Page 4 Portland Observer, October 5, 1963
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EDITORIAL/OPINION
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AND W A G IN G BIOLOGICAL
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Who supports the sales tax?
“ The major clamor has occurred in this build
ing [the State Capitol], on the editorial pages,
and in the board rooms o f the state,” Represen
tative Larry H ill said o f the sales tax. As he
noted, there has been no public outcry for a
sales tax.
As of today, it looks like a sales tax will ap
pear on the ballot— in a special election to be
held in March. The so-called liberal Democrats,
including Tom Throop, Grattan Kerans, Bar
bara Roberts, Vera Katz, etc., have pushed it
through the House once again and they, along
with Senate Democrats and Governor Atiyeh,
finally bulldozed it through the Senate over Sen
ate President Ed Fadeley’s opposition.
The proposed 4 percent sales tax would raise
approximately $685.6 million in the remaining
13 months o f the 1983-1985 biennium, becoming
effective on June 1, 1984. It would reduce tax on
all types o f property— residential, commercial,
industrial, etc.— by about 39 percent. While the
homeowner now assessed $1,000 in property tax
will save about $390, the major corporations
with taxes assessed at $1 million will save
$390,000.
The ordinary homeowner who spends nearly
all o f his money in Oregon will pay 4 percent on
his expenditures, excluding food, drugs and
medical care. When he spends $10,000 on cloth
ing, furniture, a car, school supplies, tuition,
shoes, restaurant meals, gifts, newspapers and
magazines, theater or game tickets, and any
other expenditures, his taxes will have equaled
the amount he saved from his property tax.
The large corporations are another matter:
their largest expenditure, depending on the na
ture o f the business, is on wages (no sales tax)
and on materials and supplies, often purchased
out o f state.
It is not difficult to see why the clamor for a
sales tax came from the board rooms o f the
giant corporations and the editorial pages o f the
newspaper chains. A survey o f campaign contri
butions should reveal why it also came from the
Capitol Building,
The Legislative leaders are anxious to put a
limit on state spending. Perhaps they could ob
tain a voluntary pledge by the supporters o f the
sales tax on the amount o f money that will be
used to try to cram it down the voters’ throats.
The tipping-point?
When Robert Blanchard was in town we used
to hear a lot about the “ tipping point.” It was
his theory that when a school became 35 percent
Black— or in some cases 25 percent— the white
students would leave and the school would be
come all-Black, or worse, empty.
As calmer heads prevailed, that theory and its
accompanying discriminatory regulations were
removed from school district policy and no one
is too worried about the all-Black schools that
never happened.
The “ tipping point” theory is again being
promulgated in the community, this time to
fight low-income housing. The Eliot Neighbor
hood Improvement Association is using the City
policy against concentration of subsidized hous
ing to fight the development of housing for the
handicapped between Union and Seventh
Avenue. The neighborhood now has 20 percent
subsidized housing and they fear that 25 percent
(or 35 percent?) could be the tipping-point which
brings white flight.
This brings out several unanswered questions
this community has dealt with for many years:
a) As older Black people die or go to nursing
homes, their homes are sold. In the current
economy home-buying is pretty well restricted to
the middle- and upper-income people. This fact,
combined with high unemployment o f Blacks,
has brought an influx o f young, white middle
class families into the Eliot neighborhood— re
placing the elderly Black residents who have
lived there for years.
b) Federal and local policies calling for scat
tering o f low-income subsidized housing were
established to help the low-income person inte
grate into the community, not to protect com
munities against low-income people. Is concen
tration of low-income people— which in this
community generally means concentration of
low-income Black people— in an area detriment
al to the community?
c) Should low-income housing for families
and especially for the elderly be provided in the
community where they have lived, where they
have social and family ties? Or should they be
sent to other parts of town solely to avoid con
centration of poor black people in an area?
Exclusivity has not been a characteristic of
Black people. They have welcomed all and espe
cially the poor and the oppressed.
We do not believe the addition of handk
capped residents of 30 units will be detrimental
to the community and it might even have some
benefits. We do not see opposition from the
Black residents of the area. We believe the City
hearings officer’s compromise— zoning the area
R-2 and restricting it to either the planned pro
jects or low density housing— is proper and
should be acceptable to all.
The decision to oppose the project was made
almost exclusively by white residents. The Eliot
Neighborhood Improvement Association must
find a way to bring the old-time residents o f the
Neighborhood— and especially the Black resi
dents— into the planning and decision-making
for their community.
Letters to the Editor_____ ____
Stop private utility charge to ratepayers
To the editor:
In 1978 Oregon voters passed Bal
lot Measure 9 overwhelmingly with
the intent o f prohibiting POE and
PPA L from ever charging ratepay
ers for the costs o f uncompleted and
abandoned projects. I was the chief
sponsor and campaign director for
Ballot Measure 9.
PO E and P PA L have never ac
cepted the voters’ decision. First,
through secret meetings with Ore
gon legislators and then working
hand-in-hand with the Public Utility
Commissioner they have tried to
channel the costs o f the defunct
Pebble Springs project to their rate
payers throuah a device known as a
“ debt-equity sw ap," which is cur
rently being challenged in court by
Forelaws on Board and the C oali
tion for Safe Power. PO E has also
run into trouble with the Bonneville
Power Administration by improper
ly including the Pebble Springs debt
f ilB y 8
■ ■ « w Association
™
in the high-cost power tney nave ex
changed with Bonneville for low
cost power.
Unfortunately
for
PO E and
P P A L investors, more bad debt
looms in the termination o f the Ska
git project which was to be built on
the Hanford Reservation in Wash
ington. PO E has invested $126 mil
lion and P P A L $89 million in that
one project, which has not proceed
ed because o f regional energy sur
pluses.
Unwilling to let their investors
take a loss (they took the risk), POE
and P P A L have asked Public U tility
Commissioner John Lobdell for a
declaratory ruling that would permit
them to charge their ratepayers for
their abandoned investments and in
effect administratively overturn the
mandate o f Oregon voters when
they passed Ballot Measure 9.
As chief sponsor o f Ballot M ea
sure 9 I have intervened in opposi
tion to the POE and P P A L request
Dave M e Teague
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— ———— ■—“ “ “—“ “ “ ———— ,
Prosecute the Kian
by D r. M anning M arable
The most dangerous yet seldom
noticed aspect o f Reaganism is the
overall political climate it estab
lishes for racism and violence.
Reagan’s brutal disregard for
public housing and health care, his
bellicose
statements
attacking
human needs spending, and his
open contempt for civil rights, clear
ly set a national tone for racist vigil
ante violence against Blacks, Jews
and other national minorities. The
evidence is clear enough. Since the
late 1970s. according to the N ation
al A nti-K ian Netw ork, nearly 500
cases o f Ku Klux Kian terror and
murders have been documented.
Five hundred more instances o f
anti-Semitic and anti-Black violence
have been recorded— not counting
other forms o f brutality, such as po
lice violence.
O nly a few recent examples, col
lected by the U .S. C ivil Rights C o m
mission, the A nti-K ian Network and
Atlanta activist Imani Clairbone,
are sufficient to illustrate the prob
lem.
O n M ay I , 1981, Robert L . H en
derson, a Black Pennsylvania resi
dent, was abducted at gunpoint by
three white males. After undressing
him, he was taken to a junkyard
where the racists tried to lynch him
from a crane from his rectum. Fail
ing at this, they then forced a metal
pipe seven inches long and four
inches wide into Henderson's rec
tum. The Black man had to undergo
surgery and was long under inten
sive care after the incident.
On March 10, 1982, a Jewish fe
male student at the University of
M aryland/C ollege Park was shot
five times with a BB gun on campus.
Her attacker yelled " H e il H itle r"
and other anti-Semitic epithets while
he shot her. An underground cam
pus newspaper surfaced after the
shooting, hailing the racist as a hero
and suggesting that "next time he
use a flam ethrow er" on the victim.
O n M ay 4, 1982, five white C olo
rado males were arrested for plot
ting to execute two Federal judges
and bomb the Denver Internal Ser
vice officer. One o f those arrested
was the local Kian president, and
other would-be vigilantes had Kian
connections.
Obviously, the President has a t
tempted to distance himself from
these crude manifestations o f his
own political philosophy. In a brief
introduction to a U .S . C ivil Rights
Commission's report, " In tim id a
tion and Violence: Racial and Reli
gious Bigotry,” Reagan denounced
racist violence, but in a very limited
and faulty manner. " A few isolated
groups in the backwaters o f A m er
ican life ," he stated, "still hold per
verted notions o f what America is
all a b o u t." The statement above is
unsatisfactory in at least two re
spects. First, racist violence is a
normal and indeed integral aspect of
any institutionally racist social
order. Second, there is a direct cor
relation between the emergence of
Kian and racist brutality with unem
ployment and rising ethnic hostility,
a cultural and political environment
which Reaganism deliberately pro
vokes.
How do we effectively combat ra
cist violence? Most civil rights ex
perts concur that no new legislation
is needed to place the most danger
ous racists behind bars. As the N a
tional A n ti-K ian N etw o rk’s Coor-
dinator, Lynn Wells, and National
Chair Rev. C .T . Vivian note, laws
adopted during the 1860s which tar
geted the post-Civil W ar Kian are
still on the books. These federal
"A n ti-K ian Statutes" read in part:
"Conspiracy Against Rights o f C iti
zens: I f two or more persons con
spire to injure, oppress, threaten, or
intimidate any citizen in the free ex
ercise or enjoyment o f any right or
privilege secured to him by the Con
stitution or laws o f the United States
___ I f two or more persons go in
disguise on the highway, or on the
premises o f another, with intent to
prevent or hinder his free exercise or
enjoyment o f any right,” they are
subject to Federal prosecution.
Reagan's Attorney General, W il
liam French Smith, claims that vir
tually all o f the recent cases o f racist
violence fall outside of Federal ju r
isdiction— in direct contradiction to
Federal law. The U .S. Justice De
partment has prosecuted barely two
dozen cases— and the carnage and
terror continues.
Early this year, the National Anti-
Klan Network launched an am bi
tious educational and political cam
paign to force the Reaganites to en
force the A nti-K ian Statutes. The
Network, Klanwatch, the SCLC,
and other civil rights agencies in
volved in anti-racist work merit our
financial and political support. We
must elevate the demand for Federal
enforcement o f A nti-K ian laws into
a major issue in next year’s election.
But in our long-term task to isolate
and ultimatley destroy Kian and all
racist violence, we must have a cor
rect understanding o f the organic
links between economics, politics
and white supremacy.
Eliot housing decision
(P U C C A S E U M -1 3 ) joined by
Forelaws on Board, Coalition for
Safe Power, and U .S. Representa
live Jim Weaver. Oregonians who
don’t want to pay for unfinished
and abandoned utility projects
should write Public U tility Comm is
sioner John Lobdell. Labor A In
dustries Bldg., Salem, Oregon 97310
to object and support Ballot M ea
sure 9.
Although I have intervened in this
P U C proceeding, it is clearly illegal.
The whole intent o f Ballot Measure
9 was to prevent exactly what POE
and P P A L are asking. Oregonians
should never have to pay for the
utilities’ bad investments and power
they will never receive.
In our free enterprise system, the
investors take the risks, the profits
and the losses. Bailing out these
Fortune 500 monopolies is lemon
socialism o f (he worst kind.
Portland Observer
WE AAU£T STOP THE USE OF THESE NILE.
(Continued fro m page I column 6/
Committee that a San Francisco de
velopment they had praised as the
type Eliot should seek is also a sub
sidized project, "b u t for $18,000-
$20,000 a year people, rather than
the handicapped." He said the issue
has nothing to do with the handi-
epped, but with the cost o f land.
"O n ly because they are asking for a
zone change is the Neighborhood in
volved." Otherwise, they can build
anywhere they choose.
Ted W ainright, a former resident
and now a landlord, favors the pro
ject. “ When Emanuel ripped out
houses, the freeway took away
neighborhoods, it destroyed the eco
nomic base, ,'m in favor o f bringing
payrolls, people.” He said one man
involved with the Land Use C om
New York
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mittee decision had told him the
people would be "transients,” here
for a little while. " I thought maybe
it wasn't a good idea, but then, if it
was someone who belongs to me I
would be happy for th em ."
This statement was met with hos
tility and the epilath "absentee
lan d lo rd ." Even more anger was ex
pressed when in the name o f "d e
mocracy" he said the people living
in the neighborgood should make
the decision. "T his is a mostly Black
neighborhood.
Where
are
the
Blacks? I would like to know what
they w an t.”
Following the vote to appeal to
the C ity Council, Bob Russell said,
" T h a t’s were democracy sets in .”
Everyone can testify and those on
the "s ig n -in " sheet will be notified.
PLEASE PRINT
Matt to Portland Observe«
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