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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 29, 1977)
Marie Smith receives Russell Peyton Award Mrs. Marie Smith, long time civil right* activist, is the 1977 recipient of the Kussell Peyton Award present«! annual ly by the Metropolitan Human Relations Commission for dedication to human rights. Mrs. Smith's activities in the areas ol civil rights and the elderly are well known throughout the greater Portland community. Some of her more notable achievements and contributions follow: Mrs. Smith was the first woman to be President of the Portland Branch, NAACP. During her administration, 1949 1960, she organized the Guilds l^ake Branch and was active in voter registra lion and civil rights legislation. She was a member of the organizing committee of the Northwest Area Con ference of Branches (Oregon. Washing ton. Idaho and Alaska! and served as a member of the board and Chairman of the Credit Committee of the Portland NAACP Federal Credit Union. She is a former board member of the Urban League of Portland. In 1950 she was chosen Portland's First Negro Citizen of the Year. She was a member of the Albina Citizen's W ar on Poverty Committee and actively sought programs for the area poor. She was a founding member of C-CAP (Church-Community Action Pro ject). Mrs. Smith was a state organizer and President of the Oregon Association of Colored Women's Clubs. She served three terms on the board of the YMCA, held numerous offices and represented the YM CA at regional and national conventions. She was secretary-treasur er of the M t. Hood Chapter. Order of PORTLAND Volume 8 No. 1 Thursday, December 29, 1977 10c per espy Property tax increase seea i of the Jewish ( Mrs. Smith was a member of the Model Cities Task Force that organized the Senior Adult Service Center and served as the Center’s board chairman. She was appointed to the City County Council on Aging by Mayor Terry Schrunk. Mrs. Smith was an Oregon Journal Woman of Accomplishment in 1955. June 3.1976 was proclaimed Marie Smith Day by Mayor Neil Goldschmidt for her tireless service and contribution to our community.” The Russell Peyton Award will be presented on January 12th at noon at a luncheon to be held at Westminster Presbyterian Church. 16th and N.E. Hancock. Call the Metropolitan Human Relations Commission for reservations. M A R IE S M ITH Hicks earns highest EPA award OBSERVER Swastika was .Minted in red on the i Israel on Northeast 15th Av Eastern Star. Mrs. Smith served as Sunday School Superintendent at Mt. Olivet Baptist and Hughes Memorial United Methodist Churches. She is a member of Church Women United and Church World Ser '2ces- She has attended every session of the Ecumenical Ministries School of Christian Services since its founding forty years ago. i Tifereth Multnomah County homeowners will receive notices of increases in their property value as the result of a re- evaluation. The assessed evaluation is based on the sales of property in the past year. The County's average increase was eighteen percent. The greatest increase is in the area between the W illamette River and 82nd Avenue, between Fremont on the North Multnomah County homeowners will Property values in tms area increased by 27 percent. Property values in the area of the County east of 82nd raised 25 percent. Other areas increased from twelve to nineteen percent. The increased assessed evaluation will mean a tax increase for some property owners. As the assessed value increases, the tax rate per $1,000 value decreases providing the amount of taxes to be collected remains constant. Those with above the average increase in assessed value should expect to pay additional taxes. Commissioner Mel Gordon estimated that taxes will increase on property that increases in evaluation by twenty percent or more and taxes should decrease on property which has increased in value by fifteen percent or less. Alexander D. Hicks, the director of the Office of Civil Rights in the Northwest regional office of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, has been awarded an EPA Gold Medal, the highest recognition the agency can be stow for outstanding service. Hicks received the medal for his efforts to provide members of minority groups with opportunities for employment on the labor force building sewage treatment facilities funded by EPA, and for securing participation of minority contractors on those same projects. A t the Washington, D.C., ceremonies last week where the award was present ed, Hicks shared the spotlight with five other workers from E P A ’s Northwest regional office in Seattle. Silver Medals for superior service were awarded to John Y. Hohn, an EPA enforcement division attorney, and a group of agency employees headed by L. Edwin Coate, EPA's deputy regional administrator. Members of Coate’s group from E P A ’s Seattle office are Ralph R. Bauer, George C. Hofer and William B. Schmidt. In Hicks' case, his work established a number of important precedents: • He was responsible for bringing the first successful Federal court action against a major labor union (Portland Local 701 of Operating Engineers Union) for interfering with E PA construction contractors who were taking affirmative action to hire minority workmen on an EPA-funded sewage treatment construc tion project. The subsequent court ruling (last January 19th in U.S. District Court in Portland) set a precedent of national import. • He developed the first set of guide lines for the involvement of minority consulting engineers in the planning and design phase of EPA-funded sewage treatment construction. These guide lines. first used only within EPA's North- west region, have now been substantially adopted by EP A for use nation-wide. • He developed a set of guidelines for involving minority construction contrac tors and suppliers during the actual building of sewage treatment facilities, with the result that minority contractors within the region have shared in almost $9 million in construction subcontracts since January 1976. Those guidelines developed by Hicks have been adopted already by a number of municipalities, and E PA headquarters will soon publish similar guidelines that will be applied across the country. Hicks directs a staff of civil rights officers who have helped minority work ers find jobs on the EPA-funded sewage treatment construction projects. During the last nine months, the number of minority manhours in various construc tion trades has averaged 13 percent. Since the minority population amounts to only 6.5 percent of all the people in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, this is regarded as a singular achievement. Hohn was cited for his work involving a number of national “firsts" in resolving troublesome disputes over industrial wastewater discharge permits, which - if they had been left unresolved - could have resulted in considerable delays in bringing about needed environmental improvements. Hohn also was the first EPA attorney anywhere in the country to successfully bring about the assessment of civil penalties under Federal pesticides law. Coate, Bauer, Hofer and Schmidt spearheaded the development of a re gional environmental quality profile, an important informational aid that enabled pollution control agencies and the general public to assess the state of the environ ment in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. The environmental quality pro files pioneered the use of uniform indica- A L HICKS tors that could be - and have been - adopted nation-wide, allowing pollution control officials to base their commitment of resources to meet actual needs for environmental clean-up. Hicks, Hohn and the Coate group all received the congratulations of Donald P. Dubois, EPA's regional administrator. “These medals are well-deserved,” said Dubois. .“Your hard work and your dedication will produce benefits that will be felt for a long time to come by your fellow Americans.” Federal minority , female employment increase slow I shOk U.S. I 1 » Civil I .IVtl Nxi l*V rw 1 • • The Service Commission has reported preliminary findings of surveys conducted on federal civilian employment of minorities and women through 1976. Previously the surveys have been con ducted and reported separately. Civil Service Commission Chairman Alan K. Campbell noted that while there has been tome increase in the proportion of minorities and women in middle and upper level jobs, the rate of progress has been slow He identified two (actors which contribute to the rate of growth. First, most jobs at the middle and upper level within the Federal Government, where the sources are largely non mi- nority and male. Second, the size of the Federal work force has remained fairly stable since 1972, and it is difficult to _____ achieve affirmative action objectives when there is no expansion in the work force, no matter how much emphasis is applied. A comparison of the participation of minorities in the Federal and private sectors shows that the Federal Govern ment is well ahead in overall employment of minorities in profession, administra live, technical, and clerical jobs. The private sector, however, has higher per centages of women and/or specific mi nority groups in some of these employ ment catégorie«. Findings of the study showed that: • Minorities accounted for 21.3 percent of all full-time Federal civilian employees in November 1976, as compared with 21.0 percent in 1975 and 14.1 percent in 1969. • Women accounted for 30.1 percent of I S IV . • *-<■ ■ ■ all full-time Federal employees in 1976, compared with 29.8 percent in 1975. • In the seven-year period 1969 through 1976, General Schedule (white- collar) employment of minorities rose 37 percent, compared with a five percent increase for non-minorities. In the same period, minority employment in wage systems (blue-collar) jobs decreased to 88 percent of 1969 totals and Postal Service minority employment fell to 82 percent of 1969 totals but these decreases were smaller for minority than for non-mi nority employment in the same period. Comparing Federal white-collar em ployment in 1976 with private sector employment compiled by the Equal Em ployment Opportunity Commission in 1975 the following results were noted: 1. In professional occupations, the Fed - - - eral group has a lower proportion women (20 percent) than the privati sector group (30 percent), professions employment while there are higher per centages of Blacks and American Indian: in Federal professional employment thar in private employment. The othei minorities have higher percentages oi professionals in the private sector. 2. In administrative occupations, the Federal service has a higher proportion of women (20 percent) than the private sector (14 percent). The Federal service also has higher minority percentages in these occupations. 3. In technical occupations, the percen tage of women in Federal employment is higher (37 percent) than in the private sector (33 percent). The Federal service has a higher percentage for all minoritj groups except Oriental. 4. In clerical occupations, women ac count for half of Federal employees and four-fifths of the private sector group. This is largely because Postal workers, who are a predominate proportion of Fed eral clerical workers. Among minority groups, the percentage of Blacks in clerical percentages of Spanish-surnamed and Oriental employees are slightly high er in the private sector. Minority employees in 1976 constituted 18 percent of General Schedule and equivalent (white-collar) employment, ac counting for 28 percent of all employees in grades one through four, 23 percent of all employees in grades five through eight, 23 percent of all employees in grades 9 through 11, eight percent of all employees in grades 12 and 13, six percent of all employees in grades 14 and 15, and five percent of all employees in “super” grades 16 through 18. Women constituted 43 percent of Gen eral Schedule employment, accounting for 72.8 percent of all employees in grades one through six, 28.1 percent of all employees in grades 7 through 12, and 5.4 percent of all employees in grades 13 and above. Comparable percentages in 1975 were 42.1 71.6 and 5.1 respectively, and in 1968, 42.3, 21.5, and 3.8 respectively. The average grade for women in 1976 was 5.84. In 1974 it was 5.73, and in 1968, 5.20. Women constituted 40 percent of all minority employees in 1976. The average grade for all women was 5.84 for minority women, 5.53. ASP: Legend of Albina M ike Hornbucklo Roni Polk Oordy Loving ______ ___________________ Erne,t B«rbor Please see page 6
