SummerS school YOUR ONLINE LOCAL Racin’ ahead YoungYo Blazers get back DAILY NEWS Portland man travels to work in Vegas www.portlandtribune.com far and wide for ESPN job Portland— See SPORTS, B8 Tribune— See LIFE, B1 THURSDAY,TH JULY 11, 2013 • TWICE CHOSEN THE NATION’S BEST NONDAILY PAPER • WWW.PORTLANDTRIBUNE.COM • PUBLISHED THURSDAY ■ Portland may charge ahead with solution to ‘free’ placards Defrauding disabled parking TRIBUNE PHOTO: JONATHAN HOUSE Amida Omari enjoys a game of “Calling All Cars,” during the Vernon SUN Summer Program. Omari left the Congo in 2009, and is hoping to help support her family with her fi rst job. Summer job? Not so easy anymore WorkSystems summer internships give teens boost in job market By JENNIFER ANDERSON The Tribune Amida Omari recalls hav- ing just one book to read in the summer, a book of French short stories, which she’d read over and over. As a child growing up in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, she says she never had a chance to go to summer school, much less earn some cash at a summer job. “If your parent has Parking code enforcement offi cer Gary Shervey checks the number on a disability placard on Southwest Taylor Street. Shervey can determine if the placard is valid and in the money, they’d “Getting right vehicle, but not whether its owner is truly disabled. send you on your fi rst vacation (in ne day last October, the Portland Bureau But new studies by national transportation ex- the summer) job in high of Transportation counted 1,007 cars with perts show that the solution to Portland’s parking to see your school isn’t disabled parking permits parked in me- A ‘free ride’ with disabled problem is remarkably simple: All the city has to do relatives,” the a reality Otered spaces in Portland’s downtown and is require disabled drivers to pay 18-year-old Lloyd Center. That means one out of every nine on- parking permit? Maybe, for their parking spaces, like ev- Southeast anymore. street parking spaces in the city’s central shopping erybody else. Cars with Portland stu- If you don’t area was not yielding revenue, since owners of dis- but it’s tough to enforce Oregon’s Department of Motor dent recalls. abled parking permits are allowed to park free on Vehicles reports it has issued disabled But if they get this the street for as long as they By PETER KORN 354,147 disabled parking placards. placards cost don’t, “you fi rst job, want. The Tribune There are no fi rm guidelines for stay home Story by More important, according to getting a disabled permit — all you Portland an and do noth- how do you Peter Korn national parking experts, those Gary Shervey knows for a fact that there need is a physician’s signature. estimated $3 ing.” get the parking spaces were not provid- are dead people in Portland whose disabled Pregnant women get them, people million in In 2009, foundation Photos by ing the service for which they parking placards are still in use. with asthma get them, and pa- Omari came were intended — temporary Shervey, parking code enforcement offi cer for tients with doctors who don’t want parking here as a refu- for a Jaime Valdez parking for shoppers as they the Portland Bureau of Transportation, has to lose patients get them, accord- revenue each gee with her family- visit stores and then move on, walked the downtown parking beat for 16 years. ing to the experts. mother and freeing their spaces for some- When he comes across a car displaying a plac- Trying to take on abuse of dis- year. six siblings wage job?” one else. Most of those disabled drivers left their ard at a metered space, he calls in the placard abled permits has proven impos- and attended — Reese Lord, cars parked on the street all or most of the day. number so a dispatcher can verify that it’s being sible, despite studies from other Franklin High WorkSystems The proliferation of disabled parking permits has used legally by the owner of the car. cities showing that more than half of disabled plac- School, where senior project long been a problem in Portland, and the focus of a Occasionally the dispatcher informs Shervey ards are being used fraudulently. But the experts say she learned manager number of studies and recommendations that have that the owner of the placard he’s looking at has there’s no need. Their studies — and experiences of English quick- failed to yield results. A 2009 city task force report cities that have followed their recommendations — ly and gradu- found that 20 percent of parked cars in the down- See DISABLED / Page 2 ated with honors last month town retail core had disabled placards. See PARKING / Page 2 despite her family’s hardships. In March, her mother died from lung cancer, leaving her older brother as their legal guardian since their father had been killed when they lived in the Congo. The Immigrant & Refugee Community Organization has Rose City revs up EV ‘revolution’ been helping the Omari chil- dren, and this fall Omari will Partnerships give organized by the Northwest Au- use scholarship money to study tomotive Writers Association to nursing at Portland State Uni- electric car industry allow the public to see and, in versity. some cases, test-drive the new- In the meantime, she was of- a road map to future est all-electric, hybrid, plug-in fered the chance at a paid in- hybrid and clean-diesel vehi- ternship this summer — and By JIM REDDEN cles. Automotive journalists she seized it. The Tribune from throughout the Pacific “This is my fi rst time work- Northwest will gather at OMSI ing,” Omari said Monday, just Interest in ultra-high-mile- to test-drive and learn more after wrapping up her fi rst day age vehicles continues to about the vehicles on Thursday. of work as an assistant to the grow in Portland, driven in The local media will check them summer camp students at Ver- large part by a partnership out on Friday. non School’s SUN program. “I between governments and Auto association event Chair- want to work because I want to nonprofi t organizations that man Bengt Halverson says he support myself. Now it’s kind of is attracting international at- chose Portland for the event be- hard. We have to support each tention. cause of the city’s commitment other.” Advocates are so busy, in to sustainability. With her fi rst paycheck, she fact, that they have scheduled “With Drive Revolution we’re says, “I would love to pay the two public events on the same celebrating the full range of gas bill.” day. On Saturday, Drive Revolu- ‘green’ vehicles — a topic that’s Omari is one of 530 high tion will be held at the Oregon particularly strong in the Pacif- school-age youth in Multnomah Museum of Science and Indus- ic Northwest — and using OMSI and Washington counties this try and EV Celebration Day in Portland, appropriately, as a summer who are working, 2013 will be held at Pioneer staging area,” Halverson says. thanks to the nonprofit Courthouse Square. Drive Revolution is being WorkSystems’ SummerWorks TRIBUNE FILE PHOTO: CHRISTOPHER ONSTOTT Drive Revolution is from 10 held in conjunction with two bi- program. Mercedes-Benz launched its Smart Fortwo electric car in Portland in May. The city is becoming a testing a.m. to 5 p.m. outside of OMSI, ground for alternative fuel vehicles. 1945 S.E. Water Ave. It is being See ELECTRIC / Page 5 See WORKSYSTEMS / Page 4 “Pamplin Media Group’s pledge is to Portland Tribune Commission OKs West ■ The Portland Planning and Sustainability Commission voted 7-3 on Tuesday to endorse annexing deliver balanced news that refl ects the Hayden Island annexation, West Hayden Island. Annexation could lay the groundwork for the future development of three trade stories of our communities. Thank you for reading our newspapers.” Online development terminals on about 300 acres of Port of Portland property on the island. Search: West Hayden Island — DR. ROBERT B. PAMPLIN JR. OWNER & NEIGHBOR A2 NEWS The Portland Tribune Thursday, July 11, 2013 Parking: Experts say charge for space Disabled: ■ From page 1 Many take show that once drivers with up spaces disabled placards are required to pay at metered spaces, they often find someplace else to all day park. A Raleigh solution? ■ From page 1 Disabled parking is upset- ting the entire delicately bal- died. That prompts Shervey anced city parking system, says to place a $720 citation on Michael Manville, professor of the vehicle’s windshield. city planning at Cornell Univer- But that doesn’t mean that sity and co-author of “The whoever is using the dead Price Doesn’t Matter if You person’s placard will have Don’t Have to Pay: Legal Ex- to pay. emption and Market-Priced Shervey says he once is- Parking.” sued a citation to a woman Manville is among a group of using a placard of a dead transportation experts who be- person, and then he ap- lieve market pricing solves peared in court to testify in most on-street parking prob- the case. The woman who lems. Cities should charge had used the placard testi- more where on-street parking fi ed that yes, she was using is scarce and less where spaces her dead husband’s placard, are plentiful. The idea is to fi nd and yes, he had died two the right price for every neigh- years previously, but that borhood so that there will al- seeing the placard comfort- ways be one or two open spaces ed her.