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Mutiny at Union Station?
Real estate firm Grubb & Ellis, which manages historic Union Station for the city, may live to regret asking the building's popular superintendent, Ron Tracy, to resign. Tracy, who has been the Union Station handyman for 18 years, hit the rails on Feb. 6. The move has sparked a bona fide tenants' revolt, and it could cost the firm its $36,000 contract. The contract comes up for renewal in October. In response to Tracy's dismissal--which G&E billed as a "resignation" in a Feb. 6 letter to Union Station tenants--25 of the 50 tenants held a meeting Feb. 13 to outline their dissatisfaction with G&E. "Ron Tracy was the straw that broke the camel's back," says lawyer Franco Capriotti, whose offices are in Union Station. "[G&E's] time is up." Capriotti is an outspoken critic of Grubb & Ellis' management; he has accused it of abusing its position as landlord by jacking up rents. Now, seizing on Tracy's dismissal, Capriotti is rallying tenants against the firm. He's even created a "Union Station Tenants Union" Web page dedicated to trashing Grubb & Ellis. The site (www.capriotti.com/union/grubb.htm) includes a list of "10 Reasons We Don't Need Grubb & Ellis." Among the gripes: that G&E collects higher rents retroactively after failing to contact tenants about rent changes; that G&E attempted to discontinue nighttime security; and that G&E isn't from Portland. G&E scoffs at the complaints. Spokesman Mark Fraser says his company tried cutting back on off-hours security five years ago for about a month, but stepped it back up when tenants complained. He says he hadn't heard the rent criticism before. "We're under 10 bucks per square foot per year," he says. "This is one of the best rent deals in the city." Fraser wouldn't discuss G&E's parting of ways with Tracy. Tracy, 53, claims that Grubb & Ellis fired him for refusing to change a negative performance review he had given one of his staffers. Tracy said the staffer, Tracey Blue, wasn't performing her maintenance duties adequately. He also believed that Blue, who is hearing-impaired, created a safety concern. --Josh Feit
Follow-up:
Uncanny Coincidence
One person's outlaw author is another person's high-school graduation speaker. When Sunset High School English teacher Becky Wallace had her students read an excerpt from civil-rights activist Carl Upchurch's autobiography two weeks ago, she was sent to the principal's office and told that her classroom would be monitored for the rest of the year (Rogue of the Week, WW, March 5, 1998). It seems a parent had complained to Sunset High Principal Rick Miller about the appearance of the word "motherfucker" in the excerpt. One week later, Upchurch himself read from his book--Convicted in the Womb--at Catlin Gabel, a private school in Southwest Portland. Students there reacted so positively that Upchurch will be speaking at the school's commencement on June 13. It was an uncanny coincidence that Upchurch was in Portland last week to speak at Catlin. Upchurch, who lives in Ohio, picked up a copy of Willamette Week and--startled to see his own mug in our paper--read about Miller's action against Wallace. He talked on the phone with the 10th-grade teacher for two hours. He says Wallace told him she is "scared to death and believes that her job is in jeopardy" and that she is the only teacher at Sunset whose contract has not been renewed for next year. She also told him she's been instructed to remain publicly silent on the issue, he said. Wallace has been teaching for 22 years. "This is a violation of a teacher's ultimate right," Upchurch says. "The right to talk about ideas and uplift her students. She has been shot down. I want to say in the strongest way possible I am offended by Beaverton school district's attitude on this." Upchurch, 48, was arrested for armed bank robbery in 1971. He has since become a civil-rights activist, most famous for brokering a peace treaty between the Bloods and the Crips in Kansas City in 1993. After his speech to Catlin Gabel high-schoolers, Upchurch tried to contact Sunset principal Miller. Miller did not take his calls and was unavailable to speak with WW. --Josh Feit
Paradise for Sale
Perhaps it's premature to start singing "they paved paradise and put up a parking lot," but the school budget squeeze threatens to head in that direction. A recently published report by the Blue Ribbon Finance Committee concluded that Portland Public Schools will be millions in the hole next year and recommended that the district "review surplus property and determine whether any of the property should be sold and how much the district might receive." On the chopping block are 11 parcels of land, totaling 92.5 acres, with an assessed value of $7.6 million--and a market value of perhaps much more. Some of the parcels are unimproved lots, but at least two more closely resemble paradise. One of the district's properties is the 28.8-acre Columbia Arboretum, where students from a dozen district schools study re-vegetation and wetlands. On another 12 acres in Southeast, the district runs the more formal "Green Thumb" study center. Two hundred students a year prepare for horticulture jobs in the 31-year-old program. Although the committee considering selling the real estate has already met once--and will not make its report for weeks--longtime Green Thumb Director Marc Stein was unaware that his expansive facility might be on the block. "That's news to me," he said. If the committee does decide to sell, government agencies get first dibs, according to district policy. The district has sold property before--most recently 13.5 acres in St. Johns four years ago--and these are desperate financial times. Still, as one teacher close to the Arboretum program points out, "to sell capital items for annual budgets can't go on for very long. It just seems nutty." --Nigel Jaquiss
Follow-up
HEAVY METAL, Part II
New data from the federal government confirm WW's report ("Get the Lead Out," Jan. 14, 1998) that poor children are missing out on testing for lead poisoning. Even though blood-lead screening is mandatory for Medicaid children, nearly two-thirds of the Medicaid kids checked by the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey had never been screened before. The General Accounting Office, which released the results last month, labeled states' testing efforts "inadequate." Oregon is no exception, state health officials acknowledge. In theory, all children receiving medical assistance through the Oregon Health Plan should undergo blood testing for lead levels as part of their regular preventive check-ups. In practice, however, many contracting providers disregard the requirement--because they're unaware of it, they don't see a need for it or they don't receive funding for it through the state. The lack of testing is particularly unfortunate because kids in Medicaid programs are three times more likely than other children to have elevated lead levels in their blood, the GAO found. Rick Leiker, research analyst with Oregon's lead program, says his agency recognizes the problem and plans to come up with a comprehensive screening strategy for the state. "We're not sitting on our hands on this at this point," he said. --Ruth Rowland
Follow-up
Scouting Out Schools
The Boy Scouts of America have been having a rough time lately. In February, the city of Chicago ended all support for scouting programs as long as they continue to discriminate based on grounds of religion and sexual orientation. Last week, a New Jersey state court ruled that the scouts could remove an assistant scoutmaster for being gay. Both decisions aided the cause of Nancy Powell, a local woman who has been battling to bar the Boy Scouts from entering schools ("Devout Scouts," WW, Aug. 27, 1997). "I want church and state separation," Powell says. Since April, Powell, an atheist, has been lobbying local and state education officials on the basis of an Oregon statute that prohibits schools from involving themselves in religious activity. The school district's attorneys rejected Powell's complaint, saying there is no "basis to believe that the District has sponsored, financially supported, or is actively involved with religious activity." But Powell has learned that the "partnership sponsor" of the scout troop at her son's school is the school--Scott Elementary. On repeated occasions, Scott has allowed scouting organizers to hold meetings during students' lunch hours. Powell believes the school's involvement not only contravenes state statutes, but also "makes little children feel as if their family values make them less important than other kids." Joseph Williams, principal at Scott, says he's unsure how his school came to be the troop's partnership sponsor. Although his name appears on the charter document, Williams says he knew nothing about it. Since we last wrote about her, Powell has enlisted the aid of the local chapter of the ACLU, which was victorious against the Boy Scouts in Chicago. --Nigel Jaquiss |
