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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 27, 2017)
SEPTEMBER 27, 2017 INSIDE: Portland and Seattle Volume XXXIX, No. 52 News .............................. 3,8-12 Opinion ...................................2 Calendars ........................... 4-5 Minority Business A & E .....................................6-7 Enterprise 2017 Bids/Classifieds ....................11 CHALLENGING PEOPLE TO SHAPE A BETTER FUTURE NOW COURTESY OF MULTNOMAH COUNTY 25 CENTS SPECIAL EDITION A NEW VISION FOR ALBINA Joanne Fuller, director of Multnomah County Health Department, retired Monday. Days after the county reached a settlement over Tillman’s firing, the director of the county’s health department retired abruptly PHOTO BY CHRISTEN MCCURDY County Settles, Fuller Retires Retired Urban League CEO Michael Alexander, left, and Rukaiyah Adams, chief invetsment officer at Meyer Memorial Trust unveiled drawings last week by Hennebery Eddy Architects, Inc. that were the result of two years of conversations on a new vision for inner Northeast Portland. M ere weeks following Tricia Till- man’s firing as public health director of Multnomah County, her boss, Health Department Director Joanne Fuller, announced her sudden retirement Monday morning. “As some of you know, I have been thinking about retiring for some time. I have decided that now is the time,” wrote Fuller in an email to county staff, first reported by the Portland Tribune. AP PHOTO/JANIE MCCAULEY See FULLER on page 9 Golden State Warriors Stephen Curry takes questions from the media after NBA basketball practice in Oakland, Calif., Sept. 23. President Donald Trump doubled down on denouncing protests by NFL players and rescinded NBA star Stephen Curry’s White House invitation on Saturday, a series of tweets that quickly inflamed football and basketball stars and even prompted LeBron James to call the president a “bum.” NFL Protests Evolve page 9 ‘A Question of Faith’ Interview page 7 Community group unveils ambitious plan for inner NE Portland By Christen McCurdy Of The Skanner News A group of volunteers has put together an ambitious new plan for Northeast Port- land – one they envision as livable, equitable and tak- ing full advantage of Wil- lamette River access. Group members Rukai- yah Adams, chief invest- ment officer at Meyer Me- morial Trust and Michael Alexander, the retired CEO of the Urban League and a former member of Regence Blue Cross Blue Shield’s management team, unveiled drawings last week that were the result of two years of dis- cussion and visioning by a group involving commu- nity members, developers and leaders in the business community. The plan – which for now is called the Albina Vi- sion – includes mixed-use buildings and dense hous- “ Time doesn’t stop. We’ll con- tinue to see change. We can either direct the change or witness it ing that can accommodate multiple income levels, as well as easy access to ame- nities. Adams noted that when she commissioned the drawings, she guided architects to portray resi- dents of many races, and to include cultural signifiers that show the envisioned neighborhood is not just for affluent White people. The 20-person group – which includes Moda Health executive vice president Steve Wynne, former city commission- er and Moda public policy executive Jim Francesconi and developers John Car- roll and Tom Cody — was convened two years ago by officials at Moda and the Portland Trail Blazers to investigate a possible future for the area. The region includes undevel- oped property owned by the Blazers —more specif- ically, by Vulcan, a busi- ness development venture owned by Blazers owner Paul Allen. Adams said the group was convened at the be- hest of then-Mayor Charlie Hales and that the guiding concept has been twofold: to push back against the “primacy of the car” in ur- ban design, and to buck a longstanding trend of dis- placing Black communi- ties to neighborhoods with lower property values and fewer amenities. The plan incorporates an area situated on the north by the Broadway Bridge and the Blanchard school site, on the south by the Steel Bridge, on the west by the river, on the east by the Lloyd district. Adams took inspiration from the city of Berlin, Germany, the Presidio in San Francisco and Battery Park City in New York, and See ALBINA on page 3 Tubman Proposed to Reopen, KairosPDX Displaced PPS rethinks middle school model for equity, but cuts Black charter school from the equation By Melanie Sevcenko Of The Skanner News W hen Harriet Tubman fi- nally opened in the early 1980s, it was the culmina- tion of community per- sistence to establish a middle school in Portland’s historically Black neighborhood. At that time, African American students were still being bused from their North and Northeast neigh- borhoods to attend predominantly White schools, as part of an integra- tion practice implemented during the 1960s. The district’s plan to desegregate, however, backfired. As it turned out, busing Black students into White schools only upped the enrollment of White schools, which further vin- dicated the majority-White school board in shuttering schools in Black COURTESY OF KAIROSPDX By Melanie Sevcenko Of The Skanner News KairosPDX students communities. Yet through tenacious protest from groups like the Black United Front, See PPS on page 3
