May 21, 2025 The Skanner Portland & Seattle Page 3
News
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then we’re going to get
them homed and then
we’re going to get them
placed into services and
then we’re going to scale
down. My expectation
is that we will restore
(Prosper
Portland’s)
funding on an ongoing
basis next year.”
But Prosper Portland,
its partners and sup-
porters argue that such a
“
We see it
as working
alongside
council
move would be counter-
productive to the city’s
mission of inclusive
economic development.
The agency’s citywide
programming includes
the Inclusive Business
Resource Network, the
Neighborhood Prosper-
ity Network, the O ce
of Film and Events, My
People’s Market and the
new O ce of Small Busi-
ness. Prosper Portland
also offers workforce
development programs,
technical and financial
assistance for small busi-
nesses and initiatives to
attract employers who
pay livable wages.
“If we are outside of on-
going funds, we automat-
ically are not a part of the
formula that the city bud-
get o ce would build for
next year,” Chabre Vick-
ers, director of equity,
policy and communica-
tions for Prosper Port-
land, told The Skanner.
“So our team now needs
to also look at, how can
we reasonably work with
a staff who don’t know if
they’re going to have a
job or not? It throws ev-
erything into disarray.
“Not to mention, we
have multi-year part-
nerships with folks like
in our inclusive busi-
ness resource network,
Townhall
and we fund direct jobs
across dozens of part-
ners that come from
these dollars, so they too
are wondering. These
are staffers that are em-
bedded across the com-
munity that wonder if
they have a job.”
Deep Cuts
The first cohort of the
new city council has an
unenviable task in re-
fining Mayor Keith Wil-
son’s $8.5 billion budget
proposal, which address-
es a general fund gap
that could be as much as
$100 million. Inflation
and a persistent housing
crisis have strained the
city’s resources, and Wil-
son’s proposals included
cutting 180 positions in
permitting and parks
and recreation.
Dunphy and Green’s
proposed
amendment
would end the city’s
ongoing general fund
allocation to Prosper
Portland, which would
amount to about $11 mil-
lion in the coming year.
Prosper Portland said
that this change, along-
side another $3.7 million
in funding changes from
the city, would mean a
$14.7 million cut to their
organization.
“My amendment is
about asking Prosper
Portland to use their sav-
ings to this year help us
bridge a gap so that we
don’t have to cut parks
maintenance and we
don’t have to cut permit
issuance,” Dunphy told
The Skanner. “I’m really
worried about the per-
mitting bureau. If the
economic development
agency is wildly success-
ful, we will not have any-
body in the permitting
bureau to go and issue
the permits for those
new businesses or those
new apartments or what-
ever it’s going to be, be-
cause of the scale of these
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the warning signs of gaslighting in Or-
egon Senate Bill 702, a proposal to ban
flavored tobacco and menthol.
“Anything that’s banned becomes
contraband, anything that is contra-
band is illegal, and anything illegal is a
police and law enforcement issue—pe-
riod,” stated NY State Police Sr. Investi-
gator Elliot Boyce.
The panelists also reiterated the need
to address the root causes of addiction
and to understand the underlying
criminal and economic realities of the
proposed flavored tobacco and men-
thol ban, especially in marginalized
communities.
Sherman Lea, Jr., NABCJ President:
“We travel around the country to have
conversations - asking hard questions
- about the impact of local, state, and
federal policy issues. We hope to con-
tinue to be a resource for Oregon law
enforcement-related questions and
concerns.”
PHOTO COURTESY CITY OF VANCOUVER
Prosper
Plans for Vancouver
On Monday, April 21, Vancouver City Council adopted the City’s first-ever, Five-Year Economic Development Strategy. In alignment
with the City’s core values of sustainability and resiliency, and livability, the inclusive strategy is designed to help support economic
growth and address growing disparities within the community, and is organized around four primary goals: Establish pathways to
accessible quality jobs, create opportunities for intergenerational wealth, position Vancouver as an inclusive center of innovation and
entrepreneurship, and invest in neighborhood commercial districts.
cuts.”
Prosper Portland has
pushed back, arguing
that business licenses
contribute about $220
million to the gener-
al fund and that under
Dunphy and Green’s pro-
posed amendment, none
of that money would
fund support for small
businesses.
Prosper Portland also
took issue with Dunphy’s
characterization of their
strategic
investment
fund (SIF) as a simple
savings account or, as
Dunphy has referred to it
on social media, a “slush
fund.”
“Even if we put some
SIF dollars there, the SIF
corpus would be deplet-
ed as the year goes by,”
Vickers said in response
to Dunphy’s suggestion.
“You take ongoing (fi-
nancing) and replace it
with one-time, and every
year it continues to go
down and you lose not
Reparations
have been well document-
ed. And if anyone reads the
recommendations of past
reports, one would see that
this governor has been si-
lently focused on resolving
these inequities.” Over the
last 25 years, Moore empha-
sized, five reparations-re-
lated studies were conduct-
ed, including the Maryland
Lynching Truth and Recon-
ciliation Commission and
the State Commission to
Coordinate the Study, Com-
memoration, and Impact
of the History and Legacy
of Slavery in Maryland.
Moore’s firm “no” empha-
sizes that it’s time for “ac-
tion,” not another study.
On Friday, Maryland’s
first Black governor spoke
extensively about his veto
only staff capacity and
expertise, but these oth-
er programs that they’re
saying are going to hap-
pen in different places –
we just don’t know how
they’d work that out.”
TIF And SIF
Prosper Portland over-
sees tax increment fi-
nancing (TIF) districts
throughout the city --
neighborhoods that may
suffer from deteriorat-
ing facilities and lagging
resources. Through this
process, the agency over-
sees upgrades to parks,
streets and community
areas and centers.
TIF funds can only be
used within such dis-
tricts. Vickers explained
that a strategic invest-
ment fund (SIF) has al-
lowed Prosper Portland
to serve the 85% of the
city not in a TIF district.
“Our SIF fund goes
even further than that
because it allows us to
make loans through our
community that also al-
low them to purchase
and acquire real estate,”
she said. “So for us it
really is about how we
ensure that folks can get
access to the market, that
we can ensure that we’re
utilizing all of our tools
in both a responsible way
and a way that I feel like
is reflective of communi-
ty request, and respon-
sive to council request as
well.”
In a letter to the city
council, Prosper Port-
land board chair Gustavo
Cruz and interim exec-
utive director Shea Fla-
herty Betin warned that
cutting the $11 million
general fund allocation
from their agency’s bud-
get, and asking them to
make up the difference
from their SIF, would
mean a loss of 19 small
business and commer-
cial property loans they
would normally be able
to offer within the city. If
the city were to decline
providing general fund
allocations in the future,
Cruz and Flaherty Be-
tin said the SIF would be
fully spent within three
years.
Dunphy had a different
view.
“Those are tax dollars
that should have been
invested in those com-
munities,” Dunphy told
The Skanner. “It wasn’t
meant to be used to con-
tinue the process of what
Prosper has been doing,
which is deeply unac-
countable.”
Tony Barnes, chief fi-
nancial o cer at Prosper
Portland, told The Skan-
ner the SIF was funded
by repayments on loans
that had been given in
TIFs.
“The concept of build-
ing this TIF is that over
See PROSPER on page 7
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decision at the NAACP na-
tional board meeting in
Baltimore City, where the
organization is headquar-
tered. Sources close to the
meeting say the governor
was “clear” in his explana-
tion. In Washington, D.C.,
reparations also dominated
conversations last Thurs-
day on Capitol Hill. Demo-
crats reintroduced the idea
of reparations with a reso-
lution that offers trillions
of federal dollars in repa-
rations to Black Americans
to repair the damage of the
enslavement of Africans
in America for 250 years,
followed by Jim Crow and
the ongoing effects of other
federally supported dis-
criminatory policies. His-
torically, there have been
instances of reparations in
this country—such as for
Japanese Americans in-
“
$38 million
was awarded
terned during World War
II. $38 million was awarded
in total, with each victim
receiving a $20,000 payout.
However, Black Americans
have not received anything
comparable for the enslave-
ment of Africans in Ameri-
ca, during which enslavers
profited off free labor.
In 2021, Evanston, Illinois,
created a reparations plan
for its Black residents. Ad-
ditionally, Georgetown Uni-
versity created a new fund
that awards $400,000 an-
nually to community-based
projects benefiting the de-
scendants of the men, wom-
en, and children enslaved on
Jesuit plantations in Mary-
land. A senior White House
O cial said that when it
comes to reparations, Pres-
ident Trump “is creating an
economy that’s gonna work
for all Americans. And if
the Democrats really want
to uplift the Black commu-
nity, they would support the
President’s One Big, Beau-
tiful bill that would bring
about record tax cuts to this
economy, which would ben-
efit Black Americans.” The
President’s bill would re-
move undocumented immi-
grants from Medicaid, give
Social Security recipients a
reprieve, and eliminate tax-
es on overtime pay and tips.