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Let
It Snow, Let
It Snow, Let
It Snow
It's mid-December in the Mount Hood National Forest. Your
weekend options include:
A. Skiing
B. Snowshoeing
C. Building a treehouse
If you answered C, you must be part of a cadre of hardcore
local forest activists who, armed with ropes, plywood and
tarps, recently constructed a second platform in the Eagle
timber sales above Estacada.
As part of their ongoing vigil to prevent timber harvests
on a group of sales in the national forest, volunteer tree-sitters
camped out in "Sunset," an old-growth Douglas fir near Forest
Service Road 4615 for most of the summer ("Out on a Limb,"
WW, Sept. 1, 1999).
But at 150 feet in the air, Sunset's platform is vulnerable
to wind and winter weather. So last weekend, activist engineers
erected a second platform on a tree--which remains unnamed--about
100 feet west of Sunset. This platform rests at only 80
feet, and according to Michael, a 20-year-old student at
Portland Community College, it's cozy in spite of the 6
to 8 inches of snow on the ground.
"Sunset was getting a little scary," says Michael, who
called Willamette Week via cell phone from the tree.
"It's gotten colder and when a couple of gusts of wind hit
me, I got a little nervous. While I know that tree's been
up there forever, logic goes out the window when I'm hanging
from a rope."
The new 10-by-12-foot platform is designed for cold weather,
with a trap door in the floor instead of an open access
hole. The walls on the side are a little taller, and brown
and silver tarps provide overhead protection and trap a
bit of the heat from a lantern and a Coleman stove.
While Michael says he is dedicated to manning the tree
whenever he can, Ivan Maluski of Cascadia Forest Alliance
says it's getting harder to find hardcore people willing
to make the trek behind the locked gate. Kayleen and Clove
and many of the summer regulars continue to sit, but less
often these days.
"It's a real reality check for people," Maluski says. "It
was really easy to ride your bike out for a few days. Now
it's a challenging situation when you have to walk six miles
in the freezing rain."
--Patty Wentz
The
Final Word
On Dec. 10, the Oregon Supreme Court set the
stage for one of the most heated battles on the May 2000
ballot by finalizing the wording of the summary that voters
will use to judge Measure 81.
The far-reaching constitutional amendment, referred to
the ballot by the '99 Legislature, would give legislators
the final word on what damages, if any, can be awarded in
every type of civil lawsuit.
Business interests supporting the measure wanted the summary
to refer to what they think is a questionable July 16 Supreme
Court ruling that struck down the state's cap on non-economic
damages. Trial lawyers opposing the measure wanted the summary
to make clear that the measure would affect more than non-economic
damages. Last week, the Supreme Court sided with trial lawyers,
settling on a summary that makes no mention of the July
16 ruling or non-economic damages.
Linda Love, the Portland plaintiff's lawyer who challenged
the wording, hails the decision. "We are very concerned
that this ballot measure will allow the Legislature to take
away our clients' rights to a fair jury trial," she says.
Scott Gallant, a lobbyist for the Oregon Medical Association,
said his coalition will mount a "major campaign" in support
of Measure 81, to keep litigation and malpractice-coverage
costs down. His ally, Gary Oxley, a lobbyist who represents
grocers, an insurance company and the US Tobacco Company,
agreed. "I think everyone in the business community has
an interest in this situation," he says.
--Nick Budnick
Marshaling
Support
Marshall Glickman may be having trouble buying
a baseball team, but he still knows how to pack a house.
It was standing-room only last week when the City Council
voted unanimously to extend the deadline by which Glickman's
Portland Family Entertainment must secure a AAA baseball
team for Civic Stadium.
Having conceded three weeks ago that he couldn't meet a
Dec. 31 deadline for buying a team, Glickman left nothing
to chance last week. Nearly 100 people showed up to testify
on his behalf. Many observers credit Karen Whitman for generating
the crowd. The past promoter of Artquake and the current
PR whiz for Pioneer Square, Whitman also serves as secretary
of the Portland Oregon Sports Authority, a collection of
local business people interested in bringing more sporting
events to town.
Whitman says she took it upon herself to rally other members
of the sports authority to come to City Hall. "I asked people
who supported the cause to show up," Whitman says.
But, like many members of the POSA, Whitman also has financial
ties to Glickman. She's a public-relations consultant to
PFE.
So in which role did she canvass for support? Both, it
seems.
"I can't separate my role on the Sports Authority from
public relations," Whitman says.
Give her credit for realizing that she's wearing two hats.
Len Bergstein, on the other hand, suffered temporary amnesia.
Bergstein, the peripatetic public relations consultant who
represents everyone from the Grand Ronde tribe to the Cascade
General shipyard testified to the advantages of sticking
with PFE.
Representing himself as a private citizen and neighborhood
resident, Bergstein neglected to mention that his firm,
Northwest Strategies, also does work for the owners of Bill
Graham Presents, the concert promotion company that has
entered into an exclusive deal with PFE. "I guess I really
wasn't thinking about that connection," Bergstein told WW.
The show of support--orchestrated or not--worked. The City
Council gave PFE a new deadline; the company now has until
March 31 to buy a team. Glickman huddled with officials
from the Fresno Grizzlies this weekend at the winter baseball
meetings in Anaheim and is reportedly also talking to owners
of the Ottawa Lynx.
--Nigel Jaquiss
Ways
of Giving
Making a difference in someone's life
doesn't need to be a heroic act. It can be as easy as cleaning
out your garage or dusting off that high-school Spanish.
To help those in need this holiday season, WW suggests
the following:
1. Recycle one of your kids' bikes. The Community
Cycling Center will refurbish any kids' bike you donate
and give it to the Foster Parents Association for distribution
to needy kids. For more information, call 288-8864. You
can deliver bikes to the center (2407 NE Alberta St.) or
to any Bike Gallery in the Portland area.
2. Take a friend to lunch at Boxcar Bertha's
Coffee House at 1000 NW 17th Ave. Named for a '30s labor
organizer, BB's helps support the activities of Sisters
of the Road Cafe, an Old Town institution that has been
serving Portland's homeless and low-income populations for
20 years. For additional information, call 248-9231.
3. Adopt an acre or rescue a reef. The Nature
Conservancy buys land to help endangered species survive.
For more information, contact Elena Frank at 230-1221. (TNC,
821 SE 14th Ave., Portland OR 97214.)
4. Brush up your Spanish. Both the Wallace Medical
Concern and Apoyo Latino provide much-needed
medical services to the area's Hispanic populations, so
both are always in search of bilingual volunteers.
WMC provides medical services to area residents not covered
by the Oregon Health Plan. For additional information, contact
Kathy Hammock at 274-1277. (Donations may be sent to WMC,
PO Box 6872, Portland OR 97228.)
Apoyo Latino is a program of the Cascade AIDS Project.
For additional information, contact Martin Gross at 223-5907,
ext. 209. (Apoyo Latino, c/o CAP, 620 SW 5th Ave., Suite
300, Portland OR 97204.)
5. Help a budding artist. The Community Transitional
School serves an average of 50 to 60 kids from preschool
through the eighth grade whose families live in shelters,
welfare hotels or worse. The school desperately needs classroom
staples. For more information, contact Cheryl Bickle at
916-5743 (6433 NE Tillamook St.).
Seen
But Not Heard
Portland Public School officials would
like to muzzle their most persistent critics.
At least that's the impression given in a letter written
by district officials to the Community Monitoring Advisory
Coalition.
Last month, CMAC requested a half-hour slot on the Dec.
13 board agenda. Board chairman Ron Saxton then asked District
Counsel Bruce Sampson to write a response to CMAC co-chairmen
Halim Rahsaan and Richard Luccetti. A draft of the response,
dated Nov. 30, denied the group's request and accused it
of "generally acting in a confrontational and adversarial
manner."
To a degree, the characterization is accurate. Since its
founding in 1996, CMAC, a coalition of minority and low-income
parents, has regularly blasted the district on issues ranging
from the persistent performance gap between white and minority
students to the shortcomings of Portland's English as a
Second Language program. Coalition members have joined in
formal complaints to federal civil-rights officials and
pressed the district for reform.
The de facto successor to the district's desegregation
committee, which was phased out after 1990's Measure 5,
CMAC gets no financial support from the district. As a result,
its members and officers are not accountable to district
officials--which may be the issue.
Earlier this year, the board decided to "sunset" all outside
committees and asked them to justify their continued existence.
Some people saw the move as a thinly disguised effort to
get rid of CMAC, but Luccetti and Rahsaan didn't take the
hint.
The proposed response, however, seemed a bit much to the
School Board members. When Sampson circulated the draft,
says board member Sue Hagmeier, all seven members advised
that it be toned down.
A new letter, dated Dec. 9, is less aggressive but still
contains a sentence that draws into question the board's
interest in hearing dissenting views. "Unfortunately," says
the letter, which carries Ron Saxton's signature, "CMAC
has chosen to operate independently and not jointly or collaboratively
with the district."
Saxton says he and other officials have bent over backwards
to be responsive to CMAC, but that the group's bomb-throwing
tactics are wearing thin. "I've started losing my patience,"
says Saxton, who offered the group 10 minutes of meeting
time.
To Luccetti, the letter is just another sign that minority
parents are to be seen and not heard. He dismisses the notion
that CMAC officials aren't team players. "We keep throwing
those guys the ball," he says, "but they never throw it
back."
On Monday, CMAC decided not to play at all. The group skipped
the Dec. 13 meeting entirely.
--Nigel Jaquiss
Déjà
News
Dan Cook, his tongue firmly in cheek, says
it was a cost-cutting measure. "We were trying to save money,"
says the editor of The Business Journal, which last
week printed thousands of copies of its paper with the exact
same cover that had appeared seven days earlier. Speaking
for publisher Mike Consol, Cook joked, "It's a result of
the high salaries we pay our reporters."
Actually, last week's repeat of the Dec. 3 cover was the
result of human diligence not keeping pace with technology.
The weekly paper sends its copy to Eagle Web Press in Salem
electronically. Eagle, for reasons unclear to Cook, had
a policy of storing the Journal's front pages in
its computer files and last week accidentally used the previous
week's cover.
No one at the press caught the error. In fact, the mistake
was not noticed until 1:30 am Friday, Dec. 10, when a distributor
called the paper's production manager, Pam Hannon-Hedges,
to inform her of the goof. Hannon-Hedges leapt out of bed
and into action, but by then, the botched copies had been
sent to the post office. Eagle printed the entire issue
again, with a correct cover, and mailed a second copy to
subscribers. The paper plans to run its own explanation
of the debacle on the front page of this Friday's issue
(check it twice, guys!).
--Olivia Barker
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Willamette Week | originally
published December 15,
1999
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