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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 15, 2012)
WWW . THESKANNER . COM A UGUST 15, 2012 P ORTLAND , O REGON V OLUME XXXIV, N O . 33 25 CENTS For The Skanner news alerts Text "NEWS" to 503-715-0890 or scan this QR code C HALLENGING P EOPLE TO S HAPE A B ETTER F UTURE N OW From Green to Grime: HEALTHY KIDS Activists will hold a “No Coal” rally in St. Johns on Aug. 18 By Helen Silvis Of The Skanner News PHOTO BY HELEN SILVIS A sia’s developing economies want coal: the United States has coal. And if coal exporters get their way, more than 150 million tons of it will travel through Portland every year. Residents of North Portland and St Johns will see the biggest impact. More than 5,300 barges and 11,000 coal trains could be trav- eling through North Portland, and 700 of those trains would even pass underneath the homes of New Columbia. “A lot of people will be interested to know that if this happens, their houses are going to shake rattle and roll,” said Bonnie Meltzer a Portsmouth neighborhood resident who is organizing opposition to the plan. “One of the rail tracks goes into a tunnel that goes directly under new Columbia and comes out at Willamette Boulevard and Swan Island.” Activists are holding a “No Coal” rally from noon to 3p.m., Saturday, Aug. 18, at the railroad cut on N. Lombard Street at N. Gilbert, to draw attention to the potential impact on health, transportation, jobs and the environment. They plan to wear black clothes to sym- bolize coal, and hand out black balloons and information. Two full coal trains would travel under New Columbia every day, if plans to export through Coos Bay go forward. That’s according to projections from the Sightline Institute, a sustainability research nonprofit. Sightline projects that 20 trains a day would travel along the north side of the Columbia River, heading to ports in Washington. Six more trains would cross the Columbia at St Johns and travel through the Northwest industrial area. Each coal train will have an average of 125 cars and would be more than a mile long. Fifteen barges loaded with 1500 tons of coal would travel down the Colum- bia. Empty trains and barges would return by the same routes. The Multnomah County Healthy Birth Initiative held a celebration with awards and acknowledgements for families that have participated in their program to improve the health of babies, moms and dads, Wednesday afternoon at Peninsula Park. The program is free and includes services, educational opportunities and more. For more information contact Tameka Brazile at tameka.brazile@multco.us or 503-988-3387 ext. 22242. Painting Party for Masonic Lodge With skinhead groups fading, some doubt Nazis damaged building By Lisa Loving Of The Skanner News T amping down an outcry over gentrification, the Sons of Haiti Masonic Lodge is looking for donations of all sorts of painting supplies — from brushes to scaffolding — to bring the North Mississip- pi Avenue community together with a painting party “Within the coming week we are going to bring the communi- ty together by repainting the whole building,” said Raina See COAL on page 3 INDEX News ......................2,3 Opinion .....................4 Obituaries..................5 A & E ......................6,7 Bids/Classifieds ..........7 Casey, whose husband is John Bryant, the Grand Master of the Sons of Haiti Masonic Temple. She said her husband’s organ- ization was not included in the organizing of a solidarity event last Saturday night. “We prefer if people are going to do something in relation to this building that they contact the Grand Master,” she said. “We don’t even want to focus on that at all.” Casey said the Portland Police, the FBI, and “all the city leadership has been supportive above and beyond,” she said. “We’ve decided to take this act of ignorance and make our community stronger.” Casey is asking for no mone- tary donations, but rather gift cards from Home Depot or Lowe’s; painting supplies, scaf- folding and ladders. Casey says the plan is to repaint in a rust-colored orange hue, and that paint donations in that shade are welcomed. “It is an ongoing criminal investigation,” Portland Police bias crime detective Kevin War- ren said Monday. “We recov- ered some evidence we’re fol- lowing up on, and hopefully we’ll have a good resolution to the case.” The graffiti, which appeared early Friday morning on the venerable white clapboard building at North Mississippi and Fremont, included death threats, n-bombs and swastikas – some of which were back- ward. Portland State University sociology professor Randy See LODGE on page 3 CPR Program Keeps Youth Out of Prison Part two: A mentor and a graduate tell their stories By Helen Silvis Of The Skanner News C PR stands for Community Partner- ships Reinvestment, but it’s tempting to think of it more in the medical sense, as CPR for young offenders. Because, while it doesn’t actually kickstart hearts that have stopped beating, it does seem to prevent young men from throwing their lives away. Run by Volunteers of America, with fund- ing from Multnomah County’s corrections service, the CPR program works with 18-25 year old men leaving prison. DeAndre Fri- son and DeAngelo Augustus told us how the program has helped them. The Mentor DeAndre Frison is Portland through and through. He attended Boise Eliot Elemen- tary school, Harriet Tubman Middle School, and Grant High school. But with no father in his home, a stressed mom, and a neigh- borhood where gang involvement was a fact of life, Frison took several wrong turns before finding his path to success. “I went to juvie at 13 for assault and rob- See YOUTH on page 3
