M rs F ra n c e s
U n iv e r s ity r
s r Peoa
L ib i
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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
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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.
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VA’
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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 -
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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
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