'City of
Roses’
June Key
Weapon of
Earth Day
Future community
center builds
green
Resistance
Rap music i >
defines anger
in Libya
See page 3
Read back issues of the Portland Observer at W W W .portlandobserver.com
Volume XXXXI, Number 17
Wednesday • April 27. 2011
See page 5
Established in 1970
Committed to Cultural Diversity
Power Seat
at the Table
Local leader to help shape ‘Portland Plan’
by L ee
photo by
M ark W ashington /T he P ortland O bserver
Andre Baugh is in a position o f leadership as the new chair o f
the Portland Planning and Sustainability Commission.
Unique Garden
P erlman
T he P ortland O bserver
Andre Baugh faces an interesting but daunting
task in the effort to plan for Portland’s future. A
saving grace is that he has an array of talented help
behind him.
Last year the city combined the Portland Plan
ning Commission and the Sustainability Commis
sion to form the Portland Planning and Sustainability
Commission. Earlier this year, Baugh, a longtime
member of the Planning Commission, became its
new chair.
The new board is comprised of 11 members, and
it includes people with backgrounds that transcend
land use planning and zoning. Among them are
Parkrose School Superintendent Karen Fischer-
Gray; public health officer Dr. Gary Oxman;
Portland’s best-known environm entalist Mike
Houck; bike and rail transit advocate Chris Smith;
and Lai-Lani Ovalles and Irma Valdez of the Native
American and Latino communities, respectively.
It is fitting that the group’s interests are so broad
because it will come in handy with theirchief assign
ment: helping shape the Portland Plan. This docu
ment will set policies governing public action and
private development, and this in turn will set the
stage for updating the zoning and other regulations
of the 1980 Portland Comprehensive Plan.
The Portland Plan will also venture more deeply
into areas such as education, recreation and health
than previous land use plans have gone.
“I feel very good about being selected as the new
chair,” Baugh told the Portland Observer. “I'm
relatively new there, I came on in 2008, and some of
continued
on page 7
Communities of Color
Volunteers
plant seeds for
urban harvest
C ari H achmann
T he P ortland O bserver
On a recent chilly morning, seeds
were planted in Portland’s first ur
ban garden organized solely by
communities of color.
Since the garden’s kick-off ear
lier this year, leaders of the Urban
League of Portland and African
Women’s Coalition, along with com
munity volunteers, neighbors, and
families, are transforming a plot of
land for future harvests.
The response comes as local lead- n- , •
.
photoby K yle W eismann -Y ee /U rban L eague ok P ortland
Picking up shovels and wheelbarrows to create the Urban Harvest Garden on a plot o f land at North Albina Avenue and Beech Street
continued
on page 7
are representatives o f the Urban League o f Portland, African American Women's Coalition and other volunteers. The garden is a first-
of-its-kind for the African-American community
by