local news
TriMet
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input on fare increases, North Williams
Avenue transportation planning, and
TriMet’s record of working with minority
contractors in construction projects.
the Skanner News: Tell us about your
new job.
Johnell Bell: First of all it occurred to me
the first time I was ever interviewed by you.
It was 9 years ago when I joined the school
board. ‘New Kid on the Block,’ it said. I
remember that.
My new role is Director of Diversity and
TriMet Equity. The words essentially mean
this: the general manager has pretty much
put me on charge to do a couple things. One
is to continue to build on the great work
TriMet has already started with being
responsive to transit-dependent popula-
tions. How are we engaging communities
most impacted by the decisions being
made? Secondly, how are our internal
efforts at hiring? I’m looking at hiring
processes, the make-up of our workforce
opportunities for contracting on the DBE
(Disadvantaged Business Enterprise) side
as well as the General Fund side. How are
grapple with the housing issue until we
grapple with the job issues.
So my vision, my role is to do what I’ve
always done – which is being sure there are
opportunities for communities that may
have never felt they had strong connection
to TriMet. They do now.
we really ensuring that those opportunities
are open to communities of color and low-
income communities?
And then thirdly is to continue to build
with our external partners. City of Portland
is doing a lot of great work around equity;
Metro is doing a lot of great work. In fact
TriMet, in partnership with Metro, and a
number of community-based organizations,
is in the process of working on a planning
grant through HUD (the U.S. Department of
Housing and Urban Development) – a sus-
tainable community planning grant – and
essentially it’s how you create an equity
lens when you’re looking at future planning
for this region.
So one of the things that the consortium of
local governments is thinking about doing
is, as we look at the 2040 urban growth
plan, how do we use that as a tool to really
study our inequities in this region? And that
means really studying where our transit dol-
lars are being allocated, where sidewalk
improvements are needed, and the emphasis
really on this grant is looking at the connec-
tion to housing. Housing’s a big issue, but in
reality our community will never be able to
tSN: Here in North Portland people have
been up in arms about proposed changes to
the traffic systems on North Williams
Avenue. We’ve seen a lot of reader com-
ments about how transportation and race
should be kept separate. Can you talk a lit-
tle bit about Civil Rights and transporta-
tion?
Bell: There are a couple things to keep in
mind. When we’re looking at transportation
planning, at least from a federal lens, race is
always considered. Title VI of the 1964
Civil Rights Act specifically talks about
persons of color being a protected class.
And so essentially when federal transit
agencies are receiving money from the fed-
eral government they must abide by Title VI
guidelines. One of the Title VI guidelines is
around the DBE – contracting to
“When you are disenfranchised, when
you are marginalized, you feel invisible and
ignored,” he said. “There is definitely an
economic and mar-
ginalization compo-
nent to this vio-
lence.”
Young
people
whose needs go
unmet and have no
hope of a better
future are going to
feel rage, he says.
“They are trying
to be seen,” Brown
says. “Their process is if you don’t want to
listen to me and you don’t want to see me
then I’ll make you see me. So if I pick up a
gun, I’m going to be seen. You have to pay
attention to me now, even though it’s nega-
tive attention.”
The Portland Police Gang Task Force
works with youth who already have reached
that breaking point, he said.
“We allow them to fail and it’s generation
after generation,” he said. “We have a lot
more work to do on the front end.”
Brown points out that this isn’t just a
problem for Black and Latino youth. In our
culture, white men – and women too —
become violent when they feel marginalized
and invisible, for example in the bomb
attack, and other seemingly random acts of
violence. Our culture makes violence the
first option, rather than the last, he says. For
example, it is far too easy to get hold of a
gun.
“If the young people who act out with
guns had to work really hard to get a gun,
there would be a whole lot less shooting,”
he said.
Royal Harris, who works for Casacadia
Behavioral Health as clinical liaison with ’s
gang-affiliated youth offenders program,
puts it this way: What gangs have to offer is
that somebody cares; somebody has your
back.
“What these kids are seeking is a family,
it’s a neighborhood, it’s community,” Harris
said at a meeting Aug. 11 at Self
Enhancement Inc.
embellishments can add pennies to a $1 to
the cost of a garment, but retailers can
charge $10 more for them, said Marshal
Cohen, chief industry analyst with market
research firm The NPD Group.
Cohen says parents may want to ‘shop’
their kids’ closets first. “Dust off last year’s
at a department store.
Spending on clothing and school supplies
for children in grades K-12 is expected to
decline this back-to-school season, a
National Retail Federation survey showed.
The survey showed 70 percent of respon-
dents with school-age children said higher
biggest purchase consideration, the survey
showed.
The survey indicates sales are up at the
nation’s dollar store chains as shoppers
flock to stores for school supplies like pen-
cils, composition books, crayons, and back
packs.
Try consignment stores - prices may be 50
percent lower - and wait if you can - clear-
ance sales begin at the end of September,
says Cohen.
Rose-Scott says the higher prices mean
her school aged kids won’t get everything
they want this year. “It’s now all about put-
ting food on the table and gas in the car.”
She admits despite the higher back to
school prices, shrinking quality and the
morbid dread with which kids claim to greet
the renewal of school days, returning to the
classroom is an age old reunion to which
most of them look forward with anticipa-
tion.
Johnell Bel, TriMet Director of Equity
and Diversity
Disadvantaged Business Enterprise, that’s
actually mandated by the federal govern-
ment.
Another one is looking at both the bur-
dens as well as the benefits of communities
typically adversely impacted – communities
of color, etc. And so you can’t necessarily
divide race and transportation.
Read the rest of this story online at
www.theskanner.com
Shooting
continued from page 1
venting violence.
“What does true prevention look like?”
Collins says. “How do we create education
and employment opportunities?
How do we stop the labeling and
stigmatizing of young Black
men? How do we stop racial pro-
filing? It takes a wholistic
approach to prevention. But
nobody wants to talk about dis-
parities in education, disparities
in employment and the over
policing of African American
and Latino youth.”
Andrae Brown, Ph.D., assistant
professor of counseling psychology at
Lewis and , is an expert in youth violence
prevention. He also identifies gang violence
as a problem with deep roots in our culture.
‘What these kids
are seeking is a
family, it’s a
neighborhood,
it’s community’
Read the rest of this story online at
www.theskanner.com
Prices
continued from page 1
help, because stores paid for their goods
about six to nine months earlier.
Retailers are raising prices on merchan-
dise an average of 10 percent across-the-
board this fall in an effort to offset their ris-
ing costs for materials and labor. But mer-
chants are worried that cash-strapped cus-
tomers, who are weighed down by econom-
ic woes, will reject price hikes.
Some merchants are using disguise tactics
to get parents to open their wallets wide and
leave their magnifying glass at home. For
example, some are raising prices then offer-
ing the well- worn bait of buy one at the
higher price and get a second one often or
lesser quality. Others are luring shoppers
with children’s fashion shows, and free sun-
glasses with purchase.
Some are using less fabric and calling it
new chic. Others are adding glitter, cheap
crystals, bows, stitching, fake button holes,
zippers — to justify price increases. Those
Apparel, the season’s top-selling category for
school-aged children, is bracing for cotton cost
inflation of as much as 20 percent, the first in at
least a decade
jeans, add some lace, or trendy buttons give
them a good wash and you’re good to go.”
Rose-Scott spent $19.00 for a Hello Kitty
tee-shirt and a pair of slightly used jeans at
a San Bernardino consignment store. A
year ago, she paid $21.99 for the same shirt
food and energy prices may lower their
spending this summer.
About 30 percnet of consumers believe
prices on new back-to-school merchandise
are higher and nearly two-thirds say lower
prices far above other factors, are their
September 7, 2011 The Portland Skanner page 3