Local News
Seeznins
continued from page 1
Oregon alum signed to the Pacers. In
Indiana he started a promotions company,
which he ran for a couple of years before
returning to Portland in 2007.
“That was rough,” he says. “When I first
Losing one of those students, Andre Payton,
to gun violence, spurred him to start the
Restore the Village campaign. Now, he no
longer works for SEI, but he continues
advocating for youth through the campaign
and as a mentor. At not quite
30 – his birthday celebration
is the weekend of June 3—he
says he enjoys being able to
employ friends and relatives
as well as host community
parties and gatherings.
So did he get any seed
money or business help to start Seeznin’s?
“Nothing,” he says. “I got together my
own business plan and seed money. We ren-
ovated this whole place. What people need
to know is that you have to have money
saved up because there are a lot of expens-
es you didn’t expect. Not having to owe
anything makes it all the
sweeter.”
Sam was prepared for
the challenge of running a
business seven days a
week. “I was a party pro-
moter. And I helped out at
a bar called The Huddle on
NE
Albina
and
Killingsworth. I managed
that in 2008 and I just
decided it was something I
wanted to do."
Seeznin's
finally
received its liquor license
Andre serves up a martini.
in March.
“We were ready to open on September they kept us in review for 5 months. Maybe
2010, but we had to wait for the Oregon they are not used to a young black guy with
Liquor Licensing Commission to give us no criminal history and a good financial
the ok. It’s supposed to take 45 days but record.”
of schools being sited in pretty toxic areas,”
she said.
In response to the USA Today report on
polluting industries near public schools, in
which some of the numbers were crunched
by the University of Massachusetts at
Amherst Political Economy Research
Institute, the Environmental Protection
Agency pledged to monitor the problem by
choosing 63 schools
nationwide and reporting
back to their communi-
ties.
In Oregon those bell-
wether schools are
Harriet Tubman Middle
School (ranked in the 9th
worst percentile in the
USA Today study) and
Toledo Elementary on
the central Oregon coast (not included in the
USA Today analysis but the Toledo Middle
School ranked in the worst 9th percentile);
in Washington the two schools are St.
Helens Elementary in Longview (worst 5th
percentile) and Concord Elementary in
Seattle (worst 31st percentile).
In a Portland-area report back in late
April, EPA officials said air quality at the
Oregon schools was not bad enough to
cause long-term health problems, but
“slightly elevated” cadmium levels detected
by the EPA at Tubman will be monitored.
(The Washington state reports are not
completely finished, according to the EPA’s
website.)
Peveto doesn’t buy it.
“So they have a huge air pollution prob-
lem, they’ve modeled an amazing amount
of data about our air pollution problems,”
she says.
“I get the proportionality of industry ver-
sus the bigger transportation issues that we
have with this huge corridor of freeways
and the back of Harriet Tubman is directly
above I-5, right where it flows into the Rose
Quarter, 131,000 vehicles a day pass that.
“And the EPA is saying, basically, there’s
no long term problem?”
The new film, “Hip Hop Rev,” chronicles
one year in Yearwood’s life traveling the
United States and advocating for heightened
regulations on energy emissions; in the end
his crusade failed, as he repeated several
times during his interview with The
Skanner News.
But laying the groundwork for future
environmental organizing in low-income
urban communities is just the beginning, he
says.
“The most important thing that we wanted
to do was to educate people on issues of
fighting poverty and pollution, and how
they can work to fight poverty and pollution
at the same time,” he said.
“A lot of our communities are dealing
with a lot of other issues – everything from
economics, jobs, things such as education,
health care, police brutality,” he said.
Yearwood says a critical tipping point for
communities comes when local residents
learn about nearby factories, industrial
plants and landfills that they never thought
about – even though whole families might
suffer from asthma, and relative after rela-
tive succumbs to cancer.
“A lot of times people don’t understand
how the pollution and particularly the health
effects – which include asthma and cancer –
combine with everything.”
Yearwood says a key point in environ-
mental justice as an urban movement is
showing communities how to change policy
– which is hard to do.
“Because if we just get them mad about it
and say this is messed up you’re in this
community and you’re being polluted more
than other communities, that’s tough,” he
said. “We were pushing for clean energy
legislation last year, and we lost pretty bad
as a matter of fact.”
Find out more about Rev. Lennox
Yearwood’s
documentary
at
www.HipHopRev.com. Find more links to
the websites mentioned in this article online
at www.theSkanner.com.
between Watson St. and Cedar Hills Blvd.,
and to the north of Tualatin Valley Hwy.
west of Cedar Hills Blvd., except for the
unincorporated community of Cedar Mill
lying north of U.S. Hwy. 26 and north and
east of the Beaverton city limits, which will
become part of District 5. District 4 will
include the unincorporated communities of
Aloha (north of Tualatin Valley Hwy.),
Raleigh Hills (north of Beaverton-Hillsdale
Hwy.), Bonny Slope, Bethany, West Slope
and Cedar Hills. District 4 will be
entirely within Washington
County.
District 5 will include all of
North and Northwest Portland, all
of Southwest Portland north of
U.S. Hwy. 26 (including down-
town), and all of Northeast
Portland north of Interstate 84 and
west of 122nd Ave. District 5 will
include the City of Maywood
Park, which was previously in
District 1. District 5 will also
include an area in Washington
County north of Hwy. 26 and
north and east of the Beaverton
city limits (the Cedar Mill area),
which was previously in District 4.
District 6 will include all of the east side
of Portland south of Interstate 84 and west
of 122nd Ave. (except for the portion south
of Foster Rd. and east of 112th Ave., which
will be in District 1). District 6 will also
include all of Southwest Portland south of
U.S. Hwy. 26, west and north of Interstate 5
and north of Canby St. east of Brier Pl.
District 6 will be entirely within
Multnomah County.
‘I got together my own
business plan and seed
money’
got back I had no place, no job so I stayed
with my uncle. I was sleeping on couches
for 5 months.”
Then Self Enhancement Inc. hired him to
help low-income students graduate from
high school. For two years he did just that,
helping dozens of teens stay in school.
Asthma
continued from page 1
nearby highways, such as the Interstate 5
corridor.
The point of the effort, USA Today says,
is that children are more sensitive to envi-
ronmental toxins – especially those that are
linked to asthma, cancer and other deadly
diseases.
The study showed Pacific Northwest
schools – particularly in Pendleton, North
Portland and Northwest
Portland in Oregon and
in Monroe and Tacoma,
Washington – have air
pollution rates ranking
in the worst one percent
in the nation.
Most remarkably for
Portland residents, the
USA Today report
showed most schools in
high-poverty North Portland – as well as
most schools in affluent Northwest Portland
— are in the worst percentiles for industrial
air pollution rates.
The report shocked area parents including
Mary Peveto, whose daughters go to Harriet
Tubman Girls Leadership Academy.
“It created this alarming picture about
how we had – because there are no regula-
tions around school sitings on contaminated
land or really anything that has to do with
environmental health – that we had a picture
Metro
continued from page 1
January 2013.
According to Metro, the new districts are
described as such:
Beginning with the 2012 election cycle,
the six Metro Council districts will cover
the following areas:
District 1 will include all of the cities of
Fairview, Gresham, Troutdale, Wood
Village and Damascus, plus Boring and
unincorporated areas in Multnomah County
east of Gresham and Troutdale. It will also
include all of the City of Portland east of
122nd Ave. (and east of 112th Ave. south of
Foster Rd.). District 1 will no longer include
the cities of Happy Valley (now in District
2) and Maywood Park (now in District 5).
District 2 will include all of the cities of
Happy Valley, Gladstone, Johnson City,
Lake Oswego, Milwaukie, Oregon City,
Rivergrove and West Linn, along with many
unincorporated areas in northern Clackamas
County. It will also include a portion of
Southwest Portland and unincorporated
Multnomah County to the east and south of
Interstate 5 and south of SW Canby Street
east of Brier Pl. The district will include all
of the Stafford area within Metro’s jurisdic-
tion (the portion of Stafford south of
Interstate 205 was previously in
District 3).
District 3 will include all of the
City of Beaverton to the south of
Beaverton-Hillsdale
Hwy./Farmington Rd. east of
Watson St., south of Broadway
between Watson St. and Cedar Hills
Blvd., and to the south of Tualatin
Valley Hwy. west of Cedar Hills
Blvd. It also includes all of the cities
of Durham, King City, Sherwood,
Tigard, Tualatin and Wilsonville,
plus the unincorporated communi-
ties of Aloha (south of Tualatin
Valley Hwy., which was previously
in District 4), Raleigh Hills (south
of Beaverton-Hillsdale Hwy.), Bull
Mountain, Garden Home and Metzger. It
will no longer include any portion of
Stafford.
District 4 will include all of the cities of
Forest Grove, Cornelius and Hillsboro. It
will also include a portion of the City of
Beaverton and unincorporated areas in
Washington County to the north of
Beaverton-Hillsdale Hwy./Farmington Rd.
east of Watson St., north of Broadway
May 25, 2011 The Portland Skanner Page 3