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inside pages A5 through A8
See story, Metro section inside
> Fortiani»
‘City of Roses’
Volume XXXV, Number 9
T, Week in
The Review
WorldCom Founder Guilty
B ern ard E b b ers, w ho b u ilt
WorldCom into a telecommuni­
cations titan, was convicted
Tuesday of engineering the co­
lossal accounting fraud that sank
the company. He had guilty ver­
dicts on all charges including
one count of conspiracy, one
count of securities fraud and
seven counts of false regulatory
filings - crimes carrying up to 85
years in prison.
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www.portlandobserver.com
Committed to Cultural Diversity
Wednesday' • March 16, 2005
Construction is
speeding toward
completion at New
Columbia, the former
Columbia Villa
housing site, sched­
uled to start accom­
modating its first
residents in May.
photo by M ark
W ashington /T he
P ortland O bserver
Fireball in Sky Sighted
A fireball streaked through the
night sky across the western
half o f the Pacific N orthw est
on Saturday night, startling
people all the way from the
s o u th e rn O re g o n c o a s t to
C anada. S cien tists said the
flam ing object was probably a
m eteor, and that it likely d isin ­
tegrated before any fragm ents
fell into the Pacific O cean.
Mount St. Helens Erupts
Mount St. Helens made its most
significant emission in years on
March 8, sending a gritty ash
cloud drifting slowly to the north­
east. Ash from the mountain
reached higher than 30,000 feet
and traveled as far as Montana.
Baseball Answers Subpoena
Major League Baseball handed
over a box of subpoenaed docu­
ments Monday to the House
panel investigating steroids in
the sport. The Government Re­
form Committee had given base­
ball a Monday deadline for pro­
ducing inform ation about its
drug-testing program, including
test results with the names of
players removed.
Accuser: Michael Jackson
Did Nothing To Him
D epicting Michael Jackson’s
accuser as vengeful and angry
over being evicted from the
Neverland Ranch, the pop star’s
attorney suggested that the boy
made up a story of abuse to get
even. He was confronted with
his own statements to a school
official that Jackson “didn't do
anything to me.”
Thousands of Protesters
Rally Against Syria
Hundreds of thousands of op­
position demonstrators chanted
“Freedom, sovereignty, inde­
pendence” and unfurled a huge
Lebanese flag in Beirut on Mon­
day, the biggest protest yet in
the opposition’s duel of street
rallies with supporters of the
Damascus-backed government.
New Columbia:
Fresh start for an
old neighborhood
by K atherine K ovacich
T he P ortland O bserver
Despite a stigma that haunted the area
from the past, former residents of Columbia
Villa in north Portland found not just public
housing, but a home. With a diverse neigh­
borhood where 17 different languages were
spoken, everybody knew everybody. They
felt safe, their children played together and
they felt a sense o f community.
Now the occupants of many of those
homes are prepared to start moving back
into a brand new community called New
Columbia, all newly constructed homes for
both low-income and middle-income wage
earners, with new streets and sidewalks that
are better connected to the surrounding
Portsmouth neighborhood.
Originally, Columbia Villa was built in
1942 for World War II defense workers.
Although the houses were “built to last,”
but things started to go downhill when
electrical care, plumbing, fire safety and
accessibility fell short with age. Lead paint
and asbestos were present and had the
potential to cause serious health problems
for the residents. The underground infra-
Neighborhood kids smile
during a wall-raising event to
celebrate the first new
building being constructed at
New Columbia.
photo courtesy oe
R ichard
W ilhelm
structure was deteriorating more and more
each year.
Instead of pouring more and more money
into constant repairs, the Housing Author­
ity of Portland decided to start over from
scratch.
In addition to the problem s with the
buildings them selves, the location o f the
streets surrounding them isolated the site
with only three points connecting to the
grid system . Too much unclaim ed space
was put betw een the buildings, causing a
low ered sense of com m unity and poorly
lit, unsupervised areas.
New Columbia is the largest urban revital­
ization project in Oregon’s history. It meant
that almost 1,300 residents who lived in 462
units scattered over 82 acres were moved
elsewhere until the project was finished.
Some residents won’t return
Construction on the project began in
December 2003 and is scheduled for comple­
tion this summer. New residents will start
moving back as early as May.
continued
on page A5
We ’re in the business of pulling dreams down into reality.
— Phillip Dirks, director of Upward Bound at Portland State University
Upward Bound Fights Bounce Out
Minority education program faces Bush cut
by K atherine K ovacich
T he P ortland O bserver
For more than 40 years, urban students
across the nation have been given the
tools to make it to college despite low-
income and m inority status through pro­
gram s such as Upward Bound and Educa­
tional T alent Search.
President Lyndon Johnson began these
life-saving organizations under the War on
Poverty to give people a chance to raise
themselves higher than the generation be­
fore them.
But this could all be taken away under
President Bush’s “No Child Left Behind
Act," with the idea that these programs are
ineffective, even though locally. 90 percent
of students enrolled in the program make it
to college and 80 percent actually stay there.
Rather than focus on mentoring and life
skills, the idea is that standardized testing
will offer a substitute with the $460 million.
“ It works. It’s one of the most noble jobs
I could ever keep," said Phillip Dirks, director
of both Upward Bound and Educational
Talent Search at Portland State University.
“W e're making an impact on the wealth
disparity, the education disparity.”
Educational Talent Search serves more
than 600 students locally, with participants
from Marshall, Grant, Franklin. Madison.
Lincoln, Wilson, Jefferson and Benson High
School». It guides students toward enroll­
ing in college.
photo by
K atherine K ovacich /T he P ortland O bserver
Students involved in the Upward Bound's Educational Talent Search program go
online to find out more about colleges they may attend.
Upward Bound is more intensive, with
more than 1 (X) local students in the program.
It not only looks to get teens into college, but
to keep them there. Through year-round
tutoring, summer sessions, college prepara­
tion assistance and college visits and work­
shops surrounding technology and the
SATs, the success rate has been high.
For Dirks, the idea of closing Upward
Bound is in the same vein as President Ronald
Reagan's proposal in the early "8 0 s to rid the
country of the Department of Education, an
arm of government that delivers $ 13 billion to
states and school districts for elementary
and secondary education.
“ I don’t think Bush understands it.” Dirks
said. "He doesn't get it. Access has opened
up and now w e're seeing it close down.
Institutions of higher learning are becoming
increasingly white and wealthy. H e's taking
it all away from the people that need it most.
Over4(X),(MX) students will be affected by the
loss of this program. All institutions will lose
diversity. It'll reinforce the haves and have-
nots system."
Upward Bound officials say the program
has earned support from both Democrats
and Republicans in the past and has sur­
vived attempts to eliminate it before.
Citing the diversity of both members of
Congress and celebrities that went though
Upward Bound programs, Dirks said, "This
continued
yf
on page Aft