Equality

Student Legal and Mediation Services (SLMS) at Portland State University, in partnership with the Queer Resource Center (QRC), proudly presents "Will You Be My Valentine? The New Oregon Domestic Partnership Law" workshop featuring Attorney Beth A. Allen of Allen2 Law. This event will take place in the SMSU 298 at 1825 SW Broadway, on Thursday, February 14, 2008 from 12:00-1:00pm. This workshop is free of charge and open to the public. Light refreshments will be provided.

Based on an Idaho federal court decision regarding the rights of initiative petition signers, an out-of-state conservative advocacy group has convinced a federal judge to grant at least a temporary delay Oregon's domestic partners law HB 2007 from going into effect January 2, 2008. The judge scheduled a hearing on February 1, 2008 to consider a permanent injunction of HB 2007.

It has been a year since City Council approved Sam's proposal to enact an Equal Benefits Ordinance (EBO). The EBO requires that contractors doing work on behalf of the City do all they can to offer equal benefits to their employees with domestic partners and employees with spouses.

Cesar Chavez was an American hero whose life's work yielded important gains for all Americans.

Symbols, such as street names, send important signals about the community's values. And there is no question in my mind that Portland will be a better community when Cesar Chavez is duly honored with a major street renaming.

Portland Public Schools, in collaboration with the Portland Schools Foundation and the alternative educational options are sponsoring a Come Back Fair.

The Come Back Fair is an opportunity for youth that are no longer in school to get back on track and find an educational program that fits their needs.

Schools are starting up, and student energy will begin to focus in from the expansiveness of summer life lessons to the intentional lessons that make up formal education. Many of those lessons involve reading: either learning to read, or learning from reading.

Chalk It Up for Oregon LiteracyA few weeks ago Sam addressed those gathered for the Oregon Literacy event in Pioneer Courthouse Square.

Community Warehouse is a non-profit organization that gives donated household items and furniture, for free, to low-income individuals and families recovering from crisis. Over 3,000 households are served each year in the Portland area.

The items received by Community Warehouse are direct donations given by individuals from the Portland area community... like yourselves!

Silverware is always in need.Among the household items currently needed by Community Warehouse include: pots and pans, silverware, cooking utensils, casserole and baking dishes, toasters, coffee makers, mixers, alarm clocks, blankets, twin size bed sheets and full size bed sheets.

With support from the City of Portland, CASH Oregon (Creating Assets, Savings, and Hope) completed a successful tax season, assisting over 1500 taxpayers at its free Tax Aide site in the Lloyd Center Mall. This year, CASH connected working families in Portland to over $440,000 in Earned Income Tax Credits and over $1 million in federal tax refunds. And, with the help of dedicated volunteer tax preparers, CASH saved working families over $330,000 in tax preparation fees.

Yet, CASH connected taxpayers to more than just tax credits and refunds; it also connected taxpayers to the Portland Clean River Rewards program. All taxpayers coming to CASH Oregon's Lloyd Center office received information about the program and were able to talk a representative from the Clean River Rewards, who signed up eligible customers for the program as they waited to have their taxes prepared. Taxpayers who did not qualify for assistance were encouraged to spread the word about the discount. The CASH Oregon tax office provides a convenient and comfortable platform for working families in Portland to access the City discount program.

Send your food Saturday!This Saturday presents one of the easiest and most effective ways to help combat hunger: Simply put your non-perishable food items in a bag out with the mail and let your letter carrier take care of the rest.

Participate in the 15th annual National Association of Letter Carriers Food Drive, the largest one-day food donation in the country. Carriers and volunteers will collect food in more than 10,000 communities in all 50 states and deliver to food banks, pantries and shelters in the communities where the donations are collected. All food donated in Oregon benefits the Oregon Food Bank Network.

        Wednesday night April 18th Commissioner Sam ramped up the decibel level at City Hall when he hosted the Metro area Gay Straight Alliances for their Night of Noise in the south atrium. ... And the event lived up to its name! .... Fueled by the spirited "Monster-Sized Monsters," the assembled youth reached a high-octane level shortly after Sam's welcome and maintained its energy for the rest of the evening. "Hurrah Hurrah" added to the momentum with intermittent (but supervised) mosh pit action. ....  

Jettisoning justice for janitors
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
The Oregonian

By Steve Duin

E lvira Munoz is, I'm afraid, all too typical of the men and women who clean up after you at the Rose Garden and Memorial Coliseum.

She's paid Oregon's minimum wage of $7.80 an hour, although she is rarely told how many hours she'll be working until she arrives at the Rose Quarter aboard MAX after the ride in from her basement "apartment" in Gresham.

As stated in our city laws, "The City of Portland has a compelling governmental interest in prohibiting discrimination in programs, activities, services, benefits and employment whether carried out by the City itself or through a contractor with whom the City arranges to carry out its programs and activities."

In April, City Council approved Sam's proposal to add a level of accountability to this policy by enacting an Equal Benefits Ordinance (EBO). The EBO requires that contractors doing work on behalf of the City do all they can to offer equal benefits to their employees with domestic partners and employees with spouses.

By Bobby Burk/For The Portland Observer

Political power comes with King, but displacement comes with gentrification

Looking less like the "Soul of the City" and more like the suburbs, it's easy to see that northeast Portland is undergoing a radical transformation. The changes come with a population that is less black and with more money. And nowhere is all of this more evident than in the Alberta Arts District.

From San Francsco Magazine:

Once home to the famous Fillmore and a thriving black middle class, San Francisco has suffered the steepest drop in African American population of any major U.S. city-and no longer has enough black residents to fill the seats in Monster Park. As their progeny disperses, the matriarchs and patriarchs of prominent families fight on in a traumatized Bayview, the last black community in what's supposed to be one of the greatest cities on earth...[Read the full article]