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.
