50j¿
<4
y ^ C i r servii,
òf
* / c o m m in ili\
Special
Coverage
Issue
Black
_.ory
Giant Surprise
New York team
stuns with Super
Bowl upset
Month
J |Jo rt Inuit
‘City of Roses’
See sp o rts page, BIO
F
c to h
Established
Civil Rights Victory
Gay couples in Oregon were al
lowed to register as domestic
partners after a federal judge
Friday lifted the tem porary in
junction he im posed in late D e
cember. Couples began certify
ing Monday at the Multnomah
C o u n ty b u ild in g , 501 S .E .
H awthorne Blvd., Suite 175.
www.portlandobserver.com
Committed to Cultural Diversity
Volume XXXVIII. Number 6
.Week ¡n
The Review
in 1970
Wednesday' • Februaiy 6, 2008
Picking a President
Washington
Caucus
Saturday
With no chance
to refute any
complaints
bv L ee P e r lm a n
T he P o r tla n d O bserver
As this election year shapes
up to be the most suspenseful in
decades, voters in Vancouver
dorsed Sen.
will join theircounterparts across
B a r a c k Washington on Saturday to par
ticipate in the Democratic and
Republican caucuses to choose
a president.
Barring an unlikely sweep
Portland Democrat said Obama’s of most of the 22 states voting
energy, enthusiasm and optimism in elections and caucuses on
helped him make up his mind be T u e sd a y , H illary R odham
tween two great candidates.
Clinton and Barack Obama
will have picked up a mix of
Tobacco Verdict Upheld
The Oregon Suprem e Court up wins and losses. Each will
held a$79.5 million punitive-dam- accum ulate delegates to the
ages judgm ent Thursday against Democratic National Conven
Philip M orris for the family of tion this summer, but neither
longtime M arlboro smoker Jesse will have enough to secure the
W illiams, an African American
nomination.
who worked as a jan ito r in Port
At press time on Tuesday,
land for many years before dy
the Republican contest had nar
ing of lung cancer in 1997.
rowed between former Massa
Yahoo Offered $44 Billion
chusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and
M icrosoft has moved to buy Ya Sen. John McCain.
hoo with an unsolicited takeover
Washington State voters will
offer of $44.6 billion, seeking to
get their chance to weigh in at
join forces against Google in
S a tu rd a y ’s party caucuses
w h at w o u ld be th e b ig g e st
around
the state, mark the first
Internet deal since the Tim e
step
in
a
complicated state pro
W arner-AOL merger in 2001.
cess of registering voters’ presi
Education Donation
dential preferences.
National ra
W ashington’s presidential
Earl
The Northeast Coalition of
Neighborhoods board voted to
fire its executive director, Joseph
Santos-Lyons, at a special meet
ing Monday. The 12-1 decision
came with one abstention.
In a letter to the board prior to
the vote, Santos-Lyons, who has
held the position for six months,
complained that he had not been
given any information about
complaints against him or given
a chance to review and respond
H IllH k ll.lliC I
dio personal
ity and phi
la n th r o p is t
Tom Joyner
announced
on M onday
that he’s do
n atin g $1.1
million to the National Education
Association increase the number
offully certified teachers in minor
ity and h a rd -to -sta ff schools
across the country.
Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama marked a turning
point in the Democratic presidential contest on Tuesday, but
barring an unlikely sweep of most of the 22 states voting,
neither will have enough delegates to secure the nomination.
preference primary is Feb. 19,
but Democrats will elect nearly
all their delegates through the
caucus system.
Republicans, on the other
hand, will choose 51 percent of
their delegates to the national
convention based on results of
the presidential primary.
As part o f the preparation
for the caucuses taking place
Saturday from 1 to 3 p.m.,
D em ocrats have rented 30
schools to host voters in Clark
County’s 180 precincts, with
four to seven precinct cau
cuses meeting at each school.
Republicans rented space in
17 locations for their own cau
cus meetings.
Vancouver voters may visit
clarkvotes.org to determ ine
which caucus event to attend.
More information can also be
Mitt Romney
found by calling Democratic
Party rep re sen ta tiv e s Dan
Ogden at 360-254-8886 or
Marsha Allerat 360-254-2158,
or Republican Party represen-
tati ves M ike Gaston at 360-574-
0984 or Anna Miller at 360-600-
6668.
Mardi Gras Kicks Off
C la r in e tis t P e te F o u n ta in ,
dressed in a tunic as one o f King
A rthur’s knights, looked frail but
happy Tuesday morning as he
led 100 members o f his Half-Fast
W alking C lu b o n to U ptow n
streets in what has becom e New
O rleans’ unofficial opening of
Mardi Gras.
African Violence Spreads
Hundreds of civilians have been
estimated killed and a 1,000 more
wounded in a coup attem pt this
week by rebels in Chad. Bodies
lay in streets littered with the
hulks o f burned out tanks as
soldiers blocked tw o bridges
c ro s s in g in to n e ig h b o rin g
Cam eroon, cutting off an escape
route for thousands.
photobv
M
ark
W ashington TT he P orti . and O bserver
Thirty-one-year-old James King argues that changes for the better in the Alberta neighborhood will start with the creation of
more nonalcoholic activities geared to younger generations.
Perceptions Collide on Alberta
New survey shows
support, hesitations
by R aymond R endi . eman
T he P ortland O bserver
In response to a series of violent, alcohol-
related incidents last spring, a nonprofit that
supports artistic events on Northeast Alberta
Street commissioned a survey of community
attitudes toward celebrations on the thor
oughfare.
The Portland State University study, re
leased Monday at Talisman Gallery, shows
much more community support for Alberta
than organizers expected. The pollsters had
braced themselves for greater negativity in
response to the violence.
I
Neighborhood
Activist Fired
Local Rep Picks Obama
Rep.
Northeast
More than 80 percent of the survey's
responses express enjoyment in attending
Alberta's events and a sense that the street
festivals benefit the local community.
However, the survey also showed strong
desire to make the events safer and more
inviting to various types of people, which are
sentiments especially echoed in the area's
black community. A PSU survey almost two
years ago showed that African Americans
w ere less happy with the process of
gentrification occurring on the street than
their white neighbors.
Although the latest survey doesn't ask
respondents about ethnicity, conversations
with community members reveal that percep
tions about the street may continue along
racial lines.
“The art walks have been really good for
the street, but the problem is getting every
one involved." says Roslyn Hill, an African-
American developer known for organizing
against Alberta blight in the early ‘90s.
Anthony Blake. 40. has lived in the Alberta
neighborhood for decades and says he never
sends back questionnaires. He worries that
the survey missed important sentiments about
the street.
The latest PSU study analyzed 102 com
pleted surveys out of 402 randomly sent
throughout nearly 2.IXX) addresses on both
sides of Alberta from Martin Luther King Jr.
Boulevard to Northeast 33rd Avenue, and
from Prescott to Killingsworth Streets.
con tin u ed
on pane .43
Joseph Santos-Lyons
to them. He also warned against
an arbitrary, quick decision that
could damage the neighborhood
organization.
Santos-Lyons is a Portland na
tive who has worked extensively
with neighborhood associations
in the past. He was a national
director of field organizing for
Campus Ministries, was active in
Oregon Action, the Coalition for
a Livable Future, the Environ
mental Justice Action Group and
the Interstate Urban Renewal
Advisory Group.
The board spent almost three
hours discussing his future in a
closed-to-the-public executive
session and board members de
clined to comment after the dis
missal, other than to release a
statement saying that the action
was "in the best interest of the
Northeast Coalition and the com
munity.” They also declined to
hear public comments on the is
sue. to the chagrin of some of
Santo-Lyons’ supporters who
attended the session and wrote
e-mails.
Geri Washington of Oregon
Action said that discussing per
sonnel issues in private was “to
tally proper." However, she
added, "As a resident who has
I ived here for 54 years, when will
1 have input? My voice will not
have been heard."
Board chair Ron Laster said
public testimony may be ac
cepted possibly at some future
time.
The firing followed an em er
gency
m eeting
of
the
organization' sexecutivecommit-
tee last Thursday, also in execu
tive session, called by Laster at
the request of two other board
members. The next day, Laster
placed Santos-Lyons on admin
istrative leave and scheduled the
Monday board meeting.
Both Santos-Lyons and the
board members declined to make
any additional public statements
following the board vote Santos-
Lyons will be paid for two weeks
of accrued vacation time as sev
erance pay.
The coalition, a nonprofit cor
poration. contracts with the city
through the Portland Office of
Neighborhixxl Involvement to
continued
on pane A2