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.