AUGUST 29, 2018
25
CENTS
Portland and Seattle Volume XL No. 48
News .............................. 3,8-10 A & E .....................................6-7
Opinion ...................................2 Voter Suppression ........10
Calendars ........................... 4-5 Bids/Classifieds ....................11
CHALLENGING PEOPLE TO SHAPE A BETTER FUTURE NOW
PHOTO VIA SEI
MARCH ON WASHINGTON
ANNIVERSARY
Self Enhancement, Inc. has received a multi-
year grant to expand its wraparound services to
students and families.
SEI, Partners
Receive
Federal Grant
Nonprofits will be able
to expand wraparound
services to East Portland
T
he U.S. Department of Education
awarded a five-year, $28 million
grant this week to Self Enhance-
ment Inc. to allow SEI and part-
nering organizations to expand wrap-
around services to students in the
Portland area.
Oregon Senators Ron Wyden and
Jeff Merkley announced the award in a
joint press release Tuesday.
“SEI and its partners have long, prov-
en histories of helping vulnerable chil-
dren and families throughout Portland
by delivering quality services that
make a hugely positive impact,” Wyden
See GRANT on page 3
PHOTO BY SUSAN FRIED
Christen McCurdy
Of The Skanner News
A line of pastors and community members including Rev. James O. Stallings, Interim Pastor of Mount Zion Baptist Church (center with red tie) marched a
short distance down the Rev. Dr. S. McKinney Avenue to the front of Mount Zion to commemorate the 55th Anniversary of the March on Washington for
Jobs and Freedom. The event was also the official kickoff of the I-1000 signature gathering campaign. If 300,000 signatures are gathered, the initiative
would go before the legislature and, if passed, would effectively repeal I-200, the 1998 law that ended the use of Affirmative Action in Washington State.
Expert Speaks on Juvenile Justice Reform
Criticism is growing of mandatory minimums for young offenders
By Lisa Loving
Of The Skanner
AP PHOTO/STEVE CANNON
A
Andrew Gillum kisses wife, R. Jai Gillum as he
addresses his supporters after winning the
Democrat primary for governor on Tuesday in
Tallahassee, Fla.
renewed push to re-
peal Oregon’s youth
mandatory
mini-
mums law under
Measure 11 emerged in Jan-
uary with a critical report
by the Oregon Council on
Civil Rights, a panel of the
Bureau of Labor and In-
dustries. Passed by voters
in 1994, Measure 11 took
power away from judges
with systematic require-
ments that kids under age
15 charged with certain
violent crimes to be tried
as adults. Today, almost a
quarter century after Mea-
sure 11’s passage, years of
research has shown that
criminalizing youth is ex-
pensive and fails to deter
crime.
Before he left office, Gov.
Ted Kulongoski suggested
tinkering with Measure
11 to reduce the future
cost of the prison system,
and there have been a few
changes over the years. But
finding policy solutions to
youth violence often seem
out of reach.
But nobody knows youth
violence prevention like
Guillermo Cespedes does.
A lifelong social worker
appointed director of the
Los Angeles Office of Gang
Reduction and Youth De-
velopment from 2009 to
2014, Cespedes used data,
partnerships and strategy
to help cut the gang vio-
lence rate there in half --
where it stayed for almost
a decade. Now he uses the
strategies he helped pio-
neer in the United States
to help teenagers and fam-
ilies in other parts of the
world. The Skanner’s Lisa
Loving spoke with Ces-
pedes last month in Teguci-
galpa, Honduras, where he
helps lead Proponte Mas, a
gang prevention program
that also operates in other
countries of Central Amer-
ica, the Caribbean and
North Africa.
The Skanner News: One
of the ground-breaking
programs that you helped
build was in Los Ange-
Three States
Portlanders to Vote on Clean Energy Fund
Now Have Black Ballot
measure would tax high-revenue retailers
Candidates for to create a $30 million fund for green energy
Governor page 9
Kam Reviews ‘In
Support of the Girls’
page 7
T
his fall Portlanders will vote on
a bill that, if approved, would
create a $30 million fund non-
profits could apply for to create
green jobs.
The Portland Clean Energy Fund
announced in July it had collected
60,000 signatures — 25,000 more
than it needed to qualify for the
ballot. Organizers have continued
to canvass and engage in outreach
and the campaign has had a timelier
feel in August as wildfire smoke has
choked much of the west coast, re-
sulting in unhealthy air quality off
and on for the last two weeks.
“As communities of color we re-
alized there were a lot of obstacles
to participating in the green econ-
omy,” said Khan Pham, manager of
immigrant organizing at Asian Pa-
See ENERGY on page 3
PHOTO COURTESY OF PORTLAND CLEAN ENERGY FUND
The Skanner News
See REFORM on page 3
A November ballot measure would create an
annual fund where nonprofits could apply for
grant funding to create green jobs.