March 28, 2018 The Skanner Page 3
News
cont’d from pg 1
such as demographics,
reasons, and results,”
reads a Tuesday-night
press release accompa-
nying the reports. Audi-
tors also recommend the
team set goals to mea-
sure the success of such
stops in order to demon-
While the Bureau has dis-
continued gang designa-
tions, it continues to create
most active lists
strate whether they’ll be
effective.
The bureau’s decision
last fall to discontinue
its gang affiliate des-
ignation was both cel-
ebrated and met with
skepticism. Shortly af-
ter the announcement,
The Skanner spoke with
individuals who’d been
on the gang member list
who said they suspected
police would find more
covert ways to surveil
communities of color.
The city’s audit ap-
pears to support that
prediction.
“While the Bureau has
discontinued gang des-
ignations, it continues
to create most active
lists, which includes a
notation of people’s gang
affiliations. At the time
of our audit, the Gang
Enforcement Team used
informal conversations
among employees, police
reports, and gang desig-
nations to compile a list
of some 1,000 people who
were associated with
gang incidents. The team
then assigned scores to
each person based on
the number and type of
contacts the person had
with police and created
a list of the people with
the top scores – usual-
ly about 30 people. The
types of contact included
shootings and gun sei-
zures, but also non-crim-
inal events and being
victims of crime. The
Cully
of which the bureau has
agreed to and either says
are in place or in process.
The recommendations
are:
• The bureau should
regularly analyze and
publish demographic
data regarding Gang
Enforcement
Team
traffic stops;
• The Gang Enforcement
Team should monitor
stops data and the per-
centage of encounters
recorded as “mere con-
versations”;
• The Gang Enforcement
Team should require
officers to document
the investigative rea-
son for traffic stops;
• The Gang Enforce-
ment Team should set
goals to measure the
effectiveness of traffic
stops;
• The bureau should
evaluate the effective-
ness of the Gang En-
forcement Team by re-
viewing crime trends
and arrest outcomes;
• The bureau should
adopt detailed official
policies and proce-
dures for documenting
gang relationships;
• The bureau should
review the legality of
current practices for
creating the “most ac-
tive” gang list;
• The bureau should
track clearance rate
and caseload and main-
Royal Rosarians Recognize Patricia Welch as
a Newsmaker of the Year
The Royal Rosarian Foundation last week recognized its 2017 Newsmakers of the Year at a March 21 dinner and ceremony. Newsmakers
were nominated and presented with awards by their nominating organizations. The Skanner’s Newsmaker of the Year, Patricia Welch,
is a Flemming Award recipient and served for more than 20 years as administrator at the North Portland branch of the Multnomah
County Library. Her award was presented by Jerry Foster, sales and advertising manager for The Skanner News. Pictured here are:
friend Johnette Easter (left), friend Sallie Stevens, Jerry Foster, Royal Rosarian Susan Simpson, Patricia Welch and granddaughter
Aleshia King.
Tobacco
cont’d from pg 1
panies are required to run ver-
batim: “More people die every
year from smoking than from
murder, AIDS, suicide, drugs,
car crashes, and alcohol, com-
bined.”
• The addictiveness of smoking
and nicotine. Example: “Cig-
arette companies intention-
ally designed cigarettes with
enough nicotine to create and
sustain addiction.”
• The lack of significant health
benefit from smoking “low
tar,” “light,” “ultra light,”
“mild” and “natural” cigarettes
(which have been marketed as
less harmful than regular ciga-
rettes). Example: “All cigarettes
cause cancer, lung disease,
heart attacks, and premature
death – lights, low tar, ultra
lights, and naturals. There is no
safe cigarette.”
• The manipulation of cigarette
design and composition to en-
sure optimum nicotine deliv-
ery. Example: “Cigarette com-
panies control the impact and
delivery of nicotine in many
ways, including designing fil-
ters and selecting cigarette pa-
per to maximize the ingestion
of nicotine, adding ammonia
to make the cigarette taste less
harsh, and controlling the phys-
ical and chemical make-up of
the tobacco blend.”
• The adverse health effects
of exposure to secondhand
smoke. Example: “Secondhand
smoke kills over 38,000 Amer-
icans each year.”
“This move dates back to 2006,
when a U.S. judge found that to-
bacco companies violated civil
racketeering laws and defrauded
people in America for decades,”
said Jonathan Modie, a spokes-
person for the Oregon Health Au-
thority.
The Skanner was one of 50
newspapers in the country to re-
ceive the ads, and the only one in
the state of Oregon; the new cam-
paign includes a rollout of televi-
sion ads as well.
While the push to correct the
record about the effects of tobac-
co use and to offset the long-term
public health effects of smoking
dates back decades, public health
officials say the industry’s tactics
haven’t stopped.
“These tactics of the tobacco
industry haven’t stopped. These
products are sweet, cheap and
easy to get here in Oregon and
across the country and world,”
said Luci Longoria, manager for
community mobilization for pol-
icy, systems and environmental
change, Oregon Health Authori-
ty’s public health division.
And tobacco’s effects are dis-
proportionate, in part because
tobacco marketing has targeted
communities of color and Black
Oregonians are more likely to
smoke than White Oregonians.
Longoria said in Oregon 80,000
people died last year from causes
linked to tobacco use, and 1,100
of those deaths – more than one-
eighth – are African American.
Read more at TheSkanner.com
cont’d from pg 1
color are continuing to struggle with
high energy costs and the inability to
live in an energy-retrofitted environ-
ment.”
The NAACP has since been making
strides to educate lawmakers on how
low-income people and communities
of color are disproportionately ex-
posed to industrial pollution from
sources like power plants, toxic sites
and roadways. Because of this, these
populations are the first to experience
the negative impacts of climate change,
such as natural disasters and extreme
weather, as well as having less access to
clean water due to drought.
Evidence also suggests a strong link
between climate change and displace-
ment, as gentrification tends to dis-
place communities from walkable,
energy-efficient neighborhoods with
stronger job prospects and reliable
transit and into marginalized, disin-
vested areas with poor transit infra-
structure.
“We definitely believe that climate
change is here and is already beginning
to impact residents in Portland,” Caroli-
na Iraheta Gonzalez, community ener-
“
We definitely be-
lieve that climate
change is here and
is already begin-
ning to impact resi-
dents in Portland
gy advocate at Verde, told The Skanner.
“A really good example of that is the
colder winters we’re experiencing and
the hotter summers. People are having
to use more electricity during the win-
ters to heat their homes and we’re also
seeing electricity peaks in the summer
due to AC, so their monthly income is
being stretched even further.”
In Cully, the median electricity bur-
den – meaning the
percentage of annu-
al household income
spent on electricity
– for all households
is higher, at 2.25 per-
cent, when compared
to all Portland house-
holds, which averages
1.67 percent.
“We worry that peo-
ple won’t be able to Solar panels on top of Hacienda Community Development Corporation.
stay in the neighbor-
hood as we see climate
After intensive rounds with commu-
changes happening,” continued Gon- nity partners, utility experts and clean
zalez. “Renewable energy and energy energy professionals, alongside sur-
efficiency is definitely a tool to address veys and focus groups, Living Cully has
climate change, but it’s not always ac- come up with six pilot projects. Togeth-
cessible to low income families. So we er, the projects aim to conserve energy,
want to make sure that families in Cul- make use of renewable sources, allow
ly have access to these tools.”
low income families to bring down
And the desire is there. Community their utility costs, and prevent further
surveys in Cully found that 94 percent displacement from the neighborhood.
of people said they were interested in
Read the full story at TheSkanner.com
getting solar energy.
COURTESY OF SUNBRIDGE SOLAR
“
document was updated
every month,” the audit
report reads.
Both audit reports
close with correspon-
dence between the audi-
tor’s office and the police
bureau outlining a list
of recommendations, all
PHOTO COURTESY OF ROYAL ROSARIANS
Audits