' fi
Down a t the Pump
y&tiï'Sof
__
community service
tí be
‘City of Roses’
Portland prices fo r regular were
an average $3.98 a gallon
Tuesday, down 27
cents from a month ago
For Your Health
Summit Research Network at
Montgomery Park hosts a free
blood pressure screening in the
fight against heart disease
See
>ee story, page A 9
vZ
ianrtianh © nseruer
Established in 1970
Committed to Cultural Diversity
Volume XXXVIII, Number 30
-r. Week in
The Review
Quake Hits S. California
www.portlandobserver.com
First Step
Wednesday • July 30, 2008
Sum m er jo b s put youth on right track
A strong earthquake shook
Southern C alifornia on Tues­
day, causing buildings to sway
and triggering some precau­
tionary evacuations. Scattered
m inor dam age and a few minor
injuries have been reported in
the afterm ath o f the magnitude
5.4jolt.
At-risk youth are learning re­
sponsibility, em ploym ent skills and
good decision-m aking during an
intensive 10-week summ er jobs pro­
gram.
TriM et and the Youth Em ploy­
ment Institute, Inc. have kicked off
the 10th year o f First Step, with
A.K. Rucker, a TriM et bus opera­
tor, providing overall supervision
o f the 20 teens enrolled in the pro­
Shooter Hated Liberals
gram.
An unem ployet
O ver 170 kids appl ied to the pro­
man whoopenec
gram this year with h alf o f the kids
fire with a shot­
enrolled returning from last year.
gun and killec
“W e have a good mix o f kids this
two people at a year,” said Rucker. “Those chosen
Unitarian church are teens at-risk or associated with
in Tennessee apparently
tar­ T h ey 're picked based
risk groups.
on how
geted the congregation
out they
of can help each other.”
During the rest of the year, Rucker
hatred for its liberal social poli­
cies, police said M onday. See operates the Line 75-39th A ve/
Lombard. The route puts him in
sto ry , p ag e A2.
regular contact with teens from First
Climber Dies on Mt. Hood
Step and it connects with other
A 55-year-old Eugene doctor m iddle and high school kids from
descending from the sum m it of Portland and Gresham .
Participants travel on a TriM et
M ount Hood died after a rock
bus
to pick up litter, sw eep bus
knockedhimdownhill. Dr. Gary
stops and em pty TriM et trashcans
Lee was with his son, Devin,
along transit corridors. Tw o hours
Sunday afternoon when a rock
per week are devoted to develop­
"dislodged from the ice above" ment o f life skills and exploring
and hit him at about 9,000 feet various fields o f em ploym ent. The
on the 11,239-foot peak.
youth involved in the program re­
ceive a monthly transit pass and are
Ex-NBA Referee Sentenced
paid m inim um w age for work up to
A federal judge
40 hours per week.
in B ro o k ly n
‘T h e First Step jo b program is
T u esd ay se n ­
making a real difference in the lives
tenced form er
o f at-risk kids,” said Fred Hansen.
N B A re fere e
TriM et general m anager. “ I, pro­
vides good role m odels and p o si­
Tim Donaghy
tive, structured experiences that
to 15 months in
prison for taking payoffs from help these students develop into
a professional gam bler for in­ responsible adults. I'm proud that
TriM et is involved in this program
side tips on gam es. The league
and that one o f our operators is the
has angrily denied Donaghy's
driving force behind it.”
First Step started in 1998 em ­
ploying 10 youth full-tim e during
the sum m er months. In 2004, the
program increased to 20 full-time
youth positions. T he First Step
program is designed to encourage
young people to develop w ork and
life skills. It prepares the teenagers
to enter the world o f work and in­
cludes positive ex periences d e­
signed to help them develop an
understanding o f work place stan­
dards.
Y E I's mission is to prom ote self-
sufficiency and life-long learning
by nurturing personal, educational
and career developm ent o f young
people. It was founded on the belief
that youth have the ability to over­
com e barriers that stand in the way
to successful em ploym ent.
H
claim that corruption among
referees runs deeper than one
bad referee.
Alaska Senator Indicted
Sen. Ted Stevens, the nation's
lo n g est-serv in g
R e p u b lic a n
s e n a to r an d a
m ajor figure in
Alaska politics,
w as
in d ic te d
T uesday
on
seven counts o f failing to dis­
close hundreds o f thousands of
dollars in services from an oil
services com pany that helped
renovate his home.
Crude Oil Prices Fall
Crude oil prices sank $2.54 to
$122.19 a barrel on the New
York M ercantile E xchange
Tuesday, extending their two-
week-long retreat from record
highs above $147.
Housing Prices Drop
Home prices tumbled by 15.8
percent in May com pared to a
year ago, according to a closely
watched national housing in­
dex released Tuesday, as the
housing slump deepened na­
tionwide.
Candidates Focus on VP
As speculation swirls, Barack
O bam a and John M cCain were
knuck 1 ing down Tuesday to t he
work o f choosing runni ng mates
with their nom inating conven­
tions just weeks away.
Iraq to Attend Games
T he In tern atio n al O lym pic
Com m ittee ruled Tuesday that
Iraq could participate in the
Beijing gam es, reversing itself
after Baghdad pledged to en ­
sure the independence o f its
national O lym pics panel.
Local youth pick up litter,
sweep bus stops and empty
TriMet trash cans along
Northeast Martin Luther King
Jr. Boulevard as part o f a
summer jobs program with the
transit agency and the Youth
Employment Institute.
photo by M ark W ashington /
T he P ortland O bserver
Urgent Care Ends
24-Hour Service
Clinic to close after midnight
by M ichael L eighton
T he P orti . and O bserver
Kaiser Perm anente will no longer
offer a 24-hourclinic at its North Inter­
state Avenue cam pus, ending a rela­
tionship to the com m unity that was
started when it closed Bess Kaiser
Hospital on North Greely Avenue more
than a decade ago.
Starting Aug. 1, K aiser will close its
Interstate Urgent Care clinic from m id­
night to 7 a.m. and redeploy staff to
w ork hours with m ore patient dem and
w hile enhancing health care services
during the day, according to Justin
M cGow an, K aiser’s prim ary and ur­
gent care director for the eastside o f
Portland.
M cGow an said the Interstate U r­
gent Care facility w as averaging ju st a
dozen patients during the after m id­
night and predawn hours. U nder the
new service schedule, urgent care ser­
vices still will be available seven days
a week at Interstate, including w eek­
ends, from 7 a.m. to midnight.
Tw o years ago, K aiser dropped the
nam e E m ergicenterfrom its Interstate
cam pus so that the urgent care facility
w ould not be confused with em er­
gency level services available at hos­
pitals.
U rgent care clinics help patients
with ailm ents such as cold, flu. ankle
sprains and m inor cuts, w hile hospi­
tals function during life threatening
em ergencies like heart attacks and
stroke, M cGow an explained.
K aiser doctors w ith em ergency
room experience form erly shared d u ­
ties at Interstate and K aiser Sunnyside
Hospital in C lackam as before recently
being transferred to work exclusively
at Sunnyside.
An open letterto Kaiseradm inistra-
tors criticizes all o fth e recent changes.
The docum ent states that Kaiser
em ergency departm ent doctors have
had an invaluable role in the function
and success o f the Interstate facility.
It also points out the difficulty for
patients to drive to Sunnyside, which
is m ore 15 m iles away, and the fact
there’s no TriM et bus or light rail
service to Sunnyside after midnight.
Because Interstate d o esn ’t have an
adjacent hospital it cannot operate at
the full scope o f an em ergency facility,
so there is no need to have an em er­
gency room staff at that location,
M cGowan explained.
He said K aiser has fam ily-practice
doctors and other health care profes­
sionals at Interstate who are provid­
ing the needed services for urgent
care, m irroring K aiser's five other ur­
gent care facilities in southeast Port­
la n d ,
B e a v e rto n ,
V a n c o u v e r,
L ongview -K elso and Salem.
Kaiser is sti 11 com m itted to its popu­
lation base in north and northeast
Portland and the changes don’t de­
crease the overall staff level at Inter­
state, M cG ow an said.
He said telephone advice with an
advice nurse will be available after
m idnight and patients with needed
em erg en cy care will be taken to
Sunnyside or a nearby non-Kaiser fa­
cility like Legacy Emanuel Hospital.
T he intent is to have an after-hours
urgent care facility for Kaiser members
at Interstate. M cGowan said, disput­
ing speculatiqn that hours would be
reduced further or the clinic could
close entirely in the future.
photo by
M ark W ashington ZT he P ortland O bserver
The Steel Bridge will close to all traffic including MAX trains on Saturday for three weeks
as construction crews connect new tracks for the downtown Portland Mall Light Rail
project. Shuttle buses will transport riders across the river on the Burnside Bridge.
Construction to Close Steel Bridge
Saturday starts three
weeks of shuttles
Starting Saturday. Aug. 2, the Steel Bridge
will close to all MAX service for three w eeks of
constniction as crew s connect new tracks for
the dow ntow n Portland Mall Light Rail Project.
There will be no MAX service between the
Rose Q uarter Transit C enter and the Old T ow n/
Chinatown stations. Shuttle buses will be avail­
able to take riders across the W illamette River
via the Burnside Bridge.
TriM et says riders should allow an extra 15-
30 minutes fortheircom m ute if using the shuttle.
Riders also can walk across the low erdeck o f the
bridge, w hich takes about 15 minutes or bike
across in about half o f that time. Shuttles will
I
have lim ited space for bikes.
C om m uters can catch the w estbound shuttle
bus at the C onvention Center Station, which
drops off riders at the Old T ow n/Chinatow n
Station. W estbound Red Line trains will become
northbound Yellow Line trains at the Rose Q uar­
ter T ransit Center.
Southbound Yellow Line trains are not ser­
vicing the west side; once they reach the Rose
Q uarter Transit C enter they will becom e east-
bound Red Line trains with service to the airport.
Due to operating constraints, few er MAX
trains will be running on the west side betw een
Beaverton Transit C enter and dow ntow n P ort­
land.
Tri Met staff wi II be on hand to help and signs
continued
on page A3