r., •
X .4
4
Volume X X V II, Number 29
Committed to cultural diversify.
Woods on good,
bad times
Impassioned pleas
fail to move mayor,
commissioners
Tiger speaks out about racial
harassment as he heads into
the British Open.
Embattled store owner faces
OLCC without city support.
See Sports, page AS.
%
July 16, 1997
Coaching team
USA!
Portland’s own shows why
he's one of the most
qualified wrestling coaches
in the country.
See Metro, inside
See Metro, inside.
»The Llovthnb
______
Crime
fight
shuffle
Designer Versace killed
Celebrity fashion designer Gianni
Versace was shot to death outside Ins man
sion in Miami Beach, Fla., this morning. A
police spokesman said a man about 25
years old is being sought and local media
reports say FBI experts on contract kill
ings have been brought in. Versace was
shot twice in the head at about 9 a.m. as he
unlocked the gate to his home.
Budget shakes up
police personnel
assignments
by
Second-hand smoke trial
he city has completed the hir
ing of Its neighborhood crime
prevention staff, creating a
shakeup of personnel in some neigh
borhood offices.
T
The tobacco industry got its turn Tues
day in the landmark second-hand smoke
trial in Miami. Plaintiffs’ lawyer Stanley
Rosenblatt delivered his opening state
ment Monday. He said tobacco companies
lied and cheated for decades to protect
their profits against medical research link
ingcigarette smoke with cancer Rosenblatt
represents 60,(X)0 non-smoking (light at
tendants who allege they were injured by
passengers’ cigarette smoke. They’re su
ing the tobacco companies lor $5 billion.
Clinton warns Serbs
President Clinton Tuesday warned the
Bosnian Serbs not to retaliate for a recent
swoop on war crimes suspects. Clinton
said retaliation would be a "grave mis
take.' Last week British troops from the
NATO peacekeeping force in Bosnia
staged raids in which they captured one
war crimes suspect and killed another in a
gunfight. Clinton said the Bosnian Serbs
had not lived up to the provision of the
Dayton peace accord culling on them to
turn over war crimes suspects. "They have
made no effort to help us bring in these
people.” he said.
Cosby Testifies in NY Trial
Bill Cosby testified in New York Tues
day in the trial o f a woman who is accused
of attempting to extort $40 million from
the entertainer. Cosby, 59, testified that
he had sex once with the mother of the
defendant. Autumn Jackson, 22. Cosby
says he met the woman’s mother in the
early 1970s in a hotel in Los Angeles.
Cosby later paid for some of Jackson’s
college expenses. Often stern in his de
livery, Cosby told the jury that he agreed
to help the woman and her daughter finan
cially — some $100,000 since 1994
but had been constantly pressed for more.
GM, Ford Top World List
General Motors is now the biggest com
pany in the world and Ford is second,
according to the list of the top 500 compa
nies compiled by Fortune magazine. GM
had revenues of $ 168.4 billion last year
while Ford had nearly $147 as they dis
placed the Japanese trading giants that
have led the Fortune Glohal 500 for the
past two years. The United States had the
most companies on the list, 162, up from
153 the previous year. Japan was second
with 126, a decline from last year's 141.
EDITORIAL........ .......... A2
BUSINESS......... .......... A3
Hillary Larson, Executive Director o f the
ABLE Association's literacy program,
encourages Gerardo Chacon.
Photo by Neil Heilpern
Reading solutions hailed
by
N eil H eilpern
H
illary Larson and nine-year-old
Gerardo Chacon hunkereddown
to get some serious reading
done.
Larson, executive director of Oregon’s
Association for Better Living and Education
(ABLE), stared intently into the boy’s eyes as
she showed him words and associated them
with pictures, to be sure the word represented
something real to him.
She kept watching until the moment he
didn’t relate to a w o rd -“dock”-a n d noticed
his dissociation. He abruptly turned to a
portrait o f two men on the wall and asked,
“Who are they.”
METRO.............. .......... B I
ARTS & ENT...... ....B 2,B 3
VANCOUVER..... ........... B2
FAMILY............... ............B4
CLASSIFIEDS.... ........... B7
Aware of the boredom that comes when
we don’t relate, Larson softly answered his
question, then steered him back to the word
she was challenging him to master.
She drew a picture of a dock and his eyes
lit up, able to connect the word and the
meaning. “You can tie a boat to the dock,” he
exclaimed, and was promptly applauded.
Another student expressed appreciation
for the use of tiny miniature figures that had
“real mass” to make the same connection.
These were techniques used by the late L.
Ron Hubbard, author of Dianetics and founder
of the Church of Scientology.
Larson said her organization is indepen
dent of the church and strives to increase
literacy in the communities it serves.ABLE
opened in Portland last labor day, with a visit
by Isaac Hayes, as part of the World Literacy
Crusade. “People get into trouble because
they may have memorized words, recognize
them, but they really don’t know what they
mean,” Larson told The Portland Observer.
“As a result, they lose interest in a subject or
it seems confusing to them.”
“Kids don’t need drugs if they have what
people call attention deficit disorder,” she
noted. “What they need is to learn how to use
a dictionary.’T he program’s five trained tu
tors serve 35 people a week, all ages and
races, she said. “The one rule is that everyone
gets respect.”
Oregon drug problems worsening
Report sounds alarm for drug use by young people, heroin deaths
A
new report shows an alarming
increase in drug problems, es
pecially for youth in Oregon and
the Portland metro area.
The drug impact index by the Regional
Drug Initiative, shows that marijuana use by
Oregon 8th graders tripled since 1990, while
Oregon juvenile arrests for drug offenses
quadrupled since 1991. Overall, drug-re
lated deaths increased to new record levels.
In Multnomah County, drug-related deaths
nearly doubled between 1992 and 1994 and
increased another 30 percent between 1995
and 1996. Most of these deaths resulted from
heroin use.
Public to consider
transportation Issues
for Martin Luther King
Jr. Boulevard
by
M ichael L eighton
Members o f a public advisory panel charged with making recommendations
on designs for Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard pause during a recent Tri-
Met tour of the thoroughfare.
community livability.
our chance to Influence the fu
The goal is to build on past and current
ture look of Martin Luther King efforts to create a boulevard that supports the
Jr. Boulevard can occur at an community as it grows and changes, accord
upcoming public design workshop. ing to Mary Voim, Portland transportation
Y
The city o f Portland, along with state and
metro transportation officials are sponsoring
the July 31 session to share opinions about
transportation issues on the street.
Issues include the removal or retention
o f the concrete median, parking, pedes
trian and bicycle safety, street lighting and
Neighborhood crime prevention spe
cialists help citizens organize block
watches, foot patrols and other crime
prevention activities.
Since its inception in 1978 the spe
cialists have been part of the staff of
neighborhood coalitions, non-profit or
ganizations dial receive funding from
the city through the Office of Neighbor
hood Associations under independent
I contracts.
During this year's budget delibera
tions the city proposed to cut the staff,
| place it under the police bureau and
have it operate out of police precincts.
When community groups protested,
the city decided instead to keep a slightly
reduced staff in the neighborhood of
fices, but have them report directly to
| ONA crime prevention director Sharon
McCormack.
This is the arrangement that exists in
| the East and North Portland offices,
where neighborhood coalitions fell apart
and the city operates the program di
rectly.
Existing staffers were invited to ap-
| ply for the "new" positions, and most
did so.
F ollow ing a re the c rim e p reven tio n
I staff, and th e ir assignments:
• C e n tra l N orth east N eig hb o rs: Mel
issa Delaney, formerly based in North
I Portland, will replace RogerSinnoll and
William Warren
• East P o rtla n d : Roseanne Lee returns.
• N ortheast C o a litio n o f N eighbors:
Changes
eyed fo r NE
thoroughfare
POLICE.............. .......... A4
SPORTS............. .......... A5
L ee P erlman
department spokesperson
Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard is one of
Portland's major traffic streets and a state
highway carrying a high volume of auto and
truck traffic
The boulevard serves local needs as a
vital link in the community and has seen
many changes.
Vacant lots are being redeveloped along
the thoroughfare. More than 300 new apart
ments have been built and more are on the
drawing boards. In addition, more than $20
million in private and public investments
have been made or are planned.
The workshop kicks off a process that will
produce alternatives to be reviewed by the
public in the fall. It will be held at the King
Elementary School cafeteria, 4906N.E. Sixth
Ave from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Kenneth Edwards and Scott Ellertson
return. Marsha Palmer does not. Linda
Hunter, assigned to city wide youth vio
lence issues, will work part time in the
office.
•
| • N o rth P o rtla n d : Vada Grimsrud re
turns, Delaney does not.
• N eighbors W e s t/N o rth w e s t: Rhetta
I Deason, formerly assigned full time to
this coalition, will work part-time in
Northwest and North.
• Southeast U p lift: Katherine Ander
son and Rebecca C’urrin return, Marsha
Palmer replaces Laura Feldman.
• S outhw est: Paul Dinberg replaces
I Walter Hudsick. who declined to apply
J for the new position.
In addition, one position will be as
signed to work with the Association for
Portland Progress io help the Down-
| town and Old Town/China Town neigh
borhoods (Paul Dinberg and Casey Jones
I formerly performed this job), and Helen
Cheek will work on special projects.
In setting up the program the city
asked that neighborhood offices pro-
! vide space for the crime prevention staff,
as they had in the past.
The Southwest and West/Northwest
groups declined lo do so, and here staf f
will work out of community policing
offices. In North,zest, the office is at
2311 Northwest Johnson.
In Southwest, it is currently located
in the Multnomah Arts Center, but is
seeking new quarters