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‘City of Roses’
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Committed to Cultural Diversity
Volume XXXIII • Number 52
T,Weekin
TheReview
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www.portlandobserver.com
Established in 1970
Wednesday • December 24, 2003
Clinic’s Life Support on Ropes
Terror Alert Hiked
Goodwill health center
faces financial crisis
The head of the Department of
Homeland Security on Monday
urged people to "just go about
your business" despite the deci­
sion to raise the national terror-
attack warning to its second-high­
est level. Tom Ridge said the Bush
administration wants people to “be
vigilant and have a good commu­
nications plan under way.”
by J aymee R. Cun
T he P ortland O bserver
The much beloved "clinic o f last resort” for disadvantaged
families in north and northeast Portland is facing its worst
financial crisis yet.
Mariah Taylor has entertained the possibility o f cutting
staff to keep open her North Portland Nurse Practitioner
Comm unity Health Center at 5 3 11 N. Vancouver.
"This is the most dire w e’ve been in 24 years," said Taylor,
a nurse practitioner who runs the health center serving
Portland's neediest uninsured families and refusing to turn
away anyone based on inability to pay.
The message is clear; the clinic will remain open, but it’s in
great need and services will be reduced.
Malvo Sentenced to Life
T he ju ry in the W ashington
sniper case Tuesday spared Lee
Boyd M alvo from the fate aw ait­
ing h is m e n to r Jo h n A llen
M uham mad - the death penalty -
after his lawyers portrayed him
as an im pressionable boy who
had fallen under M uham m ad's
m urderous spell. Malvo, 18, will
be instead be locked away for the
rest o f his life.
Taylor frets that reduced services put patients at risk o f
misdiagnosis, and accepts the possibility that if financial
support for the center doesn’t improve, the clinic may be forced
to turn away patients.
Third ‘Rings’ Film Beats
Out Predecessors
For this com m unity health resource, with its own food
bank, toy chest, clothes closet, vitam ins and diapers, the
w ish list is long.
Movie audiences shelled out a
king's ransom for one last trip to
M iddle-earth. “The Lord o f the
Rings: The Return of the King”
raked in $73.6 million in its first
weekend and put up a five-day
haul o f $ 125.1 million since de­
buting last W ednesday.
Death Penalty for Saddam?
P resident Bush said Saddam
Hussein deserves the “ultimate
penalty” for his crimes, but he
faced objections from European
countries, the United Nations and
the Vatican, which are adamantly
opposed to capital punishment.
Green River Killer gets Life
Gary Ridgway, the Green River
Killer who terrorized Seattle in
the early 1980s, tearfully apolo­
gized for “killing all those young
ladies” as a judge sentenced him
to life in prison without the chance
o f release.
Quakes Rock California
More aftershocks rattled the area
Tuesday following a magnitude-
6.5 earthquake that jolted the
central C alifornia coast, killing
two people, injuring dozens and
wrecking a landmark clock tower.
Jackson Charged With
Child Molestation
Michael Jackson was formally
charged with repeatedly m olest­
ing a cancer-stricken boy invited
to his Neverland Ranch, setting
the stage for what could become
one o f the most sensational ce­
lebrity cases this Internet-wired,
24-hour-cable world has ever
seen S e e sto ry on p a g e A7.
"The clinic will look different in 2004,” said Taylor.
The changes include implementing a sliding fee scale based
on income, instead of a fiat fee of $20 for an exam, medication
and referrals to a specialist. Many expensive specialist ser­
vices will becut as well, including magnetic resonance imaging
(MR1).
photo by
M ark W ashington /T he P ortland O bserver
c o n tin u e d
on page A 3
Nurse practitioner Mariah Taylor points to cost-cutting ways to keep her north Portland clinic open.
Interstate Tests Bring Safety Alert
The inaugural test run of the Inter­
state Max train though north Portland
has coincided with a TriMet safety
campaign urging pedestrians and driv­
ers to look both ways before crossing
the tracks.
Deadly collisions with the commuter
trains have occurred on the rail sys­
tem in Gresham, Hillsboro and down­
town Portland.
Max trains are quiet and often are
hard to hear over regular traffic noise,
making a visual lookout paramount.
TriMet also warns pedestrians not
to stop on the tracks in the middle of
the crossing and never to walk on the
tracks or enter restricted trackways.
Officials said transit police will be
patrolling the line and will ticket tres­
passers.
The test trains are scheduled to
run on the new alignm ent with more
frequency in the next few weeks
with many trains running on the line
for testing purposes ahead of the
May I opening for passenger ser­
vice.
A Max train pulls up to the North
Lombard station on Interstate
Avenue during Friday's first test of
the new 5.8-mile track between the
Rose Quarter and Expo Center.
M ark W ashington /
T he P orti . and O bserver
photo by
New Police Policies Pledge to Curb Profanity
Review board
encourages use of
respectful words
Area residents will begin the New
Year under a new pledge on the use
of profanity by Portland Police.
According to the Independent
Police Review Division of the O f­
fice o f the C ity A uditor G ary
Blackmer, many o f the com plaints
citizens lodge against police is b e­
cause of the officers’ use of pro­
fanity.
The review board investigated
the com plaints by interviewing po­
lice departm ent staff, reviewing the
policy and training manual, survey­
ing other police agencies, co llect­
ing citizen s' input at public forums
and analyzing the circum stances
when foul language was used.
The board questioned whether
officers are follow ing procedure
and if not, what consequences they
face.
As a result, the Police Bureau
adopted three policies recommended
by the review board, including clari­
fying what constitutes profanity, re­
quiring officers to self-report their
use o f profanity, and incorporating a
segm ent on avoiding the use of pro­
fanity into police training.