO — Immigrant rights advocates are looking for legal and political help to prevent U.S. Immigration and Cus- toms Enforcement from detaining people at county court- houses. ICE has a policy that discourages enforcement actions at sensitive locations such as schools, hospitals and churches. Some in Congress, including U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley and U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici of Oregon, want to codify the policy into federal law and expand it to apply to courthouses. The American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon announced Monday that it would take legal action against ICE on behalf of Isidro Andrade-Ta- folla, a U.S. citizen who was ques- tioned by ICE outside the Washington County Courthouse in 2017. At a rally outside the courthouse in Hillsboro, the ACLU, faith leaders and activists called for an end to ICE detentions at courthouses. One of the examples cited was the detention of Fabian Alberto Zamo- ra-Rodriguez inside the Clatsop County Courthouse in July, where ICE agents used what appeared to be pep- per spray against Zamora-Rodriguez’s mother, partner and immigrant rights advocates, who were trying to escort him away. Zamora-Rodriguez had appeared in Circuit Court for a hearing on charges that he encouraged child sex- ual abuse. “Every day, people are being racially profi led at our courthouses,” said Ron Werner, a pastor and an orga- nizer with the Interfaith Movement for Maria Senaida Perez Immigration agents took Fabian Alberto Zamora-Rodriguez into custody at the Clatsop County Courthouse in July. MORE INSIDE New rules to deny green cards to many legal immigrants Page A5 See ICE, Page A6 SALEM — Nine public employees are asking the state’s highest court to review a new state policy that slashed their retirement benefi ts. The workers, including a secre- tary, a fi refi ghter and a water mechanic, claim the new law is unconstitutional. They are asking for what’s called a direct review of the law by the Oregon Supreme Court. About 176,000 people working for state and local government are part of the Public Employees Retirement Sys- tem, known as PERS. In May, lawmakers passed Senate Bill 1049, which made a slew of changes to the way the state pays for retirement costs. The combined changes were esti- mated to save the state between $1.2 bil- lion and $1.8 billion every two years. The lawsuit challenges two of the changes contained in the law: a tweak to a savings plan and a new cap on a num- ber used to determine retirement bene- fi ts for each employee. Oregon public employees get a retire- ment plan that has two distinct parts: a basic defi ned-benefi t pension, and a market-based savings account that’s similar to a 401(k). Senate Bill 1049 cuts the amount of money going to the savings account. Employees will contribute the same amount of money to their retirement, but a greater portion will go to fund pen- sions. As a result, employees say they will end up with less money when they retire. The tweaks to the savings plan affect the vast majority of public employees in the state — workers who make $30,000 a year or more. The law also caps what’s called fi nal average salary, or, in simple terms, a number that the state uses to calculate each employee’s benefi ts when he or she retires. The fi nal average salary is capped at $195,000. In each generation of hires — there are three tiers of PERS that depend on when an employee was hired — that change could reduce benefi ts for a frac- tion of 1% of workers. See PERS, Page A6 ‘EVERY DAY, COMMUNITIES ARE LIVING IN FEAR BECAUSE THEY’RE AFRAID TO DO THEIR BUSINESS AT COURTHOUSES, WHICH ARE SUPPOSED TO KEEP US SAFE.’ Ron Werner | a pastor and an organizer with the Interfaith Movement for Immigrant Justice BY THE NUMBERS 176,000 the number of people working for state and local government who are part of the Public Employees Retirement System. An adventure in ports Fattori could return as commissioner By EDWARD STRATTON The Astorian udy Fattori, a blue-collar worker who scraped her way into offi ce management, didn’t know much of anything maritime when she applied for administra- tive clerk at the Port of Astoria fi ve years ago. But after leaving Friday as the longest-tenured member of the J administrative staff, Fattori has plans of one day running for the Port Commission . “I learned more I think in the fi ve years at the Port than at any other job in my life,” she said. Fattori, a native Portlander, moved to Clatsop County in 1988 with her family. She would peri- odically drive by the Port and once chaperoned a child on a fi eld trip when the USS Missouri docked in 1998. B ut she knew essentially nothing about the agency when in 2014 she applied for administra- tive clerk. “I had been looking for work for about a year,” she said. “I took a chance. I did not believe I would get into the Port, but they called.” Fattori has spent time in restau- rants, sewing factories, retail sto- ries and other jobs to support her family, but wanted to work in offi ces. She was on state assis- tance when she moved to the coast, qualifying her for the Jobs Opportunity and Basic Skills training program, where she learned accounting and was even- tually hired to do billing for a local company. See Fattori, Page A6 Edward Stratton/The Astorian Judy Fattori, the Port of Astoria’s executive assistant for fi ve years, has gone from knowing nothing about ports to having dreams of one day joining the governing board.
