Kra Frances Sehoen-\’ew3papQr Peon
University of Oregon Library
tu gene, Oregon 1^7403
Multnomah County EEO
Incompatible figures and erroneous conclusions
The M etropolitan Human Re
lations Com m ission's em ploy
ment committee has charged that
M ultnom ah C ounty's claim o f
progress toward affirmative action
goals for minorities and women “ is
inaccurate and leaves open to
question whether there is any
progressât all.”
The analysis was made at the
request o f County Chairman Don
Clark. In 1978, when the county’s
Equal Employment O p p o rtu n ity
plan was revised, the county set new
goals and expanded the program to
designate an employee in each o f
the county’ s five departments to
handle EEO responsibilities. In the
year that the plan has been in effect
the county has reported progress
toward these goals, but the MHRC
study demonstrate that the " a b
sence o f uniform guidelines, the ex
panded, or decentralized, EEO pro
gram structure has resulted in frag
mentation of responsibilities and a
lack o f coordination o f departmen
tal plans submitted by each o f the
five departments.”
M H R C found that the county's
procedures fo r reporting EEO
statistics are inconsistent and often
unreliable. Consistent criteria has
not been used. For example, some
departments have used fu ll-tim e
permanent positions, some use fu ll
time budgeted positions and others
do not separate full-time and tem
porary positions. “ The outcome of
these separate and d iffe re n t ap
proaches, when compiled into the
county’ s comprehensive year-end
report on the status o f minorities and
women in county-wide employment,
resulted in incompatible figures and
erroneous conclusions.”
M HRC also expressed concern
that Multnomah County uses the
Standard M etropolitan Statistical
Area (SMA) workforce, which in
cludes W ashington, M ultnom ah,
Clackamas and Clark counties — to
see its goals. The SM A sets the
minority percentage o f the workforce
at 4.9, while the m inority w ork
force in the C ity o f Portland is
estimated at 8.7. The minority work
force in the area served by the county
should more closely approximate
that o f the area served by the City.
M H R C found that there are
serious inconsistencies in the re
cruitm ent and selection o f un
classified and temporary employees.
These procedures are not uniform
and are determined by the depart
ments even though unclassified em
ployees make up ten per cent of the
employees, and are at the higher
salary levels. “ A lthough an
Executive Order issued by the
Chairman o f the Board mandates
open selection and recruitment, due
to the lack o f uniform guidelines, af
firm ative action sensitivity is not
PORTLAND OBSERVER
assured.”
The committee found that there is
no uniform system for assuring ac
cess to promotion and training for
minorities and women.
The County Personnel Division
has been involved in validating civil
service examinations to insure that
they relate to the position and that
they contain no race or sex bias. The
committee found that some o f the
older tests have not been validated.
Recom m endations
M HRC recommended the follow-
(Please turn to page 4 column 3)
Volum e 9 No. 24
Thursday, June 21,1979 109
USPS 969-680
Gilcrease gets prison sentence
uiysses i ucker prepares tor nis next "D ialogue”
program on KPTV.
From basketball star to television host
Lllysses Tucker Jr. took his street
life education and incorporated it in
to the book learning world, to come
up with an integrated education that
he sees as a positive asset to his
career.
Tucker, a recent University o f
P ortland graduate, has already
channeled his energies into com
munity work and communications.
He currently produces “ Dialogue,”
a public service program for KPTV
12. The program emphasizes the
Black community in Portland, but
Tucker hopes to provide a dialogue
between the white and Black com
munity soon, through the use o f his
television program.
The streets of Washington, D.C.
have produced a variety o f lifestyles
for young men, many of which are
not satisfactory in the eyes o f the
community. Tucker took his years of
street learning into the classroom, in
tertwining it with book learning.
His life in D.C. was a transient
life. “ The longest we ever lived in
one place was three years.” Tucker
said o f his family. After his father's
death March 2, I968, and his
mother’ s death June 2, 1970, the
family of seven children was shifted
individually and collectively from
social workers to courts, to family
homes and back again. Tucker, the
eldest, marked up 13 different ad
dresses while in the district, attended
six or seven elementary schools, two
junior highs, three high schools and
experienced a wide variety o f street
life.
One o f the experiences Tucker
remembers to have turned him
around was attending a basketball
camp in W inston-Salem, N orth
C a ro lin a , where coach Clarence
Gaines and Earl “ The Pearl”
Monroe o f the New York Knicks
really opened his eyes to his world.
He describes the experience as intense.
So intense, he remembers it as if it
was yesterday. Monroe was instru
mental, he said in helping him clarify
his goals and see where street life
leads.
“ The abilities you master on the
streets only lead to reformatories,
courts, or get you all doped up some
where — or dead, like most o f my
friends,” said Tucker.
“ I grew up in a anti-white environ
ment, with poverty and moral decay
in the community,” he explained.
“ We were conditioned to blame
whites." It took him coast to coast to
realize this was the stumbling block
to his future.
Following graduation from Roose
velt High School, he decided to at
tend Southeast Nebraska Junior
College in Fairbury. He lived in a
farm com m unity as one o f six
Black athletes from the nation’ s
capital who played baksetball. “ I
mellowed out from the city life and
rearranged some o f my values. Un
fortunately, Nebraska reinforced my
street attitude,” he remembered. “ I
didn’t trust white people.”
A fte r being named to several
junior college all-star teams, Tucker
turned down offers from universi
ties in the Midwest and on the East
Coast asking him to play for their
teams. Tucker wanted to get away.
He wrote 100 out west. University o f
Portland was the firs t to o ffe r
money, but they didn’t sign him up
for a basketball scholarship. Tucker
came as a walk-on.
“ Before I came to Portland, I was
on a jock trip. I took a chance on
coming out here. I thought I could
make the team. I didn't. So I had to
use my brains,” Tucker said, remem
bering how he fractured his foot the
first week in Portland which he said
was “ the best thing that ever hap
pened to him .”
The pace at the University of Port
land was intense, the atmosphere in
tellectually competitive. He took his
1.6 high school grade point average
and transformed it into a slot on the
Dean’ s List. He learned to adapt to
the lifestyles on campus and to the
university system. Write what the
professor wants, conform , adapt
to the dialectic o f the institution —
were some o f my survival skills. “ I
was used to getting things (including
grades) because 1 played basketball. I
discovered that I had to scratch,
scrape, and learn like the other
students.”
Overheard in the U.S. Attorney’s
Office: "Gilcrease didn’t steal any
thing and he got six months and
these other guys rip -o ff everybody
and they get away with no time. It
doesn’ t seem right.”
Cleveland Gilcrease, former exe
cutive director o f the P ortland
Metropolitan Steering Committee,
was sentenced to six months in
prison or. four counts o f mail fraud,
to run concurrently, and five years
probation to begin after the prison
term is served.
Judge Robert C. Belloni said that
although the prosecutors fo r the
government seemed to believe that
Gilcrease is guilty o f crimes for
which he was not charged, he would
consider only the crime o f which he
was convicted. He said he would not
consider the fact that the govern
ment had taken five years to in
vestigate its case, that the govern
ment had investigated every con
ceivable aspect o f Gilcrease’s life but
had not brought other charges against
him, or the fact that there had been a
great deal o f publicity.
The judge said the crime o f which
G»!-reasc was convicted was stuff
ing the ballot box in an election for
an unpaid position with a non-profit
community organization — the kind
o f position many people consider a
civic duty. He was convicted o f cheat
ing and the sentence should fit the
crime.
Judge Belloni explained that he
felt some time should be served as a
punishment and as a deterent to
others. He will allow that the time be
served in Texas, where Gilcrease is
living, and if facilities are available
he will consider allowing that it be
served on weekends.
The judge said he found no evi
dence o f pe rju ry, as had been
charged by the government attor
neys. A tto rn e y K ristine Rogers
recommended a “ meaningful period
o f incarceration.”
In a letter to the judge, Ms. Rogers
had written:
“ To begin with, it is obvious from
the testimony at trial that Mr. G il
crease committed perjury when he
lied with respect to his own activities
and knowledge, but the whole thrust
o f his defense was the ignoble stance
o f trying to pin the blame for the
illegalities on his employees and
volunteers. And in the process o f
committing this perjury, he falsely
accused his form er employees o f
lying and other misconduct in an at
tempt to impeach their testimony. It
is appropriate for the trial court to
take this into account at the time o f
sentencing.”
Gilcrease, as well as other witness
es, had testified that his accusors had
poor reputations fo r truthfulness,
had been fired by him, and that two
o f the witnesses were terminated af
ter money in their care was found
missing.
Ms. Rogers also wrote, “ Finally,
since this prosecution was initiated
and continuing after the publicity
about the conviction, our office has
received numerous communications
from city, county and state officials,
as well as from those ‘clients’ and
staff whom he was supposed to serve
during the period o f time, who have
had contact with Mr. Gilcrease but
who would not norm ally be the
authors o f presentence letters to the
Court. Uniformly, the sentiment ex
pressed by these people was: ‘ I t ’s
about time someone finally caught
up with that man. We feel we owe it
to those people to convey their
opinion to the sentencing Court.”
Ms. Rogers asked for “ a meaning
ful period o f incarceration so as not
to unduly depreciate the seriousness
o f the office and to serve the sentenc
ing objectives o f specific and general
deterrence and retribution. Such a
sentence would also lend credence to
prosecution in the public fraud and
corruption area.”
Brian Welch, attorney fo r G il
crease, asked for probation, stating
that Gilcrease’ s career has been
destroyed and that he is working as a
shop man and security man. He said
his family and community would be
better served by allowing him to con
tinue to work and to rebuild his life.
Gilcrease was released on his own
recognisance and is to surrender
him self to federal marshalls in
Texas, in two weeks, i f he does not
decide to appeal.
A fte r the sentencing, Gilcrease
said he holds no bitterness toward
anyone and has great admiration for
Judge Belloni. He said his decision
whether to appeal will depend on his
financial situation.
No one was satisfied with the sen
tence. His friends and supporters felt
five years o f investigation and slan
derous p u b lic ity had w rought
enough destruction without adding a
prison term. Those who had hoped
to see Gilcrease led away in chains
were also disappointed.
They might get another chance,
however, since Kristine Rogers con
firmed rumors that the investigation
o f Gilcrease’s activities is continuing.
She said the government is in
vestigation possible misuse o f
N ational Association fo r Com
m unity Development funds, the
organization to which Gilcrease was
elected president.
Although accusations o f misuse o f
federal funds allocated to PMSC
were repeatedly investigated by the
F B I, the Bureau o f Labor, the
Commerce Department, the Com
munity Services Administration, the
Department o f Health, Education
and Welfare and private auditors, no
evidence o f misuse o f funds was
found and no charges were brought
against Gilcrease.
Even his attitude about whites
changed. "O ut here, whites wanted
to shake my hand. It scared me. I
wanted to know what they wanted,”
he remembered. I f it wasn’t for Port
land, I ’d still be a racist and living
w ith stereotypes. My attitudes
changed. 1 got rid of the burden and
all kinds o f creativity was released.
(Please turn to page 3 col. 1)
Phillips named 'Outstanding Young Man '
Robert Phillips has been selected
serves as a board member to the
as an “ Outstanding Young Man o f
State Board to Register C linical
Am erica" for 1979 in recognition
Social Workers, the City o f Portland
o f outstanding professional achieve Residential Care Facilities Licensing
ment, superior leadership a b ility
Board, the Urban League Northeast
and exceptional service to the
Senior Citizens Advisory Board, and
community; and has been chosen to
is a member o f a number o f civic
be among the “ Black Community
groups and committees.
Leaders” o f the 1980s by the North
The "Outstanding Young Men o f
west Conference o f Black Public O f
America” award is given annually to
ficials.
honor young men throughout the
Phillips, a resident o f Northeast
nation, from all segments o f our
P ortland, is currently a Social
society, representing a multiplicity of
Worker with the Adult and Family
businesses and professions, whose
Services Division and is President of
efforts are dedicated to enriching the
the Portland Chapter o f the National
communities in which they live and
Association o f Black Social
the professions which they serve.
Workers, Chairman o f the Greater
Phillips emplifies the programs belief
Northeast Precinct Police Council,
that “ a man’s biography is conveyed
the P ortland Branch N A A C P
in his gift, and every man’s wealth is
P o litic a l A ction Com m ittee, the
an index o f his m erit.” P hillips’
Oregon Assembly o f Black Affairs
name was submitted to the Outstand
Economic Development Committee
ing Young Men o f America Board of
and is First Vice President o f the In
Advisors by Lucious Hicks,
ner Northeast Area Neighborhoods
President o f the Portland Branch
Against Crime Program. He also
NAACP.
Ground was broken for construction of the Woodlawn
Park Condominiums, an 80 unit townhouse development
adjacent to Woodlawn Park. The housing is the result of
nine years of Neighborhood Association and Model Cities
planning, which included building Woodlawn Park and the
middle-income housing units.
Mayor Neil Goldschmidt told those attending the
ceremony that the project is "the culmination of a strategy
that recognized that neighborhoods are the important in-
vestment and that people are the riches of the city."
Present but not officially recognized were some of those
who did the original work and planning: Mrs. Bobbie
Nunn, organizer and first co-chairman of the Woodlawn
Neighborhood Association; Mrs. Hazel G. Hays, former
director of Citizen Participation for Model Cities and for the
Portland Development Commission; and Mrs. Marian
Scott, currently of PDC and formerly of the Model Cities
Citizen Participation unit.