Opinion
Special Election 2013
“Challenging People to Shape
a Better Future Now”
B ERNIE F OSTER
Founder/Publisher
The Skanner News Endorsements
B OBBIE D ORE F OSTER
Executive Editor
———— CANDIDATES ————
T ED B ANKS
Advertising Manager
seems to lurch from one crisis to the
next. Gonzalez has voted against
school closures – against a majority of
his fellow board members – and bro-
ken ranks with the district on more
than one occasion. He is independent
and so principled that even his oppo-
nents respect his opinion. His deep
roots in the communities served by
Portland Public Schools put him in a
unique position to educate administra-
tors as well as everyday people about
inequities in the system.
J ERRY F OSTER
Account Executive
L ISA L OVING
News Editor
H ELEN S ILVIS
Multimedia Editor
B RUCE P OINSETTE
Reporter
D AVID K IDD
Graphic Designer
M ONICA J. F OSTER
Seattle Office Coordinator
Portland Community
Director, Zone 2
J ULIE K EEFE
S USAN F RIED
Photographers
Martin Gonzalez
Portland School District 1J, Direc-
tor, Zone 4
The Skanner Newspaper, established
in October 1975, is a weekly publica-
tion, published each Wednesday by
IMM Publications Inc.,
415 N. Killingsworth St.,
The Skanner News endorses Martin
Gonzalez, the incumbent chair of the
Portland Public Schools Board. We
may not always agree with what the
school board does, but Gonzalez has
for years stood out as a beacon of
social justice on the panel, which often
College
The Skanner News endorses Kali
Thorne Ladd, the incumbent who
was nominated for this seat after the
death of Harold Williams last year. We
appreciate her opponent, Michael
Durrow, who has consistently stepped
up to run for the PCC board.
But there may not be a better quali-
fied candidate to serve on any kind of
educational panel than Ladd, who
served as former Mayor Sam Adams’
education policy point-person. In his
term, Adams forced state education
officials to be more open about the
way they calculate the school drop-out
rate and fought for student access to
Kali Thorne Ladd
free school transportation, among
other things. Quietly in the back-
ground, Ladd wove together many
strands of education policy. She
knows the players, she knows the
communities, and we are hoping that
Ladd will take her PCC experience
and launch a wider political career in
the future.
P.O. Box 5455, Portland, OR 97228.
Telephone (503) 285-5555.
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Measure 26-151 Fluoridation focus on combating child hunger is the city. Over the past 10 years
of Portland’s Drinking Water so crucial. The Oregon Food bank they’ve leveraged $6 million in private
estimates about 14,000 Portland- dollars to grow their financial
Supply-YES
The Skanner News endorses
Measure 26-151, because it will
improve oral health for at-risk com-
munities. We haven’t seen any
photos or reports, even after
decades, of deaths due to water
fluoridation.
However we would like to make one
more note: Pro-fluoride claims that
this measure is the “solution to our
dental crisis” are off-base. In Wash-
ington State, which has long had
fluoridated water, the Legislature is
debating creation of two new classes
of dental practitioners because the
other piece of this puzzle is lack of
access to actual dental care. Adding
fluoridation to the water is not a
magic wand – it needs to be part of
an across-the-board policy including
education, preventive care and den-
tal services for all families.
Measure 26-150 Renew Five-
Year Levy to Prevent Child
Abuse, Child Hunger-YES
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We endorse the Portland Children’s
Levy extension this year in part
because it won’t make any change in
your existing tax bill – and the new
Page 4 The Portland Skanner May 8, 2013
area children eat from food boxes
every month.
Importantly, the Children’s Levy
organization’s staff has a track record
of fiscal responsibility, investing the
levy dollars in proven programs and
operating with a five percent adminis-
trative cap so that 95 cents of every
dollar goes back into services across
resources and put more cash into
kids programs.
Because the amount of the levy is
not increasing – at 40 cents per
$1,000 assessed home value — a
vote for Measure 26-150 means your
tax bill stays the same as it has for
the previous years.
METRO Measure 26-152
Local Option Levy to Improve
Natural Areas, Water Quality
for Fish-NO
We appreciate Metro’s mission of
preserving natural areas and we sup-
port their goal in this proposed
measure. However we cannot
endorse Measure 26-152, a local
option levy to improve natural areas
and water quality for fish, at this time
because there are just too many peo-
ple who can’t afford even $20 more
per year added to their taxes (the rate
is about nine cents per $1,000
assessed value).
Measure 26-152 would bolster past
Metro watershed protection efforts by
adding funds for maintenance and
restoration.
Please bring this back another
time; it is a great idea but not right
now.