September 28, 2016
The
Page 3
Minority & Small Business Week
INSIDE
Week in Review
M&SB W EEK
page 2
This page
Sponsored by:
Focused on Equity
Diversity
paramount for
new PDC leader
inside
page 16
M ETRO
pages 18-19
O PINION
C ervante p ope
t he p ortland o bserver
The new leader for the Portland
Development Commission says
she’s ready to promote economic
opportunity in the city while mak-
ing sure that the people who bene-
fit from new business growth and
jobs include people of color and
other disadvantaged groups.
PDC Executive Director Kim-
berly Branam said creating more
equitable wealth by increasing ac-
cess to jobs for residents in need,
as well as evaluating the results
of who gains from PDC’s invest-
ments, initiatives and programs,
is part of a five year strategic plan
at the government agency that she
takes seriously.
“It is my job to make sure that
we are moving forward with this
important work,” Branam said,
in an interview with the Portland
Observer.
“When I think about what I
need to focus on and what I want
to accomplish in the first year,”
says Branam, “one area that’s a
primary focus is ensuring that we
have a diverse work environment
that reflects the City of Portland.”
by
Kimberly Branam
A former deputy director at
PDC for five years, Branam was
promoted into the governmental
agency’s top position last month.
She also has experience leading
the economic and workforce de-
velopment team of former City
Commissioner and Mayor Sam
Adams.
A Portland native, she brings a
deep knowledge of the city with
connections to the movers and
shakers in government and private
industry. She holds a masters de-
gree in public policy and has the
unique experience of doing com-
munity development work in West
Africa as a volunteer for the Peace
Corps.
One of her first hiring decisions
at PDC was adding an experi-
enced African-American leader to
her team. Serilda Summers-Mc-
Gee will be leaving her position as
head of Human Resources at the
Oregon Department of Education
to join PDC as its new director of
human relations and workplace
development. Summers-McGee
starts the position in October.
Branam says PDC requires “a
diversity of backgrounds so we
can be as effective as possible.”
The agency’s 2015-2020 Stra-
tegic Plan runs deep, but it essen-
tially calls for developing healthy
and accessible neighborhoods,
improving access to employment,
equitable wealth and creating civ-
ic networks, institutions and part-
nerships that establish “prosperity
among all Portlanders.”
Given the disparities that exist,
not everyone has benefited from
PDC’s past economic develop-
ment activities and future invest-
ments need to focus on widely
shared prosperity amongst all res-
idents, Branam says.
“We want to make sure we’re
helping communities that have
historically not had the same op-
portunities as wealthier communi-
ties,” she says.
C ontinued on p age 12
Racial Healing on the Stage
‘Blue-Eyed
Black Boy’
launches series
pages
21-25
Arts &
ENTERTAINMENT
C LASSIFIEDS
C ALENDAR
page 26
page 27
In light of recent violent acts
against people of color, a collab-
oration of professional artists are
launching a new outreach and a se-
ries of plays to elicit greater under-
standing of historical events relat-
ing to today’s racial environment.
The Brown Paper Bag series by
Portland’s Triangle Productions
will feature four of several dozen
anti-lynching plays mostly writ-
ten by African American women
between 1916 and 1934 to begin
this fall and continue through the
spring of next year.
The intention is to shed light on
past atrocities and to inspire open
dialogue about ways in which these
historical events affect us today.
The first production is an im-
Andrea White
James Dixon
pactful staged reading of “Blue-
Eyed Black Boy” directed by An-
drea White and including a diverse
cast of Portland actors, including
Skeeter Greene, James Dixon, Ra-
Chelle Schmidt and Josie Seid. It
will be presented on Wednesday,
Oct. 5 at 7 p.m. at Triangle’s per-
formance venue, located at 1785
N.E. Sandy Blvd.
In Georgia Douglas Johnson’s
1930 one-act play, Pauline Wa-
ters is alarmed to learn that her
son has been arrested for brush-
ing up against a white woman on
the street, followed by the woman
claiming he was trying to attack
her. Police have dragged him to
the jail, and the Waters family is
terrified that Jack will be lynched.
A discussion will follow the
reading.