Opinion
The Skanner News Endorsements
“Challenging People to Shape
a Better Future Now”
B ERNIE F OSTER
Founder/Publisher
B OBBIE D ORE F OSTER
Executive Editor
T ED B ANKS
Advertising Manager
J ERRY F OSTER
Account Executive
L ISA L OVING
News Editor
H ELEN S ILVIS
Multimedia Editor
D AVID K IDD
Graphic Designer
M ONICA J. F OSTER
Seattle Office Coordinator
J ULIE K EEFE
S USAN F RIED
Photographers
The Skanner Newspaper, established
in October 1975, is a weekly publica-
tion, published each Wednesday by
IMM Publications Inc.,
O
ver the past few weeks we have had
excellent interactions with our readers
over the May 15 primary elections. We
solicited your questions for the candidates on
Facebook – and received some of the best feed-
back ever, which we incorporated into our cov-
erage. We also fielded calls from around the
city from voters who directly expressed their
opinions about the candidates of their choice –
and we enjoyed hearing their views.
This election season is rolling out at a time
when our local communities are facing an eco-
nomic and social catastrophe. In Portland, two
of the most celebrated schools are back on the
chopping block; public transit has been
trimmed so severely that whole sections of the
city worry they are being cut off from the
downtown core; home foreclosures are swamp-
ing the housing system and driving skyward
even the cost of rentals.
Our youth of color and our elders seem to be
in the path of this deadly tornado as service
programs of all kinds are set to be decimated
by budgets currently under consideration at
every arm of local government. Meanwhile,
unemployment is dragging down our commu-
nity like a cement weight on a swimmer.
We ask ourselves: What kind of political
leadership will lead us out of this mess?
Is it fair to criticize the incumbents who
failed to do what even the most powerful fig-
ures in the nation can’t fix — the economy?
And all the backbiting, negative campaigning
and misinformation has kept us shaking our
heads at times.
One thing is clear: Whoever is elected to
office had better be ready to stop attacking their
colleagues and start engaging in the real issues.
For this crop of endorsements, we at The Skan-
ner News put a premium on individuals who
know how their prospective elected offices
work, because our region doesn’t have time for
learning curves right now. We also looked for
people who value public input, collaboration
M ULTNOMAH C OUNTY
C OMMISSION D ISTRICT 1
4 D EBORAH K AFOURY
M ULTNOMAH C OUNTY
C OMMISSION D ISTRICT 3
Candidates
C ITY OF P ORTLAND
MAYOR
4 C HARLIE H ALES
M ETRO C OUNCILOR
D ISTRICT 5
4 S AM C HASE
M ETRO C OUNCILOR
D ISTRICT 6
4 B OB S TACY
4 J UDY S HIPRACK
C ITY OF P ORTLAND
C OMMISSIONER
P OSITION 1
4 A MANDA F RITZ
C ITY OF P ORTLAND
C OMMISSIONER
P OSITON 4
4 S TEVE N OVICK
and grassroots community.
And here’s a heads-up for the candidates
themselves: You’d better be up to the challenge
and ready to get things done.
In the races for Multnomah County Commis-
sion, we endorse incumbents Deborah
Kafoury for District 1 and Judy Shiprack for
District 3.
In the City of Portland races we endorse
Charlie Hales for mayor and Amanda Fritz
for City Commissioner Position 1. We are
endorsing Steve Novick for Portland City
Commissioner Position 4, because he is politi-
cally sophisticated, smart and has a long track
record of fearlessly confronting large institu-
tions in the public interest – however we don’t
see him as a consensus builder, and that is a
concern.
For Metro Councilors, we endorse Bob Stacy
for District 6, and Sam Chase for District 5.
Chase is not an incumbent, but his political ties
to the Oregon Opportunity Network, the
Clackamas Community Land Trust and cur-
rently the Coalition of Community Health
Clinics puts his knowledge base squarely on
some of the crisis hotspots right now. This was
a tough decision because we like Helen Ying’s
focus, stamina and positive attitude; hopefully
Ying will run for office again and we will have
a chance to possibly give her our endorsement
in the future.
We also endorse Measure 26-125, funding
for our local library system. If passed the levy
will simply continue the previous levy, at .89
cents per $1,000 assessed home value.
Ballot Measure
R
Y ES ON
M ULTNOMAH C OUNTY
#26-125 L IBRARY L EVY
415 N. Killingsworth St.,
P.O. Box 5455, Portland, OR 97228.
Telephone (503) 285-5555.
E-mail: info@theskanner.com
World Wide Web site:
http://www.theskanner.com
Fax: (503) 285-2900
The Skanner is a member of the
National Newspaper Pub lishers Associ-
ation and West Coast Black Pub lishers
Association.
All photos submitted become the
property of The Skanner. We are not re -
spon sible for lost or damaged photos
either solicited or unsolicited.
© 2012 The Skanner. ALL RIGHTS RE SERVED.
REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART
WITHOUT PERMISSION PROHIBITED.
To see The Skanner
News on your smart
phone go to
theskannermobile.com
or scan this QR code
with your app.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Local news
Opinions
Jobs, Bids
Sports
Entertainment
Music reviews
Bulletin board
RSS feeds
Finding Morality in Budget Documents
T
his week the nation funds
our priorities as we pay our
annual tax bill. “Our budget
is a moral document and it is either
going to reflect the best of who we
are or the worst.” This was so elo-
quently stated by the Rev. Jim
Wallis of Sojourners. Tax expendi-
tures thus speak to who we are as
a people. They define the sacri-
fices and choices we are willing to
make as we look to the future for
our nation and citizens young and
old alike. Each expenditure is by
necessity a critical affirmation of
meeting the nation’s needs.
With a continued waning econo-
my, each dollar becomes even
more significant. So many issues
remain under funded or non-fund-
ed and therefore the decisions we
make are even more critical. From
education, healthcare, infrastruc-
ture to environmental stewardship
we are forced to choose and prior-
itize our needs. Yet there remains a
gorilla in the room that not only
threatens our very survival, it
steals from the lifeblood of every
community in our nation, depriv-
ing them of precious resources and
taking a toll in opportunity costs –
the critical programs left wanting
when funding is not available. I
am speaking of the massive dollars
spent on behalf of nuclear
weapons programs. Once again
this number will exceed $54 bil-
lion for the current fiscal year
according to Stephen Schwartz,
author of the Atomic Audit.
The weapons that these expendi-
tures support threaten our very
Page 4 The Portland Skanner April 18, 2012
P EACE AND S ECURITY
Robert Dodge
existence every moment of every
day. Every citizen and every com-
munity feels the burden of these
costs. From our nation’s poorest
community—Buffalo
County,
South Dakota with its 1912 resi-
dents, 49.3 percent who live in
poverty spending $138,172 of its
limited dollars—to Los Angeles
County spending over $1.7 billion,
the costs are great and morally
reprehensible.
Public education is but one
example of lost opportunity. On a
daily basis school districts across
scientists, teachers, professionals
and leaders. I ask, is this our pri-
ority? What is the ripple effect of
such short-sightedness? We all
will suffer the consequences. This
does not have to be the case. When
will we speak up? We have an
opportunity and responsibility to
realize the possibilities before us.
We now have bipartisan elder
statesmen who are working to
globally eliminate all nuclear
weapons stockpiles. We even have
U.S. Air Force researchers and
RAND corporation nuclear plan-
ners who suggest the U.S. could
address its stated military con-
cerns with roughly 300 nuclear
weapons. Current global stock-
So many issues remain under funded
or non-funded and therefore the
decisions we make are even more
critical
the land deal with ever shrinking
resources. As a Californian I am
terribly concerned for our state’s
public financed education. Cali-
fornia ranks 48 in the nation in per
pupil spending. As an American, I
know the cuts in public education
across the land will have an ever-
lasting effect on the future of our
nation and the world.
Is this really what we want?
Today’s children are tomorrow’s
piles contain 19,500 weapons with
over 94 percent in the U.S. and
Russian
arsenals.
Nuclear
weapons programs are not an enti-
tlement program. They have out-
lived their Cold War purpose and
it is now time to work to reduce
and ultimately eliminate these
dangerous weapons and wasteful
expenditures.
The choice is ours. National and
international surveys have con-
firmed that a majority of U.S. and
global citizens want to see nuclear
weapons eliminated. Their contin-
ued existence encourages further
spread of nuclear materials and
weapons. Now is the time to rede-
fine our priorities.
We the people have an opportu-
nity and responsibility to make a
difference. It is time for all of us to
raise our collective voice and
demand that the nuclear madness
stop. We can no longer gamble on
our future relying on luck to pro-
tect us from accidental or inten-
tional nuclear strike. Nor can we
afford to waste precious resources
on any program that does not add
value to our future let alone that
which threatens our very exis-
tence. Every elected official needs
to be questioned what they are
doing specifically to work toward
a nuclear free world. You can con-
tact your congressional represen-
tative or senator by going to
www.contactingthecongress.org.
Let your voice be heard. For when
the people lead, the leaders will
follow.
Robert Dodge, M.D. is a board
member of Physicians for Social
Responsibility
Los
Angeles
(www.psrla.org) where he is a
Peace and Security Ambassador.
He is also a board member of
Beyond War (www.beyondwar.org)
where he coordinates their
Nuclear Weapons Abolition Team.
He is co-chairman of Citizens for
Peaceful Resolutions (www.c-p-
r.net).