May 10, 2017 The Skanner Page 3
News
King managed to boot-
strap her way to launch-
ing Royalty Spirits’ first
bottle, Miru — a refined,
pear-flavored
vodka
named after the Cook Is-
lands goddess of Polyne-
sian mythology. Royalty
Spirits is also the first
vodka company on the
West Coast owned by a
Black woman.
owned; the majority are
below 50 percent of the
area median income.
The non-profit was
originally known as
MEND, or Micro Enter-
prise Neighborhood De-
velopment, a program of
the Black United Fund of
Oregon. In April 2008 it
became MESO under the
Pedagogy Institute.
‘You’re a high risk as a new
business. Traditional banks
are just afraid if you’re a
startup’
“I always wanted to
produce something that
was for women, by wom-
en,” said King, who comes
from a decade-plus ca-
reer in human resourc-
es. She describes her
vodka as “not syrupy”,
but smooth and flavorful
with a kick.
King came to under-
stand what women like
in a drink after years of
bartending in the off-
hours of her day job.
In 2015, she won the
Portland Development
Commission’s
Startup
PDX Challenge, which
connected to MESO, Mi-
cro Enterprise Services
of Oregon. That’s when
the ball got rolling for
King.
MESO was established
in 2005 to assist in de-
veloping commercially
viable businesses with
an emphasis on minority
and underserved entre-
preneurs.
It does this by offering
micro-loans — the small-
est on record is $100 and
the largest $275,000 — to
a wide range of business-
es that include food ser-
vices, child care, small
manufacturers, arts and
culture and much more.
Sixty-eight percent of
MESO’s clients are wom-
en-owned
businesses
and 38 percent are Black-
Clean Air
Last month, MESO
made a splash in the mi-
cro-lending market by
receiving $1 million from
the Small Business Ad-
ministration. The capi-
tal will help finance an
additional 20 to 40 small
firms in Oregon and
southwest Washington
with loans up to $50,000.
To date, MESO has
granted micro-loans to
297 businesses, at an av-
erage of $7,000.
In today’s climate, just
a few thousand can make
a crucial difference for a
small company that lacks
the assets and the credit.
“They usually don’t
have enough collateral,
and they don’t have a his-
tory in borrowing,” said
MESO’s executive direc-
tor, Nita Shah. “Many
times the banks reject
these business owners,
even though their busi-
nesses are growing and
they have a strong cash
flow.”
While small business-
es accounted for 64 per-
cent of the net new jobs
created between 1993
and 2011, startups have
an 80 percent chance of
getting turned down for
a bank loan, according to
national data.
Read the full story at
TheSkanner.com
Roosevelt High
School Senior
Takes 3rd Place
in National
Monologue Contest
Back from a whirlwind weekend in New York City, the
August Wilson Red Door Project is proud to announce
that Roosevelt High School Senior Alexis Cannard brought
home the 3rd place prize at the national August Wilson
Monologue Competition National Finals at the August
Wilson Theatre on Broadway. Alexis wowed the judges
with a monologue from August Wilson’s play “King Hedley
II” as the character “Ruby,” the same monologue that
awarded her 1st place in the Portland Regional Finals this
past February. Fellow Portland Regional Finalist Jazanna-
Marie Riddlesprigger also brought her no-nonsense, tell-
it-like-it-is performance of the character “Berniece” from
The Piano Lesson. These two students put our city on the
map, putting us on par with heavy-hitting cities such as
New York, Atlanta, Chicago, and beyond. In addition to
her title, Alexis took home a $1000 cash prize, and all
participating students received the American Century
Cycle collection of plays and a copy of Samuel French’s
new publication, “Dangerous Music: The American Century
Cycle Monologues.”
Londer
cont’d from pg 1
learning center’s teaching staff.
“It didn’t matter how long it took
me. They were there to guide me
every step of the way.”
Today, McLeod has two jobs and
will soon be graduating with an
honors degree in criminal justice
from Portland Community Col-
lege.
Thousands of others in Mc-
Leod’s position having been
coming to Londer since it was
launched in 1993 by the late Mult-
nomah County Circuit Court
judge Donald H. Londer.
As a program of the Change
Center at the Department of Com-
munity Justice, the Londer is the
only of its kind that offers free
high school equivalency classes
to adults in transition, many of
whom come recommended by a
parole or probation officer, or
through a drug and alcohol treat-
ment program.
But by the end of the month, the
Londer Learning Center — which
costs the department $600,000
per year and has provided some
1,200 GEDs — could be gone for
good.
$3 million in budget cuts
Due to the uncertainty of both
state and county budgets, the DCJ
“
‘It seems ri-
diculous to
cut something
like that. It will
probably never
come back’
is looking to cut close to $3 mil-
lion from programs in the upcom-
ing fiscal year.
“We think that the Londer
Learning Center staff and the
program is excellent, but when
we’re in a budget cut situation,
we have to look at what we’re here
to do,” said Truls Neal, Deputy Di-
rector of the DCJ , adding that the
department’s primary mission is
community safety.
If the LLC gets cut, the county
is relying on other resources to
pick up the slack, such as PCC,
which Neal said is looking to offer
its GED program at a lower cost to
parolees.
Furthermore, he added, PCC
campuses are closer to where
most parolees and probationers
now live — in the East — not
downtown where Londer is locat-
ed.
But Londer supporters say
adults with felony convictions
or a history of addiction will be
hard-pressed to come up with
even low-cost tuition, let alone
navigate a college campus.
Another resource is Southeast
Works, a community career cen-
ter that offers a free GED program
to people under the age of 24.
Yet that doesn’t serve the bulk of
students who filter through Lond-
er, most of who are well into their
30s and 40s, argues its backers.
Read more at TheSkanner.com
cont’d from pg 1
reached for comment for this story.
“I’m actually optimistic that most of
what was in the original bill was go-
ing to make its way back in, notably a
prohibition on business on businesses
adding dirty engines to their fleets,”
Dembrow said. “That will solve one of
our immediate problems, which is the
fear that older engines that are pro-
hibited in other states are going to find
their way here.”
In 2015 the Oregonian reported that
trucking companies trying to unload
350,000 diesel trucks that no longer
met emissions standards in California
had found willing buyers in Oregon.
Peveto noted Washington’s clean air
regulations also exceed Oregon’s.
Peveto said if SB 1008 is restored and
passed, advocates are particularly ea-
ger to upgrade school buses as well as
TriMet buses, the majority of which
run on diesel, making TriMet “the dirt-
iest public transit system on the West
Coast,” she said.
Dembrow also wants to ensure mi-
nority- and women-owned small con-
tracting businesses are given flexi-
bility and assistance upgrading their
“
of the state that are most at risk to assist
vulnerable populations.
Peveto said the state needs to create
a community decision-making board
‘People need to remember that this settlement
didn’t fall into our laps out of anywhere. This
is blood money. This isn’t free money’
equipment — which often rely on a
small number of diesel trucks or other
vehicles to run their businesses.
“Any engine built after 2007 is re-
quired by law to meet environmental
standards,” Dembrow told The Skan-
ner. “Diesel engines last a long time,
which is a good thing in some ways,
but if you’re trying to move away from
older, dirtier technology, that’s a real
problem. Smaller firms are going to
purchase the least expensive piece of
equipment they can.”
The restored bill would also require
that the bulk of funds be spent in parts
to make sure low-income and minority
populations actually have a say in how
the money is spent.
That sentiment was echoed by Day-
na Jones, a legal intern with OPAL En-
vironmental Oregon, which — with
Neighbors for Clean Air — has been
campaigning for the bill’s restoration
and passage.
“The fact that we have this funding
mechanism right now, we just can’t let
go,” said Dayna Jones, a legal intern
with OPAL Environmental Justice Or-
egon. She was blunt on the need to en-
sure the Volkswagen settlement comes
PHOTO COURTESY OF NEIGHBORS FOR CLEAN AIR
“
cont’d from pg 1
PHOTO COURTESY OF AUGUST WILSON RED DOOR PROJECT
Microloans
Senate Bill 1008, which would use funds from the
landmark Volkswagen settlement to implement
tougher clean air regulations, has been stripped
of everything but the funding mechanism. Mary
Peveto, co-founder of Neighbors for Clean Air, and
other activists are hoping it can be restored.
with a strong regulatory mechanism.
“I think a major problem is looking
at the settlement as free money,” Jones
told The Skanner. “People need to re-
member that this settlement didn’t fall
into our laps out of anywhere. This is
blood money. This isn’t free money.”
