Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 16, 2019)
January 16, 2019 The Skanner Portland & Seattle Page 3 News cont’d from pg 1 not everyone is experi- encing this prosperity.” Homelessness and spiraling rents must be tackled, Brown said, not- ing her proposed budget makes a historic $400 million investment in housing. She also said a bill sponsored by House Speaker Tina Kotek and Senate Majority Lead- er Ginny Burdick, both Portland Democrats, is No one should be able to buy a megaphone so loud that it drowns out all the other voices “innovative” and will give renters some peace of mind. The bill prohibits land- lord from terminating month-to-month tenan- cy without cause after 12 months of occupancy, allows a landlord to ter- minate tenancy with 90 days’ written notice and payment of one month’s rent under certain condi- tions, and limits annual rent increase to 7 percent above annual changes in the consumer price in- dex. House Republicans said they are “poised to resist harmful legisla- tion, vigorously safe- guard Oregonians’ tax dollars, and protect their rights” during the 80th Oregon Legislative As- sembly, which starts next week. Democrats control the Legislature, with a three- fifths super majority in the House and Senate, giving them greater pow- er to impose taxes. In her address Brown also repeated her intent to end what she called the “wild, wild west” of cam- paign finance. She was re-elected in November after the most expensive guber- Shutdown At one point, a cou- ple of people opposed to a proposed deep-wa- ter marine terminal on the Oregon coast where ships could load lique- fied natural gas from a planned pipeline inter- rupted Brown’s speech to shout a few words before departing. At another point, Brown thanked state em- ployees and volunteers, including “first gentle- man” Dan Little, who are working to keep feder- al facilities accessible during the partial federal government shutdown. Brown tweeted photos on Saturday of her husband, Little, after he cleaned toilets at Mt. Hood Na- tional Forest. Little sent the $28 bill for disposing of the trash to President Donald Trump. Brown’s $23.6 billion budget proposal for the next biennium aims to stabilize funding for the Oregon Health Plan, a free health coverage of- fered by the state for peo- ple who meet income and other requirements. “Health care is a fun- damental right,” she de- clared. Read the rest of this story at TheSkanner.com The Genealogical Forum of Oregon is pleased to welcome BlackProGen host Nicka Smith to its next African American Ancestry Group meeting from 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. Jan. 26. Smith is a professional photographer, speaker, and documentarian with more than 20 years of experience as a genealogist. She is the host of BlackProGen Live, a web show focused on people of color genealogy and family history. She will speak on “The Future of African American Genealogy.” Attendees can discover why advancements in DNA cataloguing are key for all types of genealogy and how they can help break down years-long barriers in personal research efforts. The meeting is free and open to the public at the GFO Library in the basement of the historic Ford Building at S.E. 11th Ave. & Division in Portland. Students cont’d from pg 1 district; under a new cost-sharing arrangement, the district would pay the police bureau $364,000 this year and just over $1.2 mil- lion a year for three years. The decision would not in- crease the number of officers, but it would increase the number of days they work from four days a week to five. Students’ concerns are three- fold, Steele told The Skanner. First, they argue it’s not the best use of district funding given schools still have lead in the drinking wa- ter and other structural issues, like leaking roofs and asbestos. “We don’t have a clean, safe learning environment,” Steele said. Second, research suggests that in the two decades since the Col- umbine High School shooting the increased presence of cops in schools has led to increased tar- geting and criminalization of stu- dents of color and students with disabilities. And while calls for increasing the number of school resource officers have increased since last year’s shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., critics have noted that Stoneman’s school re- source officer stayed out of the “ We don’t have a clean, safe learning envi- ronment building while the shooting was taking place. “They think of SROs and they think of somebody that’s sup- posed to protect us,” Steele said, but instead, more students are funneled into the school-to-pris- on pipeline. No SROs PDX organized in No- vember after, students said, they became upset and dissatisfied with the district’s efforts at en- gagement. The district solicited feedback at events held in schools but, ac- cording to Steele, students got little notice about the board’s im- pending vote and district officials seemed to want to explain the plan to them rather than gather input. “What got me interested was it was just really the blatant lack of trying -- the fact that they got students involved so late,” Steele said. On Jan. 2 about a dozen students gathered in front of Portland City Hall for a press conference and protest to raise awareness about the issue. They continue to orga- nize and make contact through social media – they have a You- Tube channel, a Twitter feed and are circulating an online petition — and are looking to involve stu- dents from every high school in the area. “Just because we are young adults, that doesn’t mean we don’t know what we are talking about,” Steele said. cont’d from pg 1 investigations,” she said. Thompson, the chair of the Homeland Security Committee, said the shutdown is taking its toll on workers and gov- ernment operations. “It is a challenge for us in Homeland Security. We have 80 percent of the workforce not being paid. That goes from TSA employees in airports, to the Coast Guard, to the Secret Service, to Custom Border Protection individuals, “ BlackProGen Host to Speak at GFO Jan. 26 PHOTO COURTESY MD|DC CUA & WSSC FCU “ natorial race in Oregon history. In the run-up to the finish, her campaign committee had received almost $10.3 million in cash contributions while Republican candidate Knute Buehler’s received $13.2 million. “No one should be able to buy a megaphone so loud that it drowns out all the other voices,” Brown said. PHOTO COURTESY OF GENEALOGICAL FORUM OF OREGON State Maryland Rep. Anthony Brown The CBC members said they were calling for an end to the shutdown so that workers can again begin to collect their paychecks and critical government services can resume and all of those individuals who have sworn to keep us safe, are not being paid,” Thompson said. “That’s not fair and we are compro- mising our national security strategy by reducing the morale of the employ- ees.” On Saturday, Jan. 12, the shutdown en- tered its 22nd day, a record. NBC News and other outlets estimate that 800,000 federal employees are furloughed or working without pay because Trump and Con- gress cannot reach a deal to reopen the government. They are at an impasse over $5.7 billion for con- struction of a wall along the southern border. The number of fur- loughed employees does not include federal con- tractors, according to a re- port by NBC News. It’s unclear how many contract or grant employees are af- fected by the shutdown — or even how many there are in total — but a Volcker Alliance report estimated that nearly 5.3 million worked as contractors in 2015. Unlike furloughed federal employ- ees, who have received assurances that they will be paid once the shutdown ends, contractors are not owed back pay and that has left them in an even murkier economic position. Further, communities of color are probably the hardest hit by the shut- down, said Lee, who co-chairs the Steer- ing and Policy Committee and serves on the House Committee on Appropri- ations. Black people comprise 12 percent of the country’s population but are 18 percent of the federal workforce, ac- cording to the Partnership for Public Service. “We know that communities of col- or are disproportionately affected by this irresponsible Trump government shutdown. And today is especially painful for so many workers because it should be payday,” Lee said. Without these paychecks, many federal workers are hanging on by a thread, she said. “I know there are hundreds of thou- sands of families out there who are grappling with the anxiety, and real- ly fear, of not being able to pay the bills as this shutdown drags on.