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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 13, 2016)
JANUARY 13, 2016 Portland and Seattle Volume XXXVIII No. 15 Opinion ..........................2 Calendars ......................4 A & E ...............................5 Bids/Classifieds ............7 CHALLENGING PEOPLE TO SHAPE A BETTER FUTURE NOW 25 CENTS INSIDE: Martin Luther King, Jr. SPECIAL EDITION THE SKANNER FILE PHOTO FAMILY FUN DAY Imani Muhammad is the founder of the Portland Youth Summit, an annual program that uses ideas from hip hop to teach life skills. The 10th Youth Summit takes place this February. Organizers Plan Youth Summit Y ear after year, the Portland Youth Summit has taught young people life skills using hip hop. The two-day summit, which started in 2007, takes place Feb. 12 and Feb. 13 at the Trail Blazers’ Boys and Girls Club this year. It is free and open to the public. The first night, the summit in collabo- ration with Black Parent Initiative, will explore healthy approaches to raising children. It will feature a performance by award-winning spoken word artist and poet S. Renee Mitchell. The second See YOUTH on page 3 Movie Openings Kam Williams offers sneak previews page 5 Book -It Repertory Theatre actors Jason Sanford, Treavor Boykin and Merri Ann Osborne perform A Splash of Red: The Life and Art of Horace Pippin at a Family Fun Day Jan. 9 at the Northwest African American Museum. Council Adopts ‘Charles Jordan Standard’ New hiring standard, on the NFL’s ‘Rooney Rule,’ requires city to interview at least one minority, female or disabled candidate for top positions By Arashi Young Of The Skanner News L ast Wednesday the Portland City Council adopted a new hiring policy intended to in- crease diversity for top di- rector positions. The Charles Jordan Standard, modeled after the NFL’s “Rooney Rule,” requires interviewing at least one qualified minori- ty, woman or disabled can- didate during competitive recruitments for bureau director positions. Sam Sachs, a Portland Parks and Recreation rang- er who has been advocat- ing for the policy since ear- ly 2015, said he was moved to tears when the council passed the resolution. “It was so beautiful to see everybody working through what I think is going to be a great policy that is going to help diver- sify our leadership,” Sachs said. The new standard is not binding for all city director appointments. Portland’s mayor, city commissioners and chief administrator can still directly appoint Groups to March Friday to Confront Economic, Racial, Housing Injustice Don’t Shoot, VOZ and Sisters of the Road among groups partizipating in day of protest By Christen McCurdy Of The Skanner News Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday Events page 4 leaders without a compet- itive recruitment process. The council also adopted new requirements to re- port the demographics of those directly appointed. Dante James, the bureau director of the City of Portland Office of Equity and Human Rights, urged the council for greater transparency in these ap- pointments. He said that direct hires are often the exception to the rule, but he wants direct appoint- ments to be announced before hiring instead of reported after the job has A coalition of progressive groups plan to march and rally Friday in solidarity and cele- bration of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday. Three separate, linked Facebook pages have announced plans for demonstrations Friday throughout the day, beginning at 8 a.m. Groups then plan to converge in a march that starts at 2:30 p.m. at VOZ MLK Work- ers Center at 240 Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd, and ends with a 4:30 p.m. rally at City Hall. Several groups are listed in public- See MARCH on page 3 been filled. “You should have a con- versation ahead of time about why you want to do a direct appointment in the first place. If you have rea- sons, you should be able to say those publicly,” James said. The Charles Jordan Stan- dard is named for the first African American to sit on Portland’s City Council. As a council member, he pushed for greater diver- sity in the Fire Bureau and advocated for greater ci- See RULE on page 7 PHOTO COURTESY OF WIKIPEDIA (CC BY-SA 3.0) By Donovan M. Smith Of The Skanner News PHOTO BY SUSAN FRIED Event has taught life skills through hip hop since 2007 Right 2 Dream Too is one of the scheduled stops on the route of a planned protest march this Friday. The organization that supports the camp, along with other community groups including Don’t Shoot Portland, VOZ and the Portland Tenants Union, are planning a day of protests relating to racial, economic and housing justice.
