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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 24, 1978)
M rs F ra n c e s U n iv e r s ity r s r Peoa L ib i k ■y c.ugene, O re; r 30 day reprieve PORTLAND City rescinds CETA terminations O B SER /ER Volum« 8 No. 34 Thursday. August* 24,1878 10c per copy Phillips seeks Service District bo **I am strongly com m itted to making our neighborhoods safe and beautiful places to live and I believe this can best be accom plished through citizen involvem ent in decision m aking," Robert Phillips, candidate for the Metropolitan Ser vice D is tric t Board, P osition 11, said. Phillips has put his beliefs to work as he is highly involved in com munity activities. Currently Phillips is Chairman o f the Greater Northeast Precinct Police Council, which acts as an ad vocate for the public in police mat ters. He is a member o f the Citizen City-wide Crime Prevention Com mittee and is in his fourth year on the Police Budget Advisory Committee. He is a member o f the King Neighborhood Association, a mem ber o f the M ultnom ah C ounty Developmental D isabilities C oor dinating Council, the Homemaker Upjohn Advisory Board, the State Health Division Board to Register Social W orkers. He is chairman and O regon’ s steering committee representative to the N ational A ssociation o f Black Social Workers. He chairs the Southwest Senior Task Force on Aging Need Committee. He also is a member o f the N A A C P , the Urban League, the Black C h ild Development Asso c ia tio n , the Emergency H elping Agencies Committee. He has served on the U nited Way Budget A llo c a tio n s C om m ittee and the United Survey Committee. Phillips has lived all o f his life in (Please turn to Page 8 Column 3) ROBERT PHILLIPS Opposition to School Board grows Opposition to the Portland School Board is growing in the Black com m unity as the board's plans fo r fillin g the vacancy created by the resignation o f Gladys M cCoy become more evident. The concern has two main basis: the "rigged" manner in which nom inees were selected and the individual said to have the board’s favor. It has become more apparent that the board had selected and endorsed Evie Crowell prior to the receipt of applications from other candidates. This decision to select Ms. Crowell regardless o f the quality o f other candidates made the selection o f the best candidate impossible. Opposition is also directed at Ms. Crowell who, as the selection o f Mrs. McCoy, is considered to be an exten sion o f M rs. McCoy -- one who would conduct school business in a manner that does not well serve the children and parents o f the district. Rather than divide the Black community, as was predicted by one school board member, the board's action has coalesced a grow ing segment o f the community behind one rejected candidate, D arrell M illner. M illner, an educator, has been active in community projects and is considered to be person who not only knows the educational needs o f the; district but would be open to community and parent con cerns. It is feared that because o f the board's manipulation o f the selec tion process, the opportunity for a Black to serve on the school board will be lost. I f Ms. Crowell is named she is not expected to be able to retain her seat. N ot o n ly is she lacking the necessary Black support to win an election, but several prom inant w hite p o te n tia l can didates consider her an easy mark. In that kind o f political racae it would be difficult for another Black can didate to win even if he had straong backing o f Black voters. The three finalists selected by a board committee w ill be presented at the August 28 board meeting. Ad ditional names can be added by a vote o f three members. Observers fear that those added w ill not receive fa ir consideration because o f the pledge by six o f the seven members to support Ms. Crowell. (Please see page 2,) Hollywood résident files for MSD board seat JEROME K. FULTON Jerome K. Fulton, has announced his candidacy for the Metropolitan Services District board, District 11, in N o rth e a s t-P o rtla n d . F ulton teaches horticulture and biology at Sam B arlow H igh School in Gresham. In announcing his candidacy, Fulton said: "T he highest priority is stimulating the growth and develop ment o f existing urban areas, while stopping the urban sprawl that is bankrupting local governments and destroying the environment. Like no other urban area in the country, the people o f the Portland metropolitan area can reap great benefits from planning and cooperative action on a regional scale. Many existing govern mental programs fo r housing, evening. The program is time consuming, Hicks says, but adds that all four students who participated in the pilot program last year continued to hold part-time jobs. O f the fo u r students from last year’ s program, three w ill be con tinuing their engineering education. Karen Bell, who w ill be a high school senior this year, plans to study civil engineering when she en ters college next year. Desiree King will attend PSU for fall term 1978, and plans to transfer to Oregon State University in 1980 to major in nuclear engineering. Karla Talley w ill be an engineering student this fall at the Hampton In stitute in Hampton, Virginia. The fo u rth student decided engineering was not the field for her, which Hicks says is also o f impor tance, since a m ajor goal o f his program is “ giving students a chance to find out whether engineering is something they want to d o ." Last year’ s students were en thusiastic about the program, and with a few changes, Hicks is now ready to open it up to a much larger number o f students. He is recruiting high school seniors now for the 1978-79 program. There are no m inim um or maximum qualifications, he says, but he is looking for students who have good criteria for selection o f CETA em ployees. The new selection method would be to refer only six persons to the Bureau for hiring, and for that Bureau manager to select the top three, then the final selection. Since CETA, according to federal guidelines, is to include propulation groups that are underem ployed, CETA must insure that these persons - minorities and women - are selec ted. Mrs. Wilson indicated that i f some bureau managers consistently do not select minorities or women, the six persons referred w ill represent those groups. The CETA unit w ill keep statistics on employment and w ill know whether m inorities are being hired. A fter some discussion, the thirty day termination notice was extended until October 15th. Commissioner McCready advocted a review o f all current positions and elim inating some o f those. Commissioner Jor dan favored retaining all employees until June 30th and i f necessary fun ding funds elsewhere to support the positions. selection and no forecast o f the po tential drain on local funds. Gonzales recommended the following criteria: 1) Postions which correlate with jobs in the private sec tor; 2) Positions designed to tran sition into regular city employment; 3) Positions requiring no general fund expenditures; 4) Positions that impact on city strategy other than economic development; 5) Positions that require less than ten percent in general fund overages; 6) Positions that enrich the cultural climate. In a controversy over whether ar tists should receive prio rity, Gon zales said the criteria should be to enable the employee to be placed in a permanent job. He felt that artists have made a " s e lf placem ent” . Commissioner Schwab was concer ned that artists might not be in cluded. Twenty-two o f the CETA positions not filled because o f the employment freeze are in the A rt Commission. Ms. Janice Wilson, Director o f the Bureau o f Human Resources, ex plained that the intent o f the federal legislation creating CETA is to tran sition workers into non-subsidized employment and that the criteria should be " w i l l it lead to em ploym ent". Gonzales reminded the Council that CETA should address the long term unemployed. In related action, M u ltn o m a h County Board Chairman Don Clark announced that the county w ill not deal with CETA until January when it considers m id-year budget changes, but is not filling vacancies. The county has 189 C E T A em ployees. Gonzales also recommended new Social conditions causes crime Dr. Lee Brown, Commissioner o f Public Safety o f Atlanta, Georgia and former Director o f Justice Ser vices o f Multnomah County, told the American Correctional Association meeting in Portland that those in the c rim in a l ju stice system must no longer be satisfied w ith their traditional role o f arrest, prosecution and incarceration but must advocate the social and political reforms that w ill address the causes o f crime. "C rim e is not evenly distributed,” he explained. " T h e poor, the powerless, the undereducated, the economic development and en vironmental protection need con tinued and expanded support. Leadership by city, county, and state officials has been outstanding but we must all become "regional citizens.” In all decisions, the vital economic interests o f the poor and the aged must be considered. The special problems o f m inority groups must not be ignored." MSD, which was voted into effect at the May Primary election, w ill be involved in plannng for Multnomah, Clackamas and Washington coun ties. It will immediately take over the responsibilities o f CRAG and is ex pected to eventually take over the functions o f Tri-M ct and the Port o f m inorities are more lik e ly to be arrested, to be jailed, and to be vic tims.” This fact has political as well as social im p lica tio n s since the m a jo rity com m unity develops negative images o f the poor and minorities as perpetrators o f crime. The traditional response o f govern ment has been to put more money into the criminal justice system — to better finance the police, the prosecutors, the courts and the prisons. “ The posture o f past ad m inistrations has been to rely on the criminal justice system, to con- trol crime . . . the official response has been to ta l reliance on the criminal justice system.” The efforts o f the criminal justice system have been more police, longer sentences, bigger prisons, more prosecutions. " T o deal with crime, we cannot rely on the criminal justice system but must examine the nature o f crime, its causes and effects.” Crime is many-faceted, including crimes of violence and property, white collar crim e, organized crim e and the crimes o f government officials. (Please turn to Page 6 Column 2) '» — VA’ “ -A - 4 F/ (Please turn to Page 3 Column 5) Education Center program explores engineering Engineering is a “ hot field,” says Lucious H icks o f P ortland State University’s Educational Center. Starting salaries may go as high as $20,000, and minorities are so much in demand that Portland companies alone spend thousands each year trying to lure Black engineers from other parts of the country, according to Hicks. " I t ’ s been that way fo r twenty years," says Hicks, who believes minority students have not taken ad vantage o f the opportunities that await them in engineering. "E ither they don't realize the op portunity is there, or they realize it too late, when they are already too far down life's path to undergo a major career change." Hicks is so concerned about the o p p o rtu n itie s being missed by minorities in this field that last year he started an engineering orientation program to give Black high school students an idea o f what engineering is all about and give them a head start tow ards an engineering education. The program provides 3l/ i hours o f high school credits and 21 hours o f college credit in math and engineering over a period o f nine months. Students continue to carry their fu ll high school load while taking the engineering courses in the The City o f Portland’ s 469 CETA employees were given a short reprieve Tuesday as the City Council decided to extend their notices o f termination for thirty days. A ll the CETA employees, whose wages but not all expenses are paid by the federal governm ent, had been notified o f their termination date o f September 19th. M ayor N eil G oldschm idt ex plained that the notices o f te r m ination were given in case it becomes necessary to eliminate some or all o f the positions. The City faces a shortage o f funds caused by changes in federal allocations and p o te n tia lly by the passage o f Measure 6. I f every C E T A p o sitio n were filled, there would be a cost o f $1.3 million in local funds for wage sup plements, fringe benefits, materials and supplies. CETA brings $8.3 into the city coffers as well as saving city money that would be used to do some o f the work done by CETA employees. Joseph Gonzales, D ire cto r o f Training and Employment for the Bureau o f H um an Resources, recommended that all present CETA positions be retained until June 30, 1979, but that criteria be adopted for designation o f new positions and projects. One factor in the current financial problem is that there were no definite guidelines fo r project grades in math, English and science. Hicks says that students who have already decided to become engineers are certainly welcome in the program, but he also hopes to attract students who are " ju s t thinking about i t ’ ’ or who have never thought about it at all. “ We find a lot o f students who have never even considered the sciences and we’re trying to reach these students as well as those who have already seriously looked into it,J’ he says. Hicks says he believes science and technology w ill be leading the way to the fu ture, and says he finds it frightening that there are almost no Blacks in those fields. He says part o f that lack o f representation in the sciences is because o f the priorities Blacks have had in the past. Hicks thinks it is the responsibility o f educators to start the momentum in that direction. “ We must re energize their thought processes. We must motivate young Black students to accept a respon sibility to become academically ex cellent as we prepare for the future.” Hicks urges students who think they m ight be interested in the engineering orientation program to contact the Educational Center at 229-3864 t-L - r ■ Í4 Professor McKinley Burt of Portland State University is congratulated by Regional Forester R.E. Worthington of the United States Forest Service on a successful presen tation of the agency at the recent NAACP convention. Looking at right is William Green, Director of Civil Rights for the region (Oregon and Washington!. Forests also produce Black History by McKinley Burl (F irst o f a three-part series by McKinley Burt, teacher, author, lec turer and in vent or.) A land base, urban or rural, is the key to the economic health o f any population group, anywhere in this world. Consequently, when we are overwhelmed by the disastrous revelations o f the 1970 census — median income for Black family o f four only 62V» o f that for rest of nation — it is imperative that we examine the present status o f Black land ownership for any indication of a correlation. The Census Bureau inform s us that as late as 1910 80V« of the Black population resided in rural areas, and owned sixteen million acres in the South alone. Today, after seventy years of northward migration, two World Wars, a never-ending political and social trauma, and a related crisis in the inner-city o f urban Analysis America, this equity in land is now less than 5 Vi million acres. I t is being lost at the rate o f 6,000 acres a week. Formerly Black-owned lands o ff the coasts o f Georgia and the Carolinas which were acquired for as little as five dollars per acre, now sell for as much as One thousand dollars per fr o n t in ch ! The fabulous H ilto n Head is a case in point. To scale, there have been similar situations in ranch, farm and urban properties here in Oregon and Washington, all Black-owned at one time. Let me establish a framework of reference for the Pacific Northwest by inserting here a quote from the press release which accompanied the picture above: "P ro fe s s o r B urt, author o f the pioneer book on m inority contributions to techno logy, Black Inventors o f America, was firs t contracted by the (Please turn to Page 4 Column 1)
