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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 21, 2016)
DECEMBER 21, 2016 Seasons Greetings from all of us at 25 CENTS Portland and Seattle Volume XXXIX No. 12 News ...............................3,9,10 A & E .....................................6-7 Opinion ...................................2 Kwanzaa Events ..............7 Calendars ........................... 4-5 Bids/Classifi eds ....................11 CHALLENGING PEOPLE TO SHAPE A BETTER FUTURE NOW VANPORT'S FLOOD Civil rights lawyer to speak on MLK’s vision, predictions By Christen McCurdy For The Skanner News O akland-based civil rights attorney H o w a r d Moore, whose cli- ents have included Angela Davis and Julian Bond will speak at The Skan- ner Foundation’s Howard Moore 31st annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Breakfast Jan. 16. He told The SkanneR he intends to talk about the aspects of life Martin Luther AP PHOTO/CARLOS OSORIO See MOORE on page 3 Flint, Mich., Mayor Karen Weaver listens as Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette addresses a news conference, Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2016 in Flint, Mich., where he charged two former State of Michigan Emergency Managers with multiple 20-year felonies for their failure to protect the citizens of Flint from health hazards caused by contaminated drinking water. Charges Filed in Flint page 10 New Movies Opening for This Holiday Weekend page 6 Folksinger Woody Guthrie, the one-time Northwest resident known for writing “This Land is Your Land” and other classic American folk songs, wrote a never-recorded, recently-unearthed song chronicling the Vanport fl ood. Lost Song Tells Story of ‘Vanport’s Flood’ Woody Guthrie's song was published in 1963, but forgotten until recently By Thacher Schmid For The Skanner News I n 1948, America’s greatest folk musi- cian, Woody Guthrie – known for “This Land Is Your Land” and numerous other songs about Amer- ican life and the plight of working people — penned a piercing ballad about Or- egon’s worst disaster, Van- port. “Vanport’s Flood,” he called it. The song is the only known Guthrie song about the Pacifi c Northwest out- side of the “Roll On” Colum- bia River songs he wrote for the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), Guthrie experts say. It also may be one of his last im- portant creative eff orts be- fore Huntington’s Disease took its toll on his ability to write and play music. Vanport historians say its lyrics touch on import- ant, still-controversial truths about the Vanport tragedy. The song was lost to his- tory aft er its publication in a long out-of-print 1963 songbook, even as Van- port and Guthrie have re- mained noteworthy. Portland Mayor Charlie Hales declared May 30, 2016 a “Vanport Day of Remembrance,” and there will be a second in 2017. There’s been an article in the Smithsonian Magazine, The Skanner Foundation's documentary series called the “Wake of Vanport” and events by Vanport Mosa- ic. Zita Podany authored a book of photos, and Port- land Community College professor James Harrison is working on a history. The sheet music was pub- lished in “The Nearly Com- plete Collection of Woody Guthrie Folk Songs,” by Ludlow Music, copyright- ed 1963. The Woody Guth- rie Center shared sheet music aft er a reporter in- vestigated a throwaway reference in a 1969 Orego- nian story. “I had never known that this had ever been pub- lished in any form,” Seattle musician and former BMI Foundation / Guthrie ar- chives fellow Joe Seamons said. Seamons shared a copy of Guthrie’s original typewritten lyrics, but didn’t know of the pub- lished sheet music. Evocative lyrics stun survivors Sitting in a Northeast Portland cafe and staring at the sheet music, Vanport survivor and community liaison for diversity ini- tiatives at Portland State See SONG on page 3 Council Votes for Inclusionary Housing Ordinances Program would dedicate a percentage of housing to renters making less than median income By The Skanner News Staff T he Portland City Council passed two ordinances Wednesday morning creating a program that would require developers to include less expensive housing in multi-family buildings of 20 units or more. Last week the council approved a series of amendments to the ordi- nance, clearing the way for a coun- cil vote this week, though a hearing on the ordinance scheduled for last Thursday was cancelled due to in- clement weather. “This may need to be tuned. It may not work perfectly in the market- place, but the council has the op- portunity to do that tuning as they have in the past,” Mayor Hales said at Wednesday’s meeting. The ordinances, which would be- See HOUSING on page 3 PHOTO COURTESY OF DAN SALTZMAN Moore to Speak at MLK Breakfast AL AUMULLER/NEW YORK WORLD-TELEGRAM AND THE SUN/PUBLIC DOMAIN Martin Luther King, Jr. Breakfast 2016 The Portland City Council voted Wednesday to approve an inclusionary housing program, spearheaded by housing commissioner Dan Saltzman, that requires a percentage of new units to be aff ordable to renters with below- median incomes.
