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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 17, 2016)
February 17, 2016 The Skanner Page 3 News cont’d from pg 1 sues in depth — and ag- itated with the Oregon State Department of En- vironmental Quality — to come clean with local residents about what’s going on and do some- thing about it. “There are other con- cerning levels in other areas of the city that are more disproportion- ately representative of “ school was one of 35 in the Portland metro area which ranked among the worst 5 percent in the nation, no Portland area school ranked better than the bottom 30 per- cent. And North Portland schools ranked the worst. Harriet Tubman school specifically came onto my radar, as my daughter Our problem is a system that allows toxic pollution to put people at risk from all sources communities of color in North Portland,” Peveto said. “Is this really going to be a popularity contest for communities that can assert the most outrage?” The Skanner inter- viewed Peveto about the bigger picture of air pol- lution and how it impacts Portland families. The Skanner News: How long have you personally organized around Portland air pol- lution? Mary Peveto: I first became alarmed about air toxics in Portland in 2009. But that was only about my daugh- ter’s school, Chapman Elementary. I quickly learned that this wasn’t isolated to in my family’s neighborhood in North- west Portland. The same data used for the study published by USA TODAY in 2009 was an analysis that a University of Massachu- setts -Amherst research team had done that cross referenced Federal Toxic Release (TRI) data, EPA’s Risk-Screening Environ- mental Indicators (RSEI), and more than 127,000 schools in America. The big picture was equal- ly alarming. While my Housing was a student there when it was the all girls lead- ership academy. So I was in the parent community when the EPA chose Tub- man as one of 66 schools in 22 states to monitor the air in response to the USA Today report. The EPA found, among other things, high levels of cad- mium. This was significant enough to be one of the few things mentioned in the USA Today story that followed EPA’s national monitoring effort. I was already at the time a member of the Or- egon DEQ’s Portland Air Toxics SOLUTIONS Ad- visory Committee (PAT- SAC). So I also knew that the state had consistently measured high levels of cadmium and arsenic at the air toxics monitoring site at North Roselawn (less than a mile from Tubman) since 2005. The DEQ staff told the PATSAC that the agency could not explain where it was coming from, though they considered consulting a phone book for possible sources. But they hadn’t even done that. Read the full interview at TheSkanner.com Yerby Takes Helm at Bradley Angle Jackie Yerby will serve as the new executive director of Bradley Angle House, the first domestic violence shelter on the West Coast and the sixth in the nation, effective February 22, 2016.Yerby’s first volunteer position upon moving to Portland in 1999 was at Bradley Angle’s emergency shelter for domestic violence survivors. She most recently worked for Renew Oregon, a campaign to build broad- based grassroots support for meaningful action on climate change. Before joining Renew Oregon, Jackie spent many years in the private sector, serving as the Sustainability Program Manager for Cambia Health Solutions, a Portland, Oregon-based health solutions company with operations in Idaho, Oregon, Washington and Utah. Yerby holds an undergraduate degree in History from Yale University, and a Master of Public Policy degree from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. PSU cont’d from pg 1 lecture focused on King’s legacy. They were introduced by Car- men Suarez, Vice President of Global Diversity and Inclusion at PSU, and the conversation was moderated by African Ameri- can Student Service Coordinator Marlon Marion. Shortly before the panel discus- sion started, a group of students seated in the bleachers near the stage, chanted “Disarm PSU!” a few times, and Garza mentioned “ PHOTO COURTESY OF BRADLEY ANGLE HOUSE Air of Trustees’ recommendation that campus security start carry- ing arms, an audience member cheered. Pagan reacted by saying she and other students had re- ceived multiple letters from the university about their activism, including letters of expulsion. “I don’t need your congratula- tions. I need your help,” Pagan said. Pagan also made mention of the introductory speech, which fo- It has never been a plea to non-Black people to make our lives matter. It was always a demand being aware of a “big fight” over the recent decision to arm cam- pus police during her discussion with Tometi and Marion. “The work is local,” Tometi said. Then she and Garza said they would like to bring someone to the stage. “You will notice my name is not in the program,” said Alyssa Pa- gan, an activist with the Disarm PSU movement, after walking up to the stage. After explaining that activists with the PSU Student Union had been fighting against the Board cused on different kinds of priv- ilege, including White privilege, light-skinned privilege and the fact that the event took place on lands that had belonged to indig- enous people. She said while she appreciated Suarez’s intentions, she was offended by the implica- tion that the problem is a lack of diversity at PSU, or that people don’t check their privilege. Much bigger than the problem of “individuals with bad attitudes not checking their privilege,” she said, are the systemic issues that affect students of color. In ad- dition to armed security, Pagan noted the failure of the universi- ty to pay a living wage to on-cam- pus workers. A video of Pagan’s speech is viewable on her Face- book page. Students associated with PSU- SU handed out flyers at the door as the event let out, advertising a Wednesday afternoon demon- stration calling for the disarma- ment of campus security, broken ties with Armark, a $15-per-hour wage for all campus workers and that tuition be lowered by reduc- ing administrative salaries. The preceding discussion fo- cused on broad issues of move- ment-building, developing a better understanding of Black history and how social change movements are contextualized in media. Garza and Tometi, along with Patrisse Cullors (who was not able to attend the event), said they are often credited for starting a movement, but they didn’t. “When we talk about how move- ments, we focus on one or two people who catalyze it, and that’s a bad habit,” Garza said. Read the whole story at TheSkanner.com cont’d from pg 1 global brand exposure and support from a business incubator, according to Poole. Housing is a very personal issue for Poole, who experienced homelessness after a work accident ended his career. During his training to be a firefighter, Poole suffered a fall which caused a de- bilitating injury. At a homeless shelter he discovered how difficult it was for people to find housing, even if the rent was being subsidized. “I lived at the YWCA homeless shelter and I couldn’t find a place to live -- even though I got a voucher from the YWCA to pay my rent for a year, I couldn’t do it,” Poole said. Poole developed NoAppFee to stream- line the housing application process. Renters often have had to fill out appli- cations for housing, and then pay for a new background check for each appli- cation. With NoAppFee applicants pay for a single background check, then the site matches renters with the proper- ties they qualify for. Poole said getting housing quickly is especially important for those re- ceiving rental assistance. Transitional housing time limits and rent voucher “ application and background check for renters and landlords. “Portland entrepreneurs are already lending their talents to affordable hous- ing and tenants’ issues. Tyrone Poole recently won the 1776 Chal- lenge Cup Regional in San Francis- co for his site No A p p Fe e . com, which utilizes data and technology to pro- mote equal access to housing. The city should be capitalizing on these innova- tions,” Wheeler wrote. Poole has plans to expand NoAppFee into the single-family home rentals. Currently, the database covers only property management companies. NoAppFee pays to prescreen these companies to qualify to list on the site. Poole said this is to protect the data of their renters. Housing is fundamental. You can’t do anything before you are housed. If you are homeless, that is like not having air, it’s like not having water expirations necessitate a faster rental process. Poole would like to see needy renters matched up with apartments the same day they got their award let- ters. On Feb. 11, Portland mayoral candi- date Ted Wheeler issued a Tenants’ Bill of Rights as part of his campaign plat- form. In the text, Wheeler endorsed NoAppFee as a tool to promote fair rental practices. Wheeler also support- ed the creation of a standardized rental Tyrone Poole, founder of NoAppFee.com “Sixty percent of the national rental market is actually single-family own- ers — Mom and Pop-owned. Even if we got every single management compa- ny in the United States, we would only have forty percent of the rental market, so we have to get them on there,” Poole said.
