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The Information Highway: Oof A Map? II
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Arbor Month with Awards, Activities
For the eighth consecutive year
the City of Vancouver has again
claimed a ‘‘Tree City USA" award
from the National Arbor Day Foun
dation.
The award recognizes the city’s
progress in community forestry.
The city also boasts a fifth-year
Tree City USA “Growth Award,”
given for publishing a brochure,
hiring an urban forester and olfer-
ing a city-wide leaf pick-up pro
gram.
The following activities are de
signed to celebrate April as Arbor
Month:
• Wednesday, April 9, 11 a.m.,
O.O. Howard House Dedication
Tree Planting.
• Wednesday, April 16, !0 a.m.-
noon. Frenchman's Par Regional
Park School Planting
• Saturday, April 19, 10 a m. - 2
p.m.. "Urban Tree Exchange, "ac
tion project during Earth Action
Day.
• Tuesday. April 22. Earth Day
Planting, at Vancouver School of
Arts and Academics.
This year marks the 125th anni
versary of Arbor Day. Contact the
city’s urban forester, at (360) 696-
8005, for more details.
City Invites Daughters To Work
Millions of girls across America
will join their parents at work on
Thursday, April 24, to participate
in Bring Our Daughters to Work
Day.
The City of Vancouver has
planned activities to coincide with
the national campaign that the
Ms. Foundation for Women de
signed to help ensure that girls
remain confident, strong and in
school throughout their teen years.
At the city, employee’s daughters
will spend the morning observing
their parent at work, then attend a
Brown Bag Lunch presentation in
Council Chambers from 11 am to 1
pm.
Mary Jo Briggs, deputy city man
ager, Suzanne Bick, assistant finance
director, will discuss career paths
and answer questions.
To complete the day, girls will
tour city facilities including City
Hall, police headquarters. Water
Resources Education Center, op
erations center and the main fire
station.
At each location a female em
ployee will discuss the job they
perform and answer questions.
Lisa Sykes in the city's Human
Resources and Risk Services De
partment is coordinating the activ
ity. Sykes can be reached at 360-
696-8142.
Free Paint Program
The City of Vancouver is ac
cepting applications for its Neigh
borhood Free Paint Program. The
program helps low-and moderate-
ipcome city residents improve the
exterior appearance of their homes
by providing paint and supplies
while the residents supply labor.
Over the past seven years, the
self-help paint program has helped
hundreds of city residents improve
the look of their homes and neigh
borhood.
Eligible applicants must be city
residents and meet income guide-
The program is administered on
a first-come, first-served basis. Ap
plications will be accepted until all
dedicated funding is used. Funding
for the program comes to the city
from the federal Housing and Ur
ban Development Program and is
administered by the city through
the Community Development Block
Grant Program. The City Council
determines which programs receive
funding.
For assistance call the 24-hour
hotline at (360) 735-8866.
Alarm System Owners Notified of Ordinance
Residents and business owners in east Vancouver who may have alarm
systems will soon get a letter form the city about alarm user registration. An
alarm ordinance was adopted in 1995 to reduce the number ot false alarms
from residences and businesses.
■<<///
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Public Invited
to Nominate
City Employees
Nominations of city employees
for exceptional service awards are
being sought by the Employee Rec
ognition Committee for the City ol
Vancouver.
Every May, employees are rec
ognized for the service they pro
vide, the manner in which they
work and the motivation, values
and vision they bring to the work
place.
This year there are eight awards.
One employee or team in each
category is selected by the Em
ployee Recognition Committee as
the award winner. The winners are
then considered for the employee
of the Year award, chosen by City
Manager Vernon Stoner
>incite CffltshiniftoH
Love, Dad & Family
Thank You So Much
The world s a whole lot better place
Because o f people like you
Who give real joy and pleasure
Bv the nice things that they do,
And with your recent thoughtfulness
Still very much in mind.
This is meant to bring
a 'Thank You'
O f the very warmest kind!
— The DeWeese Family
Flori
Roberts
MAKE-OVER EVENT
Saturday and Sunday April 19th and 20th
12:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.
JC Penney Lloyd Center Mall
Join us at our Lloyd Center Flori Roberts Counter on Saturday and Sunday
April 19th and 20th as we feature Keith Roquemore National Make-Up Artist.
Keith will be demonstrating the new spring color and treatment products.
Special gifts with purchase are available for participating in our event.
Register for Prizes
Call 288-6481 to book an appointment
JC Penney®
Lloyd Center Mall
P rof . M c K inley Bt k |
If the topic sounds familiar, maybe
it’s because 1 was right on target in
November 1993 with “Highway I”,
just didn’t have space enough to
describe or forecast how convoluted
and serendipity these arterials would
become. 1 began neatly and con
cisely as follows.
"The word information' has one
of the most expansive definitions in
Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate
Dictionary [see Tenth, C 1996). We
are advised No 1, The communica
tion or reception of knowledge or
intelligence’, and No. 2 Knowl
edge obtained from investigation,
study or instruction’-and that’s just
the beginning of a potpourri."
In my ‘perspectives’ column for
this week, "Doing Small Business
On A Small Planet”, pg 2, I try to
remain "on target” by citing several
of the ‘information retrieval’ pit-
falls that await the unwary entrepre
neur I le with 32 MB RAM, 2 Gs of
hard disk and considers himself un
conquerable in the information wars
would do well to pay some attention
to that daily comic strip, “Adam".
This beleaguered house-husband
is a piteous spectacle as he tries to
launch a computer-assisted enter
prise from the depths of his office-
in-the-basement. His is never to be a
"carpe diem" existence, on the con
trary, "each day seizes him." Adam
has become what I’ve described as
tool of the information hucksters—
acknowledging their existence and
thereby becoming their transcriber
and stenographer, filling up acres ot
files and upgrades with relevant (?)
intrusions.
Rather than "compiling books’
on the services and merchandise of
other merchandisers, I find some
friends have returned their comput
ers to their original productive (and
profitable) use-listing and retriev
ing the cash flow-type entities and
persons for real-time marketing. A
neighbor tells me, "I love the ser
vices and profiles of the reopening
public library. They’re formatted as
1 could never be, these are the ‘list
masters’.” Threatens to market from
the Reading Room.
O f course all of us regret that the
“ Information Service’ has been dis
continued. This has been such a
valuable tool for the acquisition of
valuable information not always
readily accessible to either layper
son or the expert. Believe it or not,
Portland, Oregon now becomes the
only large city in the entire United
States without a public information
phone line at it’s public library. This
is a terrible situation, and especially
at this time when we are deploring
the decline of our education system
overall. Year 2000 and the implica
tions for technological readiness are
not going away.
Well, for the moment I may
have distracted you from the m on
strous volume o f junk U S. Mail,
junk fax and junk e-mail. Can we
look forward to junk U P S. or
junk Eed-Ex, don’t laugh, you read
it here first. But, let us return to
fu rth e r c o n s id e ra tio n o f the
"A dam -at-hom e” type entrepre
neur. That is, those who have not
been rendered dysfunctional by the
hypnotic influence o f the NET.
Last Sunday’s Oregonian has an
excellent article by staff writer Fred
Leeson, "Working At home”. I like
it because the focus is on Portland
and it addresses the specific areas of
commercial enterprise peculiar to
small scale enterprise in the region
(Has somebody been peeping at my
Portland Observer columns the past
several years?). “Micro enterprises
are heavily concentrated in services-
-sole proprietorships, a category
dominated by companies with fewer
than ten employees, generate 8% of
the cities income.”
And, finally, keep it in mind that
99% of the so called “Information”
you get each day is from the entre
preneurs who’s only business expe
rience has been selling information
on “how to succeed in business”-
The same situation we had in the
1849 Gold Strike at Sutter’s Mill
and during the Yukon Gold Rush’.
Avoid Workplace Drug Problems
Over 70% o f drug users are em
ployed. One in ten Oregon adults
abuses or is dependent on alcohol.
Larger em ployers already use
"drug-free workplace” programs
to eliminate these problems.
The result9 Workers with alco
hol and drug problems are flood
ing smaller em ployers.. Today,
companies of all sizes need to start
or update their own drug-free
workplace programs to meet this
challenge, prevent problems, save
money, improve productivity, and
foster employee health.
You can learn how to start a
drug-free workplace program by
attending the workshop to be held
Wednesday, April 23rd in Van
couver, Washington.
Experts in drug-free workplace
implementation, drug testing, sub
stance abuse treatment, employee
assistance programs, violence pre
vention programs, legal aspects,
and writing drug-free workplace
policies will provide a compre
hensive day-long train ingco-spon-
sored by the Regional Drug Initia
tiv e, C lark C ounty S ubstance
Abuse Coalition, and the Vancou
ver Chamber o f Commerce.
The workshop costs $35 includ
ing a continental breakfast and
lunch. Handouts and a compre
hensive guidebook will be in-
cluded.
Call now and reserve your spot
before the April 16 deadline or get
more information. Call toll-free to
1-888-JOINDRI or call Karyl at
(3 6 0 )6 8 7 -7 1 2 6 or L arry at
(503)294-7074.
Drug and alcohol abusers are
five times more likely to file a
workers’ compensation claim, in
cur 300% more health costs, are
one third less productive, are ab
sent from work three times as
much, and are involved in over
50% o f all violent acts. The esti
mated cost per alcohol or drug
using em ployee is $12,000 to
$25,000 per year.
The 39th Annual
EBONY
FASHION FAIR
The Great
presents
pH
Fashion
Mix
Sponsored by
Portland Chapter Of
The Links, Inc.
Benefit of
Links Educational
Scholarship Fund
Friday, April 18, 1997
8:00 pm
Red Lion Hotel/Jantzen Beach
Portland, Oregon
Ticket Price: $30?"’
Tickets A vailable at:
Mrs. C ’s Wigs
707 NE Fremont
281-6525
One Stop Record Shop
615 NE Killingsworth
284-2435
HouscofSound
3620 N Williams
287-1960
J. Kurls & Co.
2948 NE MLK Jr. Blvd.
282-5809
Sylvan Learning C enter
4300 NE Fremont Suite 150
249-2855
Or from any Link Member
WIN A ROUND-TRIP AIR TRANSPORTATION FOR TWO TO ANY DOMESTIC 48 U.S.
DESTINATION SERVED BY AMERICAN AIRLINES AND/OR AMERICAN EAGLE
(Includes 1 yr. subscription to EBONY/EM or 6-month subscription to JET