PDC Cuts Squeeze Community Input
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Back in town and ready to battle — SEE SPORTS, B8 PortlandTribuneLPGA stars returning to Columbia Edgewater THURSDAY, AUGUST 22, 2013 • WWW.PORTLANDTRIBUNE.COM • PUBLISHED THURSDAY City water rate fi ght turns green ■ Ratepayer By JIM REDDEN took it over. board. The chief petitioners to qualify it for will form to oppose the mea- The Tribune And Fish says it also would “The City are lobbyist Kent Craford and the May 2014 sure if it qualifi es for the ballot. frustration fuels allow Portlanders to learn water bureau watchdog Floy primary elec- He predicts environmentalists ballot initiative to Commissioner Nick Fish about the watershed protec- Council Jones. They also are involved tion ballot. Fi- will oppose the measure be- end City Council welcomes the proposed bal- tion work being done by the cannot be in the ongoing lawsuit in Mult- nancial sup- cause it threatens to reduce or lot measure to take away environmental services bu- nomah County Circuit Court porters in- eliminate the watershed pro- control; foes control of the Water Bureau reau, which operates the city’s trusted charging the council has mis- clude such tection work being done by the say environment and Bureau of Environmen- sewer system and storm water with spent at least $117 million in large water environmental services bu- needs protection tal Services from the City management programs. ratepayer water and sewer ratepayer users as the reau. He says labor unions will Council. “I’m looking forward to funds during the past 10 years. Portland Bot- FISH oppose it because the new Fish, who is in charge of making the case for both bu- money.” “The City Council cannot be tling Co. and board could lay off the union- both bureaus, says such a reaus,” Fish says. — Kent trusted with ratepayer money,” the Siltronic ized employees of the two bu- campaign would give him a The proposed ballot mea- Craford, Craford says. manufacturing plant. reaus. And he says business chance to explain that the sure would amend the City lobbyist Petition backers have until Fish is confi dent a coalition leaders will oppose it because management of the water bu- Charter to place both bureaus January to collect 29,786 valid of environmentalists, labor reau has changed since he under the control of an elected signatures of Portland voters union and business leaders See BALLOT / Page 10 ■ Money woes reduce program matching residents with language tutors Janitor Marcelino Garcia (right) is tutored in English so ESL PROGRAM he learns to communicate with co-workers. Landscaper Ramiro Hernandez (below) needed to talk with his sons’ high school teachers without GETS CUT IN his sons having to translate. Janitor Lourdes Diaz (bottom) had no way to leave notes telling her boss she had completed her work. All three HARD BUDGET have relied on volunteer PCC tutors to improve their English, but the free tutoring program is being cut back. LESSON Story by Peter Korn Non-English speakers Population Photos by Jaime Valdez age 5 and over Languages in with limited Portland area English profi ciency magine taking your 16-year-old Spanish 64,692 autistic son to doctors’ appoint- ments and teacher conferences Vietnamese 12,417 I — if you didn’t speak English. Chinese 9,036 Lourdes Diaz moved from Mexico Russian 7,105 to Beaverton 18 years ago but, like Korean 4,141 many immigrants, she has lived in a Ukrainian 2,609 world where Spanish was spoken and Japanese 2,608 learning English was deferred. Even- Romanian 2,232 tually, her lack of English became a burden. Tagalog 1,705 Diaz, 36, works at night as a janitor. Arabic 1,460 When her boss began leaving notes Hmong 1,420 about which offi ces needed vacuum- Somali 1,407 ing or dusting, she couldn’t read Cambodian 1,370 them. She also couldn’t leave a note Total 122,511 telling her boss she had fi nished the all non-English job. She couldn’t tell doctors or school speakers offi cials her concerns about her son. “I need to explain how he feels,” Source: Metro Diaz says. Portland Community College offers For these people, PCC’s Voluntary English as a second language classes Literacy Tutoring Program has been for those who want to learn the lan- the answer. It has been remarkable guage, but Diaz is among many who for its ability to deliver huge return can’t take those classes. Some don’t on a small public investment. Last speak English well enough to learn in year, more than 360 volunteers tu- a classroom; others don’t have the tored 1,476 students, including Diaz. time. And many can’t get into PCC’s waitlisted ESL classes. See ESL / Page 2 PDC cuts squeeze community input ■ Gateway By STEVE LAW borhood association leaders who The Tribune “It’s time to rethink how are willing to attend lots of meet- residents ings. The agency hopes to recruit Bob Earnest and fellow East we gather public input on say end of more people with business and Portland activists have served as our work and choose a lending experience, he says. citizen panels a local voice for Gateway resi- “It’s time to rethink how we gath- dents — and street-level eyes better model.” er public input on our work and hurts best and ears for city offi cials — — Patrick Quinton, choose a better model.” since the Portland Development PDC executive director The PDC will start by expanding interests Commission created an urban its centralized renewal district there in 2001. Neighborhood More inside But now the PDC is eliminating way advisory committee. “I hope to Economic Devel- See related stories its urban renewal advisory commit- goodness that somebody still has opment Leader- on pages 5 and 6. tee for Gateway, and similar panels our best interests at heart.” ship Group to in- in the Lents and Interstate urban The PDC, still undergoing clude at least two renewal areas. Those are billed as wrenching layoffs and budget cuts, people associated with each of the the PDC’s neighborhood-focused no longer has the staff to fan out Gateway, Lents and Interstate ur- urban renewal areas, where the into the community and attend so ban renewal areas. agency seeks a more grassroots ap- many meetings, says Patrick Quin- Mayor Charlie Hales, who has TRIBUNE PHOTO: JAIME VALDEZ proach to community development, ton, the city agency’s executive di- vowed to devote more attention to Mayor Charlie Hales (left) listens to senior planner Troy Doss (right) on in contrast to its traditional down- rector. Quinton also concluded the the city’s oft-neglected neighbor- a recent bike tour of the inner east side. Hales says dumping citizen town-style redevelopment. urban renewal advisory commit- hoods, isn’t enthused about dump- advisory committees for urban renewal areas may not be a good idea, “It just doesn’t feel right,” says tees are an “outdated model,” rely- but was necessary due to PDC budget cuts. Earnest, co-chairman of the Gate- ing on the same faces and neigh- See PDC / Page 7 “Pamplin Media Group’s pledge is to Portland Tribune TOMMY THAYER GIVES FUNDRAISER A BIG KISS deliver balanced news that refl ects the stories of our communities. Thank you — SEE LIFE, PAGE B1 for reading our newspapers.” Inside — DR. ROBERT B. PAMPLIN JR. OWNER & NEIGHBOR A2 NEWS The Portland Tribune Thursday, August 22, 2013 ESL: Program hard to sustain without tuition ■ At the Cully center more From page 1 than tutoring was going on. Af- ter a paid teacher was relocated Despite delivering incredible to another site, the actual ESL bang for the buck, volunteer lit- classes were taught by the vol- eracy tutoring is facing hard unteer tutors. times. Mt. Hood and Clackamas The goal of the workforce community colleges have dis- center is to help low-income im- solved their volunteer pro- migrants fi nd jobs and work to- grams, and PCC is cutting back, ward careers. Achieving that eliminating two of its four paid goal will be impossible for ma- coordinator positions and pro- ny if they don’t first improve posing to reduce the hours for their English skills, McKenzie the two remaining positions. says. And tutors went beyond PCC adminis- language instruc- trators, facing re- tion, taking stu- duced state and “They generally dents to the li- federal funding, brary and the com- say they have lit- get jobs, but munity garden to tle choice. But for a job that introduce them to budget con- the larger Port- straints aren’t the would support land community. only impetus for a family, you PCC administra- the cutbacks. tors say funding According to need a higher for ESL tutoring is PCC administra- level of English.” hard to justify, tors, the demand — Amy Youngfl esh, partly because for free English Cully Workforce Training they have no tutors has been Center director benchmarks to falling in recent prove students are years, especially making gains. from the metro area’s west side. McKenzie says the benchmarks Ten years ago, they say, their should include the number of TRIBUNE PHOTOS: JAIME VALDEZ volunteer tutors were serving his ex-students who have li- Landscaper Ramiro Hernandez hugs son Christian before heading off to his landscaping job in Cornelius. Hernandez has received ESL tutoring at more than 700 adult students in brary cards, plots in the com- PCC’s Willow Creek campus, and hopes to become profi cient enough in English to eventually get a factory job. the Beaverton/Hillsboro area. munity garden, entrepreneur- This year, only about 150 Wash- ial jobs and computers they’re ington County students such as trying to build following tutor- but for a job that would sup- Cuts keep coming Diaz are getting help, and dis- led trips to Free Geek.