WWW . THESKANNER . COM
J ANUARY 8, 2014
P ORTLAND , O REGON
V OLUME XXXVI, N O . 14
25
CENTS
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C HALLENGING P EOPLE TO S HAPE A B ETTER F UTURE N OW
Police
Fairness
Hearing
SEAHAWKS
City Council punts
accountability issue
to judge, Feb. 18
Helen Silvis
Of The Skanner News
J
udge Michael Simon will listen to what
public thinks about the Department of
Justice settlement with the City of Port-
land after the report that said Portland
Police used excessive force and violate the
rights of people with mental illness.
Why it Matters: The DOJ and Port-
land Police Bureau
The DOJ opened a civil rights investiga-
tion into Portland Police Bureau in 2011
after a string of fatalities, including the
See DOJ on page 3
INDEX
News ................2,3,5,6
Opinion .....................4
A & E .........................5
Bids/Classifieds ..........7
PHOTO BY MONICA FOSTER
Fair? Adequate? Reasonable?
Those are the values that U.S. District
Judge Michael Simon will consider when he
rules on the proposed settlement agreement
between the City of Portland and the
Department of Justice. The agreement came
in response to a civil rights investigation
showing Portland Police Bureau used
excessive force against people with mental
illness.
But before Judge Simon decides on the
proposed agreement, he wants to hear
whether Portlanders think it is fair, adequate
and reasonable. That’s why Simon has set a
Fairness Hearing for Feb. 18, where the
public is invited to speak out in court, or
submit comments in writing or by video.
“The police union is going to make sure
their voice is heard. The Department of Jus-
tice and the City of Portland are going to
give their opinions. So it’s really important
that the public has its voice heard,” says Jo
Ann Hardesty, a former state legislator and
longtime police accountability activist.
Everyone who wants to make a statement
is invited to testify at the hearing, set to start
at 9 a.m. Tuesday, February 18, 2014 at the
U.S. District Courthouse, Courtroom 13B
1000 SW 3rd Ave.
If you care, be there, Hardesty says.
The cheapest tickets on the resale market for this weekend’s playoff in Seattle are hovering around $200, considered
the most expensive in the country, but the Better Business Bureau says no matter how much you are willing to spend,
you need to watch out for fakes and rip-offs.
Going to the Big Games? Watch Out!
Seahawks’ high ticket prices mean fakes, scams and ripoffs
Lisa Loving
Of The Skanner News
S
eahawks fans heading to the Super-
bowl game in New Jersey on Feb. 2
might need to put a second mort-
gage on the house to afford prices already
as high as $12,000 a seat.
The cheapest tickets on the resale mar-
ket for this weekend’s playoff in Seattle
are hovering around $200, considered the
most expensive in the country.
But the Better Business Bureau says no
matter how much you are willing to
spend, you need to watch out for fakes
and rip-offs.
Be especially careful of online deals,
BBB spokesman David Quinlan says, and
make absolute sure you can see and touch
the tickets before forking over thousands
of dollars for them.
He says that any deal that looks too
good to be true probably is.
“That’s why if you’re going to make a
deal with someone, obviously meet them
in public, look at the tickets, inspect them;
know what a real ticket feels like – it’s
kind of that hard cardboard,” Quinlan
See TICKETS on page 3
Minimum Wage Rose 15 Cents
But critics say the hike is far from enough to create living wage jobs
By Helen Silvis
Of The Skanner News
W
ashington now has the
highest state mini-
mum wage in the
country, and Oregon the second-
highest. Both are among 21
states, whose minimum wage is
higher than the federal mini-
mum of $7.25 an hour.
Oregon’s minimum wage rose
15 cents to $9.10 an hour, Jan. 1.
Washington’s minimum wage
rose to $9.32 an hour in 2014.
But experts say that even the
highest minimum wages in the
country are far from a living
wage.
“Nobody who works a full-
time job should be living in
poverty,” Labor Secretary Tom
Perez told host Gwen Ifill on
PBS Newshour Jan. 6. “And
there are so many people who
are.
“And that is why the president
and I and so many others on a
bipartisan basis so strongly sup-
port an increase in the minimum
wage. But that’s not enough
either. We do so much at the
Department of Labor, for
instance, to invest in skills, so
that people have the tools neces-
sary to compete for today and
tomorrow’s jobs and have those
ladders of opportunity to the
middle class.”
Fast-food workers across the
country have been at the fore-
front of a grassroots movement
to demand substantial increases
to the minimum wage. Staging
one-day strikes in some of
America’s largest cities, the
workers asked for a wage floor
of $15 an hour. Their slogan?
“We can’t survive on $7.25.”
Many economists agree. Last
year, a study for the Washington
DC-based think tank The Eco-
nomic Policy Institute suggest-
ed a single parent with two
children would need to earn $24
an hour to live comfortably.
Voters in SeaTac, Washington
passed an initiative for a $15 an
hour minimum, but opponents
are challenging the new law. A
judge ruled Dec. 27 that the law
did not apply to workers at Seat-
tle-Tacoma International air-
See WAGE on page 3