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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 14, 1982)
Page 6 Portland Observer, January 14,1962 City/County consolidation by County Commissioner Gladys McCoy Why is consolidation an issue to day having been defeated in 1974? I would say that it is more appro priate o f an issue today because o f the d iffic u lt economic times being experienced by all levels o f govern ment. While I believe the consolidation o f governments may be more d iffi cult to achieve, 1 am equally con vinced that, when the facts are known about the amount o f money required to maintain duplication o f services in the unincorporated juris diction, there w ill be a demand for consolidation o f these services. A d ditionally, almost all o f the citizens in my D istrict live w ith in the city limits o f Portland. Some o f the tax dollars that the C ounty collects from them are used to pay fo r County services which are used ex clusively by unincorporated areas. Urban subsidy to unincorporated Multnomah County is a well-docu mented fact. This situation must be corrected, and, i f re-elected, I in tend to promote and encourage that change. Historically, consolidation o f gov ernments has occurred only after some major scandal or financial cri sis. I submit the people o f M ultno mah County will respond to the con cepts before a crisis because it is the “ Oregon way.” These arc some o f the duplicated services provided by both County and C ity governments in d o lla r amounts allocated for 1981-82 bud gets: Service* County City Parks Planning Permits Police S I.198.403 6 8 I.IS 0 1.072.023 11,734.719 SI3.S38.I72 2.137,130 3.871.724 30,945.643 M ultnom ah C ounty at a p p ro xi mately 196,640. These residents use exclusively the above services at the expense o f urban residents. I submit this is not the most use ful use o f tax dollars. Granted, there is a citizen effort underway to form a new C ity in east M ultnom ah County. I support that e ffo rt and feel that it should be given an op portunity. However, that is not to say that a new City w ill be formed. Our efforts to consolidate services should move forward. Further, we should also develop a relationship with other incorporated cities be sides Portland. These e ffo rts and the exploration o f other e ffo rts must be started now if we are going to have credible in fo rm a tio n to share with the Charter Review Com mittee in 1983. This is only a fraction o f the ser vices provided by both govern ments. The population o f M ultno mah County is $62,640 o f which ap proximately 366,000 live in the City Again, I welcome your comments o f Portland. This leaves a popula on this issue. Please write or call my tion in the unincorporated area o f office at 284-5219, or stop by. 1981 : The first year by Rep. Ron H yden 1981 was a special year for me: my first year serving Oregon’ s Third District in Congress. The year brought with it a few surprises—and a lew disappointments. But all-in- all, it was a good beginning. One o f the fir s t things I learned upon arriving in Congress is that the Federal government is indeed obese, muscle-bound and mavbe even senile. Bui it was refreshing—and in structive—to see that the Federal government, if pushed, still has the ability to perform. Let me illustrate. As I was head ing into a meeting last year, a dis tressed man stopped me and began relating an all-too-typical tale o f woe about how his Social Security payments had been botched and, now, he was deeply in debt. This was a man who had worked all his life and was spent physically at age 62. He had raised six chil dren. umpired Little League games, lost his wife. He was alone. His only company: his pride Now that was threatened, too, as he had begged for extra time to pay his rent, to pay his utilities, to pay his food bill. He was desperate not so much be cause he was without money, but because the Federal government had stolen his dignity. A fter I finished my day’ s acti vities, I returned to my office and began making calls. Before long, the puzzle was un raveled. The short-cut thinking, the unresponsiveness, the who-cares at titude had fallen away. The man’s check was in his hands within a week. Afterward, the man—his dignity restored—told a member o f my staff that he was so desperate that day he came to see me, he was pre pared to return home and end his life. It’s a lesson I ’ ll never forget. / also learned in H'ashiington that there is a feeling nothing is new. Everything has been tried. Most everything has failed. I just don’ t buy that. The people o f Oregon didn’ t send me to Wash ington to sigh a lot, and occasion ally break out into tears o f despair. No, I learned there are lots o f ideas left untried—good ideas. For example, everyone told me that now—in this budget-cutting era —was not the time to push for badly needed senior citizen centers in the inner east side o f Portland. I disagreed, and began organizing efforts. While it is just a tad too early to report complete success, I am proud to say that the response has been tremendous. And, I am hopeful the first o f those centers will be under construction before the year is out. There were also those who said there was no way to control runa way health care costs. I disagreed with that, too. With the help o f everyone I could find, in cluding the medical community, I was able before the end o f 198I to introduce legislation aimed at deal ing with escalating health care costs —not by strong-arming anyone, but the tried-and-tru method o f sensible incentives. Finally, I learned that there is rampant cynicism in the Federal government that i f something can go wrong, it will go wrong. Promises made are prescriptions for promises broken. What govern ment delivers is what no one wants —shattered hopes. This was the hardest lesson to deal with. Then it dawned on me that the trouble was that the premium in government has been on creating something new— not on making what already exists work better. No place is that more true than the Congress. Let’ s face it, the Congress is a place where politicians rale their success by the number o f headlines they collect. And you get precious few headlines when engaged in the methodical exercise o f legislative oversight. One o f my most frustrating mo ments last year was when the Energy and Commerce Committee, largely at my insistence, held a thorough oversight hearing on the implemen tation o f the Northwest Regional Energy A ct—an act that in a very real way will determine what each o f us will pay in electric bills the rest of this century and beyond. The hearing drew only modest coverage. Then, afterward, there was a column that labeled the hear ing boring. Maybe it was. But it also was worthwhile because it caused changes, changes for the better. Election set amidst violence While the eye» o f the world are on Poland, the k illin g in El Salvador continues with U.S. aid. An estimat ed 32,000 persons have been m ur dered in El Salvador during the past two years by the m ilitary junta that governes the country and by the paramilitary units supported by the junta. In the face o f increasing strength o f guerilla forces, the government has called for elections in March. The Organization o f American States (OAS) recently approved a resolution sponsored by the United Slates that advocates holding elec tions in El Salvador without pre vious negotiations to guarantee the participation o f all political forces in (hat nation. The proposal was adopted after three days o f intensive lobbying by Secretary o f State Alexander Haig. Mexico, Nicaragua and Grenada voted against the proposal and Pan ama, Suriname, Trinidad and Taba- go, and St. Lucia abstained. The OAS disregarded the pro posal made by the revolutionary forces o f El Salvador, the FM LN - FDR, which were represented by Nicaragua. The FM LN -FD R ex pressed its willingness to start peace talks with political and military rep resentatives designated by the junta. The FMLN-FDR considers elections to be a valid and necessary channel for the expression o f the people’ s Demonstration at Portland's Army Recruiting Station protests w ill, provided the conditions and training of El Salvador officers and soldiers in the U.S. climate exist for the people to fully (Photo: Richard J. Brown) exercise their vote. At present these conditions do not country. The General Assembly ap tive and an entity (hat has to be in exist. A state o f siege, martial law pealed lo all governments to refrain cluded. and press censorship exist. Assassin from intervening in FI Salvador and ation o f union leaders, political ac in what is viewed as a tacit reference Mexico branded the OAS resolu tion as "a bad precedent” that w ill tivists and church leaders continues. to the U.S.’ thc resolution urged that worsen the tension in Central A m I f elections are held without prior arms supplies and military aid to El erica. The Mexican representative to negotiations, only those parties ap Salvador be stopped. the conference said the resolution proved by the present government Nicaraguan Foreign Minister will be allowed to participate. “ can only embolden those govern Miguel D’ Escoto said o f the OAS ments which would like to get rid o f The OAS also ignored a resolu resolution, “ It tends only to their enemies, at once, by all-too- tion adopted by the United Nations strengthen the position taken by familiar methods.” General Assembly on December those who refuse to cooperate in 3rd urging a political solution creating conditions that w ill guar The Mexican newspaper Uno Mas “ without intimidation or terror” be antee free and truly democratic elec Uno branded the resolution as “ a found to the Salvadoran conflict in tions.” disaster for the Salvadoran popular order to establish “ a democratically I his view is held by France and sectors” since it means that the war elected government." It condemned Mexico who in a document issued will be prolonged, “ thereby increas the violation o f human rights and last August recognized the Salva ing the risks o f a general conflagra fundamental freedoms in that doran revolutionaries as representa- tion in Central America. ” Perhaps the most striking lesson I learned in 1981 is that we can be bet ter—and we can do better. In next week’s column, I will dis cuss how I think we can achieve that end. Fair Share asks shut-off moratorium by John Blank Plans are afoot to make utilities wait until A p ril 25 before shutting o ff your gas or e le ctricity, i f you don’t pay your bill. Oregon Fair Share is planning to ask Public U tility Commissioner John Lobdell to institute a shut-off m oratorium on home u tilitie s. I f Lobdell turns down this request. Rep. Gretchen Kafoury w ill push for a hearing on a sh u t-o ff mora torium bill before the House Energy and Environment Committee in the current special session o f the legisla ture. I t ’ s even d iffic u lt to assess the magnitude of the problem, since the Public U tility Commission (PUC) rescinded the requirement that u tili ties report all shut-offs to it. However, the Community Action Program (CAP) Directors Associa tion claims that in 1980 1700 house holds per month were shut o ff state wide by PGE alone. Activists view the moratorium as necessary to save lives. The situation this year is even worse than it has been in the past. At the same time as the depression has made more people unable to pay, Reagan ad m inistration relaxation o f federal regulations has made it easier for utilities to shut o ff services, even if customers are entitled to energy as sistance money. Under current law, customers do have minimal defenses against shut offs. Utilities are supposed to give you three notices before they shut o ff your gas or electricity: 15 days prior, 72 hours prior, and immedi ately p rio r to sh u t-o ff. F u rthe r more, the last two notices are re quired to be verbal (not just a piece o f paper hung on your door); and at the time o f notification the u tility must explain both the possible op tions to shut-off, and the possible available assistance. Possible options to sh ut-o ff in clude the “ medical” option and the “ ten per cent plan.” Under the medical o ptio n , no shut-off is supposed to take place if a doctor, registered nurse, licensed nurse practitioner, clinic or agency providing health care notifies the u tility by phone, and in w riting w ithin 14 days o f the phone call, that a shut-off will significantly en danger the health o f the customer or someone in the household. Unless the condition is chronic the health certification must be renewed every 30 days. Under the “ ten per cent plan,” no shut o ff will take place if before rtie shut-off date the customer pays 10 per cent o f the overdue bill or $10 (whichever is greater) and signs an agreement with the utility company lo pay the remainder with 10 months. According to energy activist Kathy Weaver, d ire ctor o f CAP energy programs Tor Colum bia County, utilities are prone to dis obey these rules. In one case, ac cording to Ms. Weaver, PP&L turned o ff a dia be tic’ s electricity (needed to refrigerate his insulin). Had the u tility obeyed the require ment to give verbal n o tific a tio n , they would have been aware o f this life-threatening situ atio n . In an other case described by Ms. Weaver, a 72-year-old man, who had suf fered brain damage, had his heat turned o f f by Northwest Natural (»as while he was in the hospital. When Ms. Weaver spoke to the utility about this, their representta- tive said that if the man had really cared about his gas bill, “ he would have called us from his hospital bed.” II a u tility is threatening to shut you o ff, you have the legal right to an appeal. You should immediately call the Public U tility Commission er’ s Consumer Assistance Section. 1-800-452-7813 ext. 6600 toll free (or write them at Room 300, Labor and Industries Building, Salem, OR 97 310). When you appeal before a shut-off the u tility cannot shut o fl your service without approval from the ( ommissioner; when you appeal alter a shut-oil, the Commissioner can order service restored u ntil a final decision is made. you maxe your host hit with us wav ?o9DrroymnfrAa hdienCe!); economiC8 <«’• PORTLAND economical OBSERVER OREGON'S AWARD WINNING BLACK NEWSPAPER 283-2486
