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News Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast in 2015.
Chavis was the leader of the Wilmington Ten, a group of
civil rights activists wrongfully incarcerated for allegedly
firebombing a grocery store; the court case against them
was so controversial it made headlines all over the world.
Their convictions were eventually overturned by a federal
appeals court but not until they had served 10 years in
prison.
In 2012, Chavis and the six surviving members of the
group for pardoned by North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue.
NNPA CEO Ben Chavis will be
the keynote speaker at The
Skanner News Martin Luther
King Jr. Breakfast in 2015
The convention kicked off Wednesday night with a gath-
ering to honor Portlanders who have contributed to making
Oregon a more equitable and just place. Honored at the
event were:
Former state senators: Margaret Carter and Avel Gordly;
Oregon Historical Society; The Portland Development
Commission, its board and executive director Patrick Quin-
ton; Dr. T Allen Bethel, Dr, LeRoy Haynes and JoAnn
Hardesty for their work with the Albina Ministerial Alliance
Coalition for Justice and Police Reform; Pastor Mary Over-
street Smith and Dr. Jill Ginsberg of the North by Northeast
Community Health Center.
At the NNPA merit awards were held Thursday night at
the Nines Hotel, the St. Louis American won the National
PHOTO COURTESY LARRY BINGHAM PORTLAND PUBLIC SCHOOLS
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The James John K-5 School teachers, along with librarian Robin Rolfe, bring blankets, pillows and
plenty of books every Tuesday to the St. John’s Community Center, 8427 N. Central St., to read with
students during the Portland Parks & Recreation’s Summer Lunches program, from 12:30 to 1:30
p.m. One of Supt. Carole Smith’s top priorities is to ensure that all students read at grade level by
the end of the third grade. Research shows that students who read by the end of third grade are
more likely to stay in school, graduate on time, and succeed in college and careers.
Newspaper Publishers Association’s Russwurm/Senstacke
Trophy for general excellence for the third consecutive
year, it was announced Thursday night at the NNPA’s annu-
al convention. It was the Missouri newspaper’s 8th time
winning the NNPA’s top award in the past 15 years.
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Jobs
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County alone, between 6,000 — 7,000 of
those disconnected youth have no high
school credential.
Across the Portland-metro region the
overall employment rate for youth is 27 per-
cent, meaning one in four youth have a job.
But for Black males aged 16-19 the employ-
ment rate is just 12 percent.
“That’s an unemployment rate of almost
90 percent,” said Heather Fitch of WorkSys-
tems. “It’s disgraceful.”
That figure, and all the other statistics that
show Black youth are failing to thrive in
Multnomah County is why Mayor Hales
has set aside 25 of the city’s 100 jobs for
African American males. Hales also is
throwing his weight behind the Black Male
Achievement initiative, a new effort to link
Black boys to opportunities and support.
“There are several ways we as a commu-
nity have failed the African American youth
— education, employment, incarceration
rates,” Hales said. “These internships help
level the playing field in a key performance
measure, employment. This program pro-
Across Multnomah and Washington counties
36,000 youth aged 16-19 are out of school
and not in work
vides a leg up. It’s a small step, but a good
one.”
Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, who also
attended the launch, also pointed to the
destructive impact of poverty.
“What I can tell you is that we know that
crime feeds on poverty, despair and a lack
of hope,” he said. “We know that for cer-
tain. And that’s where SummerWorks steps
in, because it is an antidote to that kind of
poverty and that despair and that sense of
hopelessness.
“I want to showcase for the federal gov-
ernment this program, because the federal
government has got to be a better and
smarter partner in the job training space.”
Now chair of the powerful Senate Finance
Committee, Wyden said employers number
one need is for educated and trained people.
“The single most important thing we need
to do as a community, a state and a country
is to make sure that we get the high-skill,
high-wage jobs.”
Getting on track for college and career is
no problem for students whose families can
link them to jobs, or pay for tutoring, cultur-
al activities or travel. But poor students lack
the family stability and support to help them
stay in school and on track for career suc-
cess.
And youth in Multnomah County are
among the most deprived in the country.
As the county’s new poverty report
shows, one in three county residents are tee-
tering on the edge of survival.
According to the poverty report 238,419
haven’t finished building or made deals to
buy pot from licensed growers.
Pot shortages are certain. More than 2,600
people applied last fall to grow marijuana,
but those applications are being reviewed
glacially by the board’s 18 swamped licens-
There will be no edibles available. People
who want to make brownies, cookies or
other pot-infused treats must have their
kitchens inspected by the state. Of the two
tested so far, one failed — it didn’t even
have a hand-washing sink. The report on the
people in the county are living at or below
the official federal poverty level. And
almost 115,000 more people are living at
less than 185 percent of poverty, so poor
they qualify for food stamps and other safe-
ty net help.
More than 34,000 of those poorest county
residents are under 18. And about 9,000 of
those young people in poverty are raising
their own children.
Take a look at maps from the Coalition for
a Livable Future’s Equity Atlas, and several
trends emerge.
Gentrification has pushed poor minority
communities east, away from the urban cen-
ter and out toward the edges of Multnomah
County. The maps show the highest poverty
areas are also where the highest numbers of
Black and other minority families live.
Those areas also overlap with areas police
have identified as “crime hotspots.”
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Cannabis
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start raising their bar-coded plants; advo-
cates who wish more public health
messaging had been done by now; and
would-be pot vendors like O’Neil who say
bad luck, minor oversights on their applica-
tions, or errors by state officials have
torpedoed otherwise promising efforts.
Washington’s Liquor Control Board
expects to issue the first 15 to 20 marijuana
retail licenses July 7, months later than first
expected, but it’s not clear how many of
those shops are ready to open. Board staff
said last week only one shop in Seattle is
prepared for its final inspection.
Randy Simmons, the board’s legal pot
project manager, predicts a “bumpy road,”
with an initial shortage of stores and mari-
juana alike. Many businesses that got lucky
in the pot-shop lottery in April have since
been disqualified, such as by being too
close to schools or playgrounds. Others
‘This is a gold-rush mentality and everybody
wants to get rich’
ing investigators. Only about 80 growers
have been approved, and some won’t har-
vest by early July. Hundreds of applicants
haven’t even been assigned an investigator.
Prices could run more than $25 a gram for
the heavily taxed pot — about twice what
the state’s unregulated medical dispensaries
charge — until more growers are licensed,
Simmons says.
other hasn’t been completed.
The board has capped the number of retail
stores statewide at 334, but dozens of juris-
dictions have banned them, prompting
lawsuits in two cities.
Colorado, which also voted in 2012 to
legalize pot for adults over 21, is bringing in
millions of dollars a month while Washing-
ton struggles to build its industry.
Unlike Washington, Colorado already had a
regulated medical system, making for a
smoother transition when it allowed dispen-
saries to begin selling for recreational use in
January. Washington has also done more
work developing marijuana safety stan-
dards.
Many
industry
hopefuls
have
found Washington’s delays maddening.
Douglas Taylor spent $230,000 on land for
his planned outdoor grow. The payments
run $1,600 a month, and he says the board
hasn’t even started reviewing his applica-
tion. Meanwhile, he has missed the outdoor
growing season — a revenue loss of about
$500,000, he estimates.
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July 2, 2014 The Portland and Seattle Skanner Page 3