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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 25, 2012)
WWW . tHESKANNER . COM J ANuARy 25, 2012 P ORtLAND , O REgON V OLuME XXXIV, N O . 4 25 CENtS i nSiDe Cassow’s Newest page 2 King Breakfast page 6, 7, 12 Healthy Food C hallenging P eoPle to S haPe a B etter F uture n ow Legacy Emanuel Layoff page 8 Red CRoss Wins Over 50 Secretaries and housekeepers to lose jobs By helen Silvis of The Skanner News Photo By LiSa Loving L egacy Emanuel is letting go of about 50 support staff, according to several Legacy Employees who approached the Skanner news. Both full-time and part- time employees: some with, some without benefits, will leave. The layoffs are part of a 400-person work- force reduction, first reported in a story posted Jan. 18 by The Lund Report. More workforce cuts across the Legacy system are expected to be announced by Feb. 15. “What people are asking is, ‘Do we really need 20 vice-presidents when they are lay- ing off housekeepers?’” said one current staff member who asked not to be identified. “The housekeepers work their a**** off.” Thirty-five unit secretaries, some of whom have been answering phones and coordinating services for years, have been laid off along with 12 housekeepers, 2 trans- port staff, a sterile supplies technician and a dispatch support staff. That’s according to a list employees say they received Friday. Diane O’Brien a unit secretary for 13 years, said she is lucky. Her husband can easily afford to support the family while she plans her next career move. “The worst part for me will be leaving all the friends I’ve made during 13 years at the hospital,” she said. Legacy owns six area hospitals: Emanuel, Good Samaritan, Meridian Park, Mt. Hood , Salmon Creek and Randall Childrens Hos- pital. Emanuel is the most unionized hospi- tal and also handles more indigent care than the others. Brian Terrett, director of public relations, said that 400 positions are being cut. At least 230 of the layoffs would come from admin- istration, he said — medical group, labora- tory and research functions and support positions, such as IT, marketing, public rela- tions, legal and accounting. Terrett could not comment on the Legacy Officials at the Red Cross Columbia Willamette announced this week that their Annual Martin Luther King Blood and Donation Drive made 101 percent of its blood donation goals, and signed up 35 new people for its bone marrow donation registry. Here, Raymond Paschal, equipment system specialist at the Red Cross, staffed a table at the Skanner News Martin Luther King Breakfast, passing out pins and information on the need for more donors. Anyone who didn’t get a chance last week can still donate blood or sign up to be on an organ donor registry by calling 1-800-RED-CROSS, or going to www.redcrossblood.org/NW. Also look for them on Facebook at Red Cross Blood. SEI Coach Wins Sportsmanship Honor Naaman Yarbrough grew up within the organization’s programs By helen Silvis of The Skanner News F or coach Naaman Yarbrough football is more about winning lives than winning games. He cares a lot less about blocks, tackles and scores than he cares about the hearts and minds of his play- ers. “The boys are my main con- cern,” he says. “Because when you look around at our commu- nity, we’re lacking men. We’re starting with these little boys See LayoFFS on page 3 inDeX News ...................2,3,9 Opinion ..................4,5 ML King .............6,7,12 Food..........................8 A&E .........................10 Bids/Classifieds ........11 and we’re trying to guide them through all this garbage out here and turn them into men. “That’s when we win. We don’t win at the finish line. We win when we see them gradu- ate.” Yarbrough, in his fifth year of coaching at the youth develop- ment nonprofit Self En hanc e - ment Inc., has just won the prestigious 2011Wellnitz Award, for outstanding Sports- manship. Supremely modest, he insists that it’s not him, but the entire SEI family who deserves the award. Yarbrough goes down the list of everyone who con- tributed to his success, starting with his fellow coaches, Anthoney Deloney, Tony Mel- son, Alex Robinson, and his assistants Donovan and Damien; and going on to credit the boys on his 3rd and 4th grade and 7th and 8th grade teams, his own mentor Richard Fortson and several more SEI staff before ending up with SEI president Tony Hopson and the donors who “make it all possi- ble.” “It’s kind of a collective award,” he says. “I’m not really sure how I won it.” That’s news to SEI’s head coach, Tony Melson. “Naaman is committed, dedicated and just flat out a good coach,” Melson says. “This is an extremely dif- ficult award to win, and it is well-deserved. Naaman had quite a few younger and inexpe- rienced kids on his team this year. Not only did he coach them to victory, he managed to See CoaCh on page 3 Mayor’s Office Pushes College Readiness ‘Future Connect’ now has scholarship money, support for kids By Bruce Poinsette Special to The Skanner News A s the Class of 2012 prepares to grad- uate in June, there are many students who either won’t finish high school or don’t have the resources to be successful in post secondary education. “Applying to college is not an easy process,” says Kali Ladd, education strate- gies director under Mayor Sam Adams. “We want to eliminate the barriers. Sometimes the biggest barrier is not knowing.” Portland Parks and Recreation is partner- ing with the Mayor’s Office to help Portland area students finish their post secondary education and build careers through the Future Connect Initiative. According to a study done by the Oregon Department of Education in 2011, one in three students in 2009-2010 dropped out. The numbers are even worse for Black students in particular, who have a 49.8 per- cent graduation rate. Ladd says the goal of Future Connect is to make the process of post secondary educa- tion more transparent. The program provides services like one on See Future on page 3
