Local News
Guns
SUH’s Gift to Grant
hopeful. Sen. Peter Courtney would not
have sent the gun bills back to committee if
he saw no chance of a bipartisan agreement.
Oregon Republicans could be persuaded to
sign on, she says, to avoid the backlash that
has stung Washington politicians who voted
against background checks.
“Republican senators have seen that
national backlash,” Okamoto says. “The
people who voted against the federal back-
ground checks bill have seen their ratings
drop, and they don’t want that.”
Johnson argues that the bills
would
not reduce gun violence
Ceasefire Oregon Gun Turn-In
because criminals don’t obey
When: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.,
the laws. But Okamoto says we
Saturday, May 11
might as well say we shouldn’t
Where: Lynwood Friends Church,
make laws against murder
835 S.E. 162nd Ave.
because some people will mur-
Gift cards to Safeway or Fred Meyer for each work-
der anyway.
ing gun:
“We know that background
Handguns: $100
checks work,” she says.
Rifles and shotguns: $75
“Nationally eight million peo-
Assault weapons: $150
ple have been stopped from
Magazines—capacity 50 and above: $25
buying guns because they failed
Pellet and BB guns: $10
the background check. That’s
Limit 3 per person
when they turn to back-alley
No questions asked
sales and people selling guns
out of the trunk of their cars.
“This is how criminals are
proposed gun bills. One lone Democrat, getting are getting their guns, and it’s why
Sen. Betsy Johnson of Scappoose, also we need to stop people from buying guns
opposes background checks, along with all without a background check. It’s a common
sense bill that will save lives.”
the other gun control measures.
Okamoto said polling suggests the major-
Johnson seems unlikely to change her
vote. Last year, she voted against a bill to ity of Oregonians believe school districts
ban guns from school grounds. And she has should be allowed to ban guns from school
militant supporters in her district. A St. grounds if they choose.
The Oregonian’s poll showed a majority
Helens softball league recently offered an
in the state also favor banning assault
AR-15 assault rifle as a raffle prize.
Still, Penny Okamoto, executive director weapons (52 percent) and high capacity
of Ceasefire Oregon, says she remains magazines (53 percent). But thanks to
– Says citizens cannot openly carry guns in
buildings where public bodies are deliberat-
ing.
Senate Bill 796: In-Person Class for Con-
cealed Handgun License – Requires citizens
to attend an in-person class before obtaining
a concealed handgun license.
Polls show Oregon voters support back-
ground checks by a large margin—81
percent favored them in a recent poll for the
Oregonian. Yet so far, not a single Republi-
can has agreed to vote for any of the four
Detroit Lions football star
Ndamukong Suh,
center, wields a shovel
Thursday, May 2, at the
groundbreaking for
Grant High School’s new
turf athletic field and a
new synthetic track at
the school. Also on the
scene was City
Commissioner Nick Fish,
officials from NIKE,
Portland Public Schools,
and the Friends of
Grant Athletics, who
together pooled more
than $1 million for the
project. Suh graduated
from Grant in 2005.
PHOTO BY SUSAN FRIED
continued from page 1
intense pressure from highly vocal gun
rights advocates, neither of those ideas
became bills in the Legislature.
At the rollout for the Ceasefire gun turn-
in, Vaune Albanese, executive director of
the social services nonprofit Friendly
House, spoke about the murder of her
brother. Joe “Vito” Albanese was one of
four people shot in the Racer Cafe in Seat-
tle, May 30, 2012.
“The seasons have turned around since
then and the fragrance of wisteria once
again fills the air,” she said. “I will never be
able to associate this time with anything but
my brother’s death, and how it has turned
my life and so many others upside down.
Albanese urged Oregonians to make their
voices heard.
“It’s too late for my brother,” she said.
“It’s too late for the good people who lost
their lives at Clackamas Town Center, and
the 26 children and adults who died in New-
town Connecticut – and as of this morning
the 3,835 human beings who have lost their
lives to guns since Newtown. But it’s not
too late to make a change.”
Success
continued from page 2
we offer, Attridge said. “We all have a spe-
cial purpose and we are trying to help
women find that path, something that really
fits who they are, and their strengths and
skills.”
Today, Dress for Success does much more
than put women into the right suit and
accessories for a job interview. It’s about to
open the career center, where it can expand
its work in mentoring and supporting
women to progress in their chosen fields of
work.
“It’s sending that message that you are
‘It’s sending that message that you are
important, you matter and there are possibilities
for your life.’
—Barb Attridge
important,” Attridge said. “You matter and
there are possibilities for your life.”
About 200 volunteers help run the pro-
gram. They include women executives from
the highest levels of corporate management,
who work with women as mentors and
stand in terms of their differing rules and
requirements.
“So I’m thinking that this woman who
called you has a tenant-based Section 8
public housing which is a different flavor
entirely.”
The mix-up is part of a bigger effort to
bring up rents.
career advisors. And outside speakers come
to talk about everything from personal
finance and stress management to commu-
nication skills and The Unwritten Rules of
the Workplace.
“We have women who are presidents of
companies who come in here to volunteer,”
Attridge says. “In their daily lives, the
women we work with would never have the
chance to meet these very talented and
accomplished women.”
Rent
continued from page 3
$1,200 in July.
The woman declined to be identified, she
said, because she was afraid of being kicked
out of her housing altogether if she com-
plained
about
the
management.
The Skanner News’ email query to the hous-
ing authority’s office led Marchesi to check
Guardian’s letter to residents – she says
about two dozen received the memo — and
she says she saw the problem immediately.
For instance, a letter that says, “Effective
July, 2013, your rent is going to be $720 on
your lease, and we’d like to sign a 12 month
lease with you,” doesn’t mean that you are
going to pay $720 because if you have a
tenant-based voucher, the rent that you pay
is a percentage of your income – it’s not a
percentage of the rent.
The New Columbia project is a combina-
tion of “flavors” of affordable housing,
Marchesi says, which can be hard to under-
A woman called The Skanner News to report
she had received a letter from Home Forward’s
Guardian Management informing her that the
rent was jumping from $800 to $1,200 in July
voucher in an affordable apartment, as
opposed to being in an apartment that has
project-based Section 8 that’s attached to
the apartment as opposed to the tenant — or
Home Forward says that New Columbia
rent levels were below market rent, and
hadn’t been increased for several years.
Increasing the apartment rents would get
more Section 8 subsidy flowing to the prop-
erty, which officials say is needed to operate
a big community such as New Columbia.
Marchesi stressed that she did not want to
blame Guardian Management for the mis-
leading memo because at the end of the day,
Home
Forward
is
responsible.
“But now that we’ve seen the letter we can
totally understand why somebody who
maybe doesn’t have a finely tuned under-
standing of how their portion of the rent is
calculated – there’s nothing in this letter that
reassures them that their portion of the rent
as a result of this change, isn’t going up.”
Marchesi says residents with questions
should call their case workers for help in
troubleshooting any problems. For more
information on New Columbia go to their
website, www.newcolumbia.org.
May 8, 2013
The Portland Skanner
Page 3