Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (April 16, 1997)
"W J»W S 3 ® M » r ¿•.3% .'S? w l April 16, 1997 Committed to cultural diversity. Volume XXVII, Number 16 fLltt' ^ n rtlarih (©bseruer SECTION B Z fT o m tn u n ttg \LUt i e n h a r Vietnam National Day The Vietnamese community in Oregon has planned a Vietnam National Day cel ebration, and also to commemorate the Twenty-Second Anniversary of the begin ning of the Vietnamese refugee migration to the United States. The event will be held on Saturday, April 19, 1997 at the Madison High School Auditorium, 2735 NE 82nd Avenue, Portland, Oregon from 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm. This year s program will include: Portland City Commissioner Jim Francesconi will read a Proclamation from Mayor Vera Katz; a solemn and traditional ritual ceremony paying tribute to V ietnam 's Founding Father; speeches from representatives of various Vietnam ese associations; and a special cultural show featuring Vietnamese dances and music. For more information contact Paul Kinh Duong at 823-3049. Sign Up Now For Summer Swim Lessons! Mail-In Registration for Portland Parks Summer swimming lessons has begun tor the summer lessons offered at all Portland Parks indoor and outdoor pools. Portland Parks & R ecreation's Aquatic D epart ment offers swimming lessons for every age and skill level, including parent/in- fant courses, pre-school lesstg s for chil dren 3-5. youth lessons for children 6 and older, and more. Portland Parks outdoor p o o ls w ill o p en on M o n d ay , June 16th.Walk-in registration begins Satur day, June 14th at your neighborhood pool.For more information, or to request yourcopy of Portland Parks SummerSwim Schedule and registration form, call Port land Parks at 823-5130. Asian Youth Leadership Conference The City of Portland's Refugee & Im migrant Program, the Portland School District and Nike, Inc., have planned the Fifth Annual Asian Youth Leadership Conference, which will be held on: Thurs day, April 17, 1997 at the Portland C om munity College, Sylvania Campus, 12000 SW 49th Avenue, Portland. Oregon, from 8:30 am to 4:(M) pm. This one day confer ence is planned as a community event (please see the program attached). We are expecting 250 to 300 sophomore and jun ior students from high schools in the Portland and Beaverton School Districts. The goal of the conference is to foster the development of leadership skills among Asian students, and to help these students cultivate their understanding and appre ciation of the history, culture and contri butions of different ethnic groups in the United States. For more information please contact Paul Kinh Duong at 823-3049. Concerts in the Chapel Series concludes Warner Pacific College will present Novum Chamber Singers as the featured performance group for the final concert of the 1996-97 "Concerts in the Chapel" series. April 19 at 7:30 p.m., according to Dr. Walter B. Saul, director o f the series. Concerts are held in the Schlatter Chapel on the WPC campus, southeast 68th and Division. Tickets will be available at the door or in advance by contacting Series Director Dr. Walter Saul, 788-7476. Tick ets are $6 ($4 for students and seniors or $15 for family admission). For more in formation contact Erwin Boring, (503) 788-7487. McIver State Park Benefit Trail Ride Oregon Equestrian Trails in associa tion with Oregon State Parks will be hav ing a benefit trail ride at McIver State Park Sunday. April 20, 1997 from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm Riders will be encouraged to donate $5.00. All proceeds from this ride will go toward new equestrian facilities and the continued maintenance o f this beautiful park. SU B M ISSIO N S; C om m unity C alendar in fo rm a tio n w ill be given p rio rity if dated two weeks before the event date. SHOucflse merican Choreographers Show case has 1 2 upcoming perfor mances on M ay 9 -1 1 and 14- 1 8 ,1 9 9 7 at the Portland Center for the Performing Arts. A American Choreographers Showcase is an annual series showcasing new works by American choreographers, now in its sev enth year o f sponsorship by Phillip Morris Companies, Inc., will be featuring new works by T rey M cIn ty re, B ebe M iller, Paul Vasterling & James Canfield. Trey M cIntyre, choreographic associate and dancer with Houston Ballet, will cho reograph his first work for Oregon Ballet Theatre. M cIntyre has produced works for numerous companies, including New York City Ballet’s prestigious Diamond Project. Paul Vasterling, ballet master o f Nash ville Ballet, has created and staged more than a dozen ballets for Nashville Ballet, Milwaukee Ballet, Classical Ballet ot Mem phis, and Ballet Pacifica. He will choreo graph a new work exploring gender rela tionships, which is set to Vivaldi’s I he Four Seasons. James C anfield's new work. Charmed Quarek, will be set to an original score and will adapt qualities o f funk into balletic dance. Bebe Miller, artistic director of Bebe Miller -When Miller's on stage, you can't take your eyes o ff her; no one else has her funky poetry. Mysterious yet startlingly real thoughts seem to shape her gestures. Sometimes she looks like a shaman telling the area around her to shush; sometimes she looks like a wayward child." -Th e Village Voice. Company, has received an NEA Grant to create her second new work for Oregon Bal let I heatre. She choreographed A Certain Depth oil leart, Also Love for Oregon BalletTheatre’s 1994 ACS, and has also created works for ‘ Artists included at the American Choreographers Showcase include Bebe Miller (above), James Canfield (Top left), and Paul Vasterling (bottom left). many other major companies, including Bos ton Ballet and Alvin Ailey Repertory' En semble. Ms Miller will also set The Hendrix “No Parking” at DRUG HOUSE in L ee P eki . man f arrests, court orders and tres pass agreem ents c a n 't shut down activity at a drug house, maybe “no parking” signs can do it. I That is the experiment now under way in the 4700 block of Northeast Mallory Street, where "no stopping or parking" signs were installed on January 3. It is the latest effort to control illegal activity at 4715. home ot Elnora Young, the subject o f neighbors' complaints since 1992. "This is the first time I can recall that w e’ve used this tactic," Marsha Barbour of the Portland Police B ureau's Neighborhood Response Team says. "It makes a statement that this kind o f activity w on't be tolerated." The signs make enforcement easier be cause the police do not have to catch dealers in the act of selling drugs; merely being on the street makes them subject to ticketing or towing. Moreover, James Harding o f the bureau’s Drug and Vice Division says, it makes visitors “stick out like a sore thumb. O f course, it also means that other residents are restricted from parking in front o f their own houses. Barbour says that prior to instal lation her bureau called residents ot the block. "Some people didn't return our calls," she says. "The ones who did said they were willing to do anything to ge, rid of the problem.' Two of them, James and Elizabeth Kent, have been complaining about activity at the house by Young’s sons Bruce and Edwin, their families and others since 1992. Eliza beth Kent says she has seen heroin sold openly from the front porch, visitors driving into and wrecking residents' cars, shootouts in the streets, and acts o f prostitution per formed on the Kents’ front lawn. It took awhile to get the police to take them seri ously, she says, but their persistence eventu ally paid off in undercover missions and drug-related arrests. Last spring the police and city attorney’s office threatened to invoke the city's speci fied crime property and chronic nuisance ordinance, which allows them to order a property vacated for a year if it has been the subject o f repeated complaints to the police. Young agreed to evict her sons and other relatives. In return, neighbors and others offered to perform some long overdue re pairs on the house. I he Kents friend Ray Leary o f Self-enhancement, Inc., provided new locks for the house. Unfortuntely, Eliza beth Kent adds, the next day all the people Young had agreed to evict "had new keys in their hands.” So it went. Last September, before judge Donald Londer, Young agreed to a “stipu lated judgement” agreeing to keep her sons out o f the house on pain o f losing it. (On that occasion, her relatives drove her to court in a stolen car.) In December the city was back in court complaining o f violations ot the agreement. "We could have ordered the place vacated, but no one wants to do that to an old lady,” Harding says. Instead, judge Anna Brown ordered in- stallation o f the signs. How are they working? Neighbors still complain that “problem” relatives are still showing up in violation of the court order “ If you’re talking about what the law says then yeah, it's still being disobeyed.” James Kent says. “ But in terms o f addressing the issues we set out to address, the nuisance issues are no longer there.” “The flavor is so different,” Elizabeth adds. It is even better for Young, she says. "Before, she was a prisoner in her own house. Now she can invite her friends over Harding attributes the improvement to "a number o f things. The biggest thing was that the neighbors were so tenacious. I he com plaints they brought in were very factual, very eloquent" Kent says reaching this point was harder than it should have been, that too much con sideration was given to Young. "It Elnora s house had been in the west hills or Irvington, this wouldn’t have been allowed to happen, he says. "There’s the feeling that in inner northeast this sort o f thing happens.” Despite the years o f problems, he says, he never considered moving out “There are some things you have to take a stand on. on this is one o f them,” he says. "I grew up here and I'd call it a great neighborhood. We re five minutes from everything. Gentrification has taken place, but fortunately there’s a good mix o f people We don't want to see good people move out. The people who are causing the problems, they have to go." A taste of Tomorrow’s Computing o f a huge P C -th e Intel exhibit celebrates the nteractive exhibit allows visitors excitement o f computing, highlighting the at “America's Smith-sonian" to 25th anniversary of Intel’s own contribution explore how PC's have changed to modern history: the introduction o f the the world-and check out w hat's in store microprocessor. for the future of computing. I A 14-foot-tall computer monitor, a coffee cup the size o f a hot tub and a talking microprocessor all greet visitors at a unique interactive exhibit that has recently arrived in Portland, Oregon. Intel Corporation, a C orporate Partner in the S m ithsonian Institution's 150th anniversity celebration, is mounting this virtual "Honey, I Shrunk The Kids" technology exhibit as part o f the w o rld 's la rg e st tra v e lin g e x h ib itio n . "America’s Smithsonian,” which opened in Portland on April 3. Designed to allow people to see, touch and experience the power of personal com puting—and even to walk through the inside "Our exhibit allows visitors to get to know computing on a whole new level, said Dr. Andrew S. Grove, Intel's president and chief executive of ficer. "The personal computer has come a long way since its roots as a calculating device. I, is becoming the tool we use to com m unicate—using words, pictures and sounds—with our families, friends and col leagues around the world. This exhibit allows Intel to share with people across the country our excitement about computing technology and the potential it holds for us all Visitors to intel's 3000-square-foot ex hibit embark on a thrilling multimedia jo u r ney through the history o f key innovations. from the printing press through today's most powerful Intel microprocessor They walk into and explore the 14-foot-tall PC, sur rounded by giant circuitry that pulses and glows with energy. Here they meet the "brain o f the modern computer, the microproces sor. Through animated special effects, the microprocessor comes to life, welcoming visitors and introducing them to people from all walks o f life who use computers every day, including teachers and students. The centerpiece o f the exhibit is an envi ronmental theater housing a presentation entitled “More Than You Ever Imagined ” Once inside this "electronic fantasy” envi ronment. the audience becomes part o f a whirlwind investigation into the computer revolution Their host: Chip, the Micropro cessor. Their destination the past, present and future o f the Information Age. Project, originally created for her company in 1991. on D9 Dance Collective in Seattle-a group of all women dancers. Secause We Remember Iris Court Resident a Silent Witness yra was a student at Portland Community College and the mother of tw o boys, one of whom witnessed her murder. Her body, with 1 7 stab wounds, was found on the kitchen floor of her apartm ent. Her former boyfriend was convicted of murder and sentenced to 2 5 years In prison. Kyra Simone Woods, age 2 4 died on April 1 6, 1 9 9 4 . K The Iris Court Resident Council, the H o u sin g A u th o rity of P o rtla n d , AmeriCorps, and the Oregon Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence will hold a tree planting ceremony to honor Silent Witness Kyra Woods. The ceremony will take place on Friday, April 18 at 10:30 am at Iris Court, 300 N. Sumner in North Portland. Kyra Woods, who lived at Iris Court, is one o f 18 Oregon women who have been selected for the Silent Witness Exhibit. These women, who were murdered as a result o f domestic violence, are immortal ized in statue form. The statues are in scribed with a description of each woman’s story I he Silent Witness Exhibit travels throughout Oregon. AmeriCorps members, with the help of HAP’s maintenance staff, will plant a Japanese Snow tree and also install a plaque in front o f the Iris court Resident Council’s office. I he plaque reads: Kyra Woods 1 0 / 1 / 6 9 - 4 / 1 6 / 9 4 Because We Remember OCADSV and AmeriCorps April 1 8 . 1 9 9 7 AmeriCorps members have been work ing closely with the Oregon Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence for community outreach on issues o f do mestic violence. AmeriCorps Coordina tor Renee Watson-Taylor, who had met Krya Woods earlier while volunteering at IrjsCourt, developed the memorial project The Iris Court Resident Council will pro vide refreshments for the event. A 51 -unit low-income housing develop ment, Iris Court is part of the Housing Authority of Portland. I he Iris Court Resi dent Council is made up of residents con cerned about the quality ot life in the com munity The council plans activities, works with agencies, and develops programs.
