www . ThESkANNER . COM
M Ay 25 , 2011
P ORTLAND
V OLuME XXXIII, N O .29
25
CENTS
C hallenging P eoPle to S haPe a B etter F uture n ow
Asthma
Rates
Increase
SeezninS
Activists work to raise
awareness of air
quality issues
lisa loving
of The Skanner News
Photo BY hElEN SIlvIS
F
or asthma sufferers nothing is like the
panic of an attack – you can’t breathe,
you can’t control your body. If the
attack is really bad, you can die.
The Centers for Disease Control reported
this month that asthma rates are up for every
demographic category they track – but it’s
rising fastest among African American chil-
dren, 17 percent of whom live with asthma.
For activists around the country working
to bring attention to the issue, the current
state of environmental research and regula-
tion are standing in the way.
“People know what’s wrong with them –
everybody has a nebulizer, everybody has
asthma, they’re preaching for cancer sur-
vivors in their church or in their mosques,”
said the Rev. Lennox Yearwood this week.
“They know they have a problem, but they
aren’t connecting that sometimes with cor-
porations who are not being regulated the
way they should be.”
Yearwood, founder of the Hip-Hop
Caucus and the subject of a new documen-
tary film on the Discovery Network, was in
the Northwest last weekend for Seattle’s
Green Festival.
“It doesn’t matter what color you are,
Black or white, or brown or yellow — and
mainly those in urban communities, people
don’t have the information or aren’t quite
connecting the dots.”
A 2009 report in USA Today the newspa-
per drafted researchers and scientists at the
University of Massachusetts-Amherst,
Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and
the University of Maryland in College Park
to dig into how deeply children across the
country have been exposed to industrial pol-
lution at their schools.
The report also named the nearby corpo-
rations specifically responsible for the air
pollution emissions – as a separate factor
from the car exhaust generated from the
Sam and Andre behind the bar at Seeznin's on 82nd Avenue
Life’s Good At This Sports Bar & Grill
Former SEI mentor is serving up quality food, drink, entertainment
By helen Silvis
of The Skanner News
S
am Thompson says he
wants his brand new
sports bar and party
lounge Seeznin’s to be a
friendly community space
–kind of like a Portland
‘Cheers’. Families and kids
are welcome until 6 pm.
Playing dominoes or card
games is encouraged.
“I wanted it to be a place
where people could come and
hang out with me like it was
my own home,” he says.
This home sports eight tele-
vision screens, a fully-stocked
bar, a menu of great eats and
live entertainment Thursday
through Sunday. Then there’s
Sam himself: your neighbor-
hood youth worker, standup
comedian and single guy
around town turned bar owner
and businessman.
“Running a business is like
studying for an MBA,” he
says. “You’re learning about
everything all the time.”
To give Seeznin’s the true
Portland vibe, Thompson has
decorated the bar with articles,
photos and basketball jerseys
that showcase successful,
home-grown athletes, such as:
former NBA star Terrell
Brandon; Terrence Jones the
Jefferson High standout, who
now plays for the University
of Kentucky; Aaron Miles,
who played for Kansas and
now for the Reno Bighorns;
and Michael Lee, another
Jefferson High hoops star who
went to Kansas, played in
Europe and now coaches at
Gardner-Webb University in
North Carolina. And it’s not
all basketball. Check out
Ndamukong Suh, the Detroit
Lions defensive tackle fea-
tured
in
Weiden
and
Kennedy’s new Chrysler ad.
Like Suh, Thompson graduat-
ed from Grant High School.
That’s why he painted his
building Grant blue, an
unmissable bolt of color on
Northeast 82nd Avenue, just
down the hill from Madison
High School.
After graduating from
Grant, Sam went to Columbia
Basin College on a basketball
scholarship,
then
to
Grossmont College in San
Diego, where he took business
classes. He moved to Indiana
before finishing, he says,
along with his good friend
Fred Jones, a Sam Barlow
High and University of
See SEEzNINS on page 3
See ASthmA on page 3
INDEX
News ...................2,3,8
Opinion ..................4,5
A & E .........................6
Books & Theater ........7
Careers ..............10,11
Bids/Classifieds ........11
Metro Council Approves New District Map
Changes mostly affect representation of Maywood Park, Happy Valley
L
ast week, Metro Councilors approved
changes to the regional government’s
representation lines.
According to staff, the new map, which
shifted the government’s six districts to
meet the population movements catalogued
under the 2010 census, won’t change much
in terms of daily operations.
Unlike districts at the state or federal
level, Metro does not allocate resources
based upon population concentration within
district boundaries, according to staff speak-
ing on background.
Some of the changes include moving the
city of Happy Valley into District 2; the city
of Maywood Park and other portions of East
Portland were moved from District 1 to
North Portland’s District 5; and the eastern
boundaries of District’s 4 and 5 now follow
the boundaries of the city of Beaverton.
The council also sought to maintain the
current “communities of interest” which
include communities of 15,000 or less, as
well as regional centers, town centers,
school districts, neighborhood associations
and organizations and other established
community organizations
The new districts will take effect in
See mEtro on page 3