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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (June 1, 1983)
Hra Frances Sehoen-^otespaper Rooa U n iv e r s ity o f O reron L ib r a r y N«xt week: Observer/Goodyear Blimp Ride Contest esponsible investment Ul tUKena, Oraron 97403 Atiyeh's tough talk Hooks returns Page 4 Below PORTLAND OBSERMER USPS « * ^ a o -« s J e £»» P u b ia k in ! C o Volume XIII, Number 33 June 1, 1983 250 Per Copy Inc l « t ) Boise Elementary closes doors Boise Elementary School, N o rth east Portland's only remaining K-8 school, will close its doors this month and reopen two years later a* an Early Childhood Center. Principal David McCrea said much community effort has gone into the planning for the Boise building and the $2.7 million reno vation plan is a composite o f ideas o f parents and community mem bers. Im portant in the plans are a large multi-purpose room with a stage on the first floor and a library media center with a mezzanine. Each floor will have "com mons” or open areas as well as classrooms and special purpose rooms. Where the asphalt playground now is, there will be grass, trees and landscaping along with an asphalt play area A sand pit and soft play area will be installed, with a covered play area planned for the future. W hile the school is being remod eled, the students will attend school elsewhere Boise's Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten children, about 90 students, will go to the W hitaker building at 3135 N .E . Colum bia, along with the students now at Eliot School Betty Campbell, principal of Eliot, will accompany the stu dents. McCrea will take Boise's first through fifth graders to the Colum bia building. 716 N .E . M arine Drive (the C o lum bia/W hitaker Middle School students will have gone to the Adams High School building). Boise's 6th-, 7th- and 8th-graders will attend W hitaker M iddle School, now in the Adams building. Boise's students will eventually be assigned to Tubman M iddle School (relo cated at Eliot) but the students who go temporarily to W hitaker will have the option to remain there McCrea regrets that all o f Boise's students cannot remain together un til they can go to the new schools, because there is no empty building that can accommodate them. Boise is to be ready for occupation in Sep tember o f 1984 but it is likely that work delays will mean the children are in temporary housing for one and one-half to two school years. Most of Boise’s staff will accom pany the students. The only prob lein in staffing is locating positions for all of the aides, since W hitaker does not use aides. Currently five aides, a physical education teacher and one secretary have not been placed. Transportation to the new schools has not been finalized but McCrea hopes to have all K-9 students picked up at the Boise building Portables would be kept open to house them in rainy or cold weather, with staff present. He plans to have an aide on the premises for at least Plana for Bolaa atudanta next year will ba dlacuaaad at the mooting of the Bolaa Improve ment Aaaoclatlon on Monday. Juna 8. 7:30p.m. at tha school. the first three months of the school year to help new students moving into the district. He has recommended that 6th-, 7th- and 8th-graders be picked up at < Please turn to page 6 col. If Wilson resignation requested NAACP national board reinstates Hooks Commissioner Charles Jordan puts soma muscls to the teak as Commissionar M ike Undberg wetchee. Union Square la expected to open by August. City officials break ground bv Charles Goodmocher Union Avenue bust newel and res idents received a tremendous boost as construction began Friday, M ay n , on the Union Square mini-m all. The project is the first m ajor new development within the black com munity o f Northeast Portland in several years. Several trees w ill be planted on Union Avenue and o ff- street parking provided. Expected to be open the first or second week o f August, the project includes a m ajority o f black-owned an d /o r operated businesses. The largest store in Union Square will be the Convenient Food M a rt owned by partners Larry Wilson and Steve Fletcher. The Flower King, which features a drive-up window, is owned by Alvin Manus. Operator of the Sunshine Pizza restaurant is Tom Devlin and M r. M azzick runs Ronaldo's Ice Cream. An outdoor patio is to be at tached to Sunshine Pizza on the south side o f the building. Several trees will be planted on Union Ave nue and off-street parking provided. City Councilman Charles Jordan commended the efforts o f all in volved in bringing the project toward completion, which he said represents a "very strong partner ship" between the private and public sector. Union Square, said Jordan, proves that "U n io n Avenue does have a m id dle." Other politicians on hand for the construction ceremony at Union Square were City Commissioners M ike Lindberg and Margaret Strachan, and M ayor Frank Ivancie. Ivancie, saying. "1 used to shop here,” when a Kienow's store was at the location, called the p ro j ect "th e beginning o f a big change for Union Avenue.” Opening the ceremony was P o rt land Development Commission Executive Director Patrick LaCrosse "T h is level o f investment shows a real confidence in Northeast Port land. The area is one o f our major economic development priorities,” LaCrosse stated. The Portland Development C o m mission participated in the project financing through a $128,000 Eco nomic Development Revolving Loan and a $47,000 Investor Re habilitation Loan. Private financing was provided by the O ffice and Pro fessional Employees Union *11, represented by Capital Consultants, Inc., and construction financing by Securities Intermountain, Inc. (S IM C O ). Jane and How ard Glazer are de velopers o f the project. M r. Glazer is a registered architect with The Architects Forum and has developed over $2 million o f projects since 1970. Mrs. Glazer is currently a teacher at Catlin Gabel School. N A A C P national board members met in New York Saturday, where they reinstated Executive Director Benjamin Hooks, who had been suspended by board chairman Margaret Bush Wilson, and request ed Ms. W ilson's resignation. The meeting, attended by 94 of the 64 board members, was called in response to Ms. W ilson’s M ay 18th suspension o f Dr. Hooks and her naming the organization's legal counsel, Thomas Atkins, acting director. The Saturday meeting, which Ms. Bush calls "unconstitutional" was called by vice-chairman Kelly Alexander, Sr. in response to the request o f 90 board members. Neither Ms. Bush nor Atkins were available to carry out the request. After the meeting had been sched- uled, Atkins announced that a special board meeting had been set for June I , but the 90 members con sidered the problem too urgent to be postponed. Ms. Bush, under pres sure, had reinstated Hooks on May 26th. The board members said the suspension o f Hooks was " a rb i trary, without precedent, contrary to the policies of the association, without cause, unwarranted and an abuse o f discretion.” A telegram requesting Ms. W il son's resignation, authorized by 48 o f the board members, was sent to Ms. Wilson in St. Louis. There is no authority in the N A A C P constitu tion to remove a chairman, who is elected annually, in January, by (he board. Ms. Bush was first elected in 1979. The board acted in several ways to restrict Ms. Wilson's power They ordered that she cannot act as the organization's spokesman: ruled that she cannot give direct orders to the staff without permission of the executive director nor interfere with day -to-day operations; ordered that she cannot authorize spending without board approval or, in emer gencies, by the budget committee They also assigned the keynote address to the National Convention, always made by the chairman, to vice-chairman Alexander The board restored to the executive director all the powers, duties and responsibilities of the position of chief executive. They ordered that any reference to the suspension be removed from the records of the association. Hooks' suspension was the climax of a power struggle that has existed, though often denied, since his ap pointment in 1977. Seven years ago, when Roy Wilkins was executive director but was elderly and ill, changes in the by-laws deleted the absolute authority the executive director had over daily operations and gave the chairman sweeping power to act in personnel, finance and other areas o f administration. When Hooks came on board, Ms Wilson retained these powers, and conflict over the operations soon developed Both Hooks and Ms Wilson were "o ffic ia l spokesmen" although their views often conflict ed and Hooks found himself back tracking in order to avoid open conflict over philosophy and policy. (Please turn Io page 4 column J) Leaders find no solutions to economic crisis The leaders o f seven "industrial democracies" met in W illiamsburg, Va. last weekend to discuss their economic ills. They left with a hard line statement on arms but little to give hope for an improved economy The Reagan administration's first priority for 1983 is the deployment o f medium-range missiles in Europe and he was willing to forego conflict over economic issues in order to maintain the political unity neces sary to get solid backing for his plans. The group’ s strong statement on arms and especially the participa tion o f Japan, which is not a member of N A T O , in the arms state ment, along with France, which attempts to maintain military inde pendence. is considered a victory for Reagan In the area o f economics, little progress was made but the U.S. made minor concessions ine nations agreed to maintain "dis ciplined, noninflationary growth o f the money supply" which is a refer ence to the U .S .'s enormous recent increase in money supply and its large budget deficit, which is con sidered by some to be a cause of high interest rates. Reagan's line is that the U.S. is experiencing economic recovery and this w ill bring recovery to the world economy. Leaders o f the other nations — France, Britain, West Germany, Italy. Japan and Canada — were not so optimistic. U .S. high interest rates are a point o f great concern. High interest rales draw funds from investors abroad who are seeking a higher return on their money and deprive other na tions of the investment in their owg economies. This brings economic stagnation and high unemployment. High interest rales also cause havoc with foreign governments, especially third world nations, that must borrow from U.S. banks. Although continuously discussed, this prob lem was not resolved The problem o f the enormous third world debt was not dealt with, although France has called for a more realistic realignment of re sources among the developed and developing nations and Canada favors aid to the third world nations because they are prospective cus tomers. Other issues left to solve them selves were growing protectionism, the contraction o f world trade, threatening third world defaults, and volatility in foreign exchange markets. T o head o ff France’s demand for a fixed monetary ex change rate, which the U.S. opposes, the group agreed to invite their Ministries ot Finance to meet with the U.S.-controlled Interna tional Monetary Fund to consider whether a high-level conference on this topic might be helpful. The strong U .S dollar, inflated because of high interest rales, raises the cost of U.S goods abroad This not only makes importation of U.S goods more costly, but lowers the value of foreign currency on the in ternational money market. Expressing concern over interna tional debts, they agreed that the problem should be dealt with through trade, private and official financing and "effective adjust ments and development policies by debtor nations.” They did not call for massive aid N o attention was given to the low prices assigned to commodities produced by these nations or the high cost of imported mine near W elkom on April 8 can undoubtedly be linked with the stepped up drive to boost uranium production in South Africa and to achieve nuclear self-sufficiency be fore sanctions close in upon the apartheid state. South Africa has already become third among the 'world’s uranium-producing coun tries. In 1982 it will produce 16,900 pounds o f uranium, and this Is planned to rise by about a million pounds a year until South A frica attains second place in the world by 1989, with about 18,400 pounds. Part o f this is being exported (to the Federal Republic o f Germany, for example) but the bulk is going into the apartheid state's own nuclear program, which includes the production of nuclear weapons, at least one of which has already been tested. During the past year there has been a marked intensification of the South African nuclear drive. It was revealed in A pril, 1982 that 20 nuclear technicians had been lured by high pay offers to South Africa from Britain, all from the top secret British nuclear plant at Dounreay in Scotland. The vice-president o f the Scottish Labor Party, Dr. Gordon Brown, protesting against this, said, "South Africa is quite clearly (Please turn to page 4 column /) Apartheid, nuclear power and mine safety by IFIIHam Pomeroy A n incident o f disaster in a South African uranium mine on A p ril 8 provides an insight into a number o f aspects o f the mining industry in that apartheid country. A t the Beisa uranium mine, near W elkom in Orange Free State, an underground explosion killed 16 black miners. Protesting the lack o f safety measures, the m ajority o f black miners refused to go under ground when ordered to resume work three days later. W hen securi ty police at the mine sought to force them into the shaft, the Black miners rioted and destroyed nearly $100,000 worth o f mine property. Five o f the black miners were picked out as leaders o f the protest and arrested. About 900 others quit their jobs and departed from their homes in the segregated tribal Bantustans Such outbursts and mass w alk outs have become frequent occur rences in South African mines. They are the instinctive actions o f workers who are still largely un organized into unions, which have only begun to be accepted by white mine owners. Unsafe conditions are one o f the main incentives to organization. Among major mining countries. I South A frica has the worst record for disasters. Last year 996 miners, almost all black, were killed in mining accidents, while 19,290 were injured badly enough to have to stay out o f work for at least two weeks. The fatality rate has remained at the same level, without a decline, for over two decades. In an underground work force of 900,000, o f which nearly four-fifths are black, that fatality rate is 1.29 per every 1,000 workers. It is eight times as high as the death rate on the jo b for Britain’s 220,000 miners. Contributing to this are the ad verse circumstances in many of South A frica's mines. In many cases they are as much as 12,000 feel deep, have very high temperatures below ground, and are driven Into geological formations where seismic disturbances are common. There is a high turnover of unskilled black workers who are denied training as part o f the skilled job reservation maintained by the racist white Mine Workers Union. Despite the disaster record and the large number o f miners (in all categories, below and above ground, they total 700,000), there is only one person in South Africa employed to ensure occupational safety in the mining industry. The tragedy at the Beisa uranium (Please turn Io page S column /)
