local news
Youth
kitzhaber Recommends No
Oregon local School Taxes
continued from page 1
system to the failing economy, citing statis-
tics showing that if the achievement gap can
be eliminated in Oregon over the next
decade, the economy will expand by “up to
1.8 percent.”
That’s why the Education Summit is a
new feature of the long-term Portland Plan
urban development blueprint that will guide
the next 25 years of regional development.
To maximize public participation, the city
is holding four family-oriented fairs with
games, food, childcare, raffle prizes and
presentations to lure as many people as pos-
sible to the often-dry task of hammering out
the region’s priorities and programs.
The fairs are: Wednesday, March 2, 6:30-
9 p.m. at Hosford Middle School, 2303 SE
28th Place; Sunday, March 6, 12:30-3 p.m.
at the Oregon Zoo; Thursday, March 10,
from 6:30-9 a.m. at De La Salle North
Catholic High School, 7528 N. Fenwick
Ave.; and Saturday, March 12, 10 a.m. to
12:30 p.m. at the Immigration and Refugee
Community Organization, 10301 NE Glisan
St.
A centerpiece of Adams’ approach to the
Portland Plan is an innovative “cradle to
career” ideal that pushes youth opportuni-
ties towards the top of regional develop-
ment goals.
“With the Portland Plan process we are
able to take the cradle to career framework
to the neighborhood level,” Adams said in a
statement Tuesday. “The plan will outline
the policy and infrastructure to support
healthy, vibrant well-educated neighbor-
kali Thorne ladd
hoods.”
Monday’s brainstorming session took off
from the issue of what the city has the
power to do in addressing Portland’s dismal
school graduation rate – only some 53 per-
cent of high school students make it to their
commencement ceremony within four
years.
City officials say the effort to find a per-
manent fix to the schools really depends on
plenty of participants at March’s planning
fairs, where people will be sifting through
the ideas and partnerships generated this
week and, hopefully, forging concrete plans
and policies that will be ratified by the City
Council this summer.
Participants
Monday
included
Multnomah County Chair Jeff Cogen, Rep.
Earl Blumenauer; Portland Schools
EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — Gov. John
Kitzhaber has recommended that school
districts avoid new local taxes — but
he’s not going to oppose them.
Last week, the governor summoned
education leaders to Salem for a meeting
that included leaders from Eugene,
Portland, Lake Oswego and Clackamas
County who are considering asking vot-
ers to approve new property or income
taxes in response to projected cuts in
school budgets in their communities.
Kitzhaber said he is concerned that
stopgap taxes to help school finances in
some cities could lessen the political
urgency in the Legislature to reform edu-
cation funding across the state, The
Register-Guard reported.
Kitzhaber didn’t tell the local leaders
to abandon their tax proposals. ``He just
preferred that local jurisdictions not’’
pursue new school taxes, said Eugene
City Councilor Pat Farr, who was at the
meeting.
Eugene councilmembers are scheduled
to decide next Monday whether to put an
income tax on the May or November bal-
lot.
Those at the meeting assured the gov-
ernor they would be committed to
statewide education reform even if local
voters approved new taxes for schools,
said Eugene School Board Chairman
Craig Smith, who also attended the gov-
ernor’s meeting.
He said Kitzhaber wants school advo-
cates to help reform education, including
changes that will ensure that every child
enters kindergarten with the skills to
learn. The governor wants help in push-
ing such reforms even if Eugene voters
approve the proposed six-year income
tax, Smith said.
The rates for the proposed Eugene
income tax and other details have yet to
be determined. The tax is meant to lessen
the effects of projected budget cuts that
would lead to layoffs of teachers and
other employees, increase class sizes and
eliminate instruction days.
Foundation CEO Dan Ryan, Portland Police
Chief Mike Reese, area school district
superintendents and principals as well as
nonprofit service providers.
They were joined by representatives from
New Seasons Market, the United Way,
Latino Network, and Pearl neighborhood-
based Turtle Island Development.
“There are too many silos between these
institutions,” Ladd says. “That’s why we
had Chief Reese on one panel – we need to
work in partnership, and we’re using this to
inform action steps with the Portland Plan.”
Find out more about the Portland Plan and
how you can put in you two cents here.
http://www.portlandonline.com/portland-
plan/.
A few days after his arrest, Fair was sent
to the OHSU Cardiac Intensive Care Unit
without explanation to his parents or fami-
ly; he suffered a massive psycho-
logical breakdown after being
revived, and still cannot remember
how he ended up in the hospital.
Fair’s family has been left to
wonder how their healthy teenager,
a football player, ended up coma-
tose in a cardiac unit – however the
issue of Taser-related heart attacks
has been debated since 2008.
No information has yet been
released about who injured Fair and how the
teenaged athlete ended up in that ward in a
coma, but State Rep. Lew Frederick con-
firmed last week that two separate investi-
gations have been opened on the case, one
by the Oregon State Police and one by the
Multnomah County District Attorney’s
office.
This week an expected bail hearing for
Fair was cancelled; his trial on Measure 11
robbery charges is set to start March 1.
Find out when and where your neighbor-
hood Special Safety Public Action
Committee meets online at http://www.port-
landonline.com/oni/, or call 503-823-4519.
Read the Portland Auditors Report,
“Police Taser Use: Incidents generally
resolved, but some practices and policies
could be improved”
http://www.portlandonline.com/auditor.
past 9 a.m., despite calling in.
up. They told him there was a single order
left in the in-box when he left his last shift
– an order he said was not there on Dec. 16.
“I tried to explain to (the manager) that
the order wasn’t there when I left,” he said.
“In all the years I’ve been there, I’d never
heard of anyone else being
treated with such harshness.”
Then in May of 2010,
Murray was told he was to
engage in mandatory cross-
training on a job in a different
part of the warehouse.
Because of the previous
write-up, he said he was not
eligible for the .
Murray said he was given
“no support that was meaningful on the new
position.” Others put on “cross duty” were
not assigned full-time to their positions and
he says White workers were not given
mandatory cross-training.
Taser
continued from page 1
delivered him to the Oregon Health and
Sciences University emergency room.
Charges against him were dropped; he’s
now being represented by
attorney Emily Simon.
Last week Vancouver
resident Jason Elgin won a
$30,000 judgment claim-
ing
battery
against
Portland Police Officer
Kevin Tully after being
Tasered while sleeping at a
table in a Denny’s restau-
rant in 2009. An array of
misdemeanor charges against him, includ-
ing resisting arrest and trespassing, were all
eventually dropped.
Tully’s attorneys Greg and Jason Kafoury
have been retained by the family of Kyeron
Fair, a 17-year-old high school student
Vancouver resident Jason Elgin won a
$30,000 judgment claiming battery
against Portland Police Officer Kevin
Tully after being Tasered while
sleeping
taken into Multnomah County Sheriffs cus-
tody on alleged gang-related charges last
September.
Tazo
continued from page 1
the Skanner news was unable to speak
with the fourth employee.
Stacey Krum, a spokesperson for
Starbucks, says they “certainly deny the
allegations” of disparate treatment or
wrongful firing.
“Mr. Shabazz’ complaint was the first and
only indication of any such concerns at the
plant,” wrote Krum in an email response to
The Skanner News’ inquiry. “We take this
issue very seriously and are cooperating in
the investigation. We are confident that the
evidence will show that the actions involv-
ing Mr. Shabazz and others individuals he
has named were made for legitimate, per-
formance-related reasons.”
on Light Duty
Shabbaz – like Willis – said his troubles
began when he “challenged the company’s
policies” regarding his constant shift
changes.
“I got hired the same day as a Caucasian
man and I got changed regularly to swing,
graveyard and day shift,” he said.
In the month before he was fired, Shabazz
said he began having severe spasms and
pain in his foot – a foot that had nearly been
severed when a forklift fell on it back in
1979. He visited two different doctors, both
of which recommended he be
put on “light duty.” He was to
work no more than 6 hours a
day, according to a note from his
doctor, although he said he was
still put on duty that kept him on
his feet.
In addition, he says he was not
allowed to take his prescription
pain medication during the day.
“So I’d take it at night,” he
said. “One night, I overslept because of that.
I don’t normally take medication … it kind
of overwhelmed me.”
The week before, Shabazz — says man-
agers had told him he could be flexible
when coming to work. But on Monday
morning, he was fired for arriving slightly
the 12-Year veteran
Murray was hired on Oct. 16, 1998 in the
shipping department and said his troubles
In the month before he was fired,
Shabazz said he began having severe
spasms and pain in his foot
began when he asked one manager to sit in
on his weekly meetings with his direct
supervisor. He said he wasn’t “comfortable”
with her had feared she’d misrepresent his
concerns during the meetings. His request
was never granted.
On Dec. 17, 2009, Murray called in sick.
The next day he showed up, he got a write-
See INvEStIgatIoN on page 9
february 9, 2011 The Portland and Seattle Skanner Page 3