School Leadership Stumbles Over Race
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Yes, we can YOUR ONLINE LOCAL StoppersSt Stretching our food DAILY NEWS KarinaKa LeBlanc, Donovan Ricketts supply with canning www.portlandtribune.com savesav their best for Thorns, Timbers Portland— See Sustainable Life inside Tribune— See SPORTS, A22 THURSDAY, JULY 18, 2013 • TWICE CHOSEN THE NATION’S BEST NONDAILY PAPER • WWW.PORTLANDTRIBUNE.COMRIBUNE.COM • PUBLISHED THTHURSDAY School leadership stumbles over race Metropolitan Learning students got to design courses for in a category of its own as Portland MLC students and themselves, teachers went by “The district has Public Schools’ only K-12 school, parents gather and their fi rst names, we sat on the serving 455 students from across Center revolt swirls link arms to show fl oor instead of lined up in desks, made it about the district. solidarity for their and we read books like Howard As an alternative school, it’s be- around power struggle, race. There’s no longstanding Zinn’s ‘A People’s History of the come a high-performing safe haven focus on racial issues United States’ instead of tradition- acknowledgement for kids who don’t do well in a typical successful al history books.” that there’s any classroom — serving many with so- program. The By JENNIFER ANDERSON It was at MLC that Skloot learned issues related to cial and learning disabilities, LBGTQ school is known for The Tribune about HeLa cells, the basis for her youth and others who might other- its welcoming 2010 New York Times bestseller, the oversight of wise be bullied or left behind. environment. One To anyone unfamiliar with the “The Immortal Life of Henrietta the There’s been no drama to speak of. of their goals is to Metropolitan Learning Center in Lacks.” Until now. attract more Northwest Portland, Portland au- MLC, at Northwest 20th Avenue administration.” Last month, during the fi nal week families of color. thor Rebecca Skloot sums it up and Glisan Street, has been a beloved — Dana Brenner-Kelly, TRIBUNE PHOTO: like this: “MLC didn’t give grades, Portland institution for 45 years. It’s MLC parent See MLC / Page 6 JAIME VALDEZ HQ hotel ■ Commissioner hopes to change city’s parking mind-set foes balk as fund plan jells City, county, Metro offi cials iron out costs despite risks By JIM REDDEN The Tribune Although the 2013 Legisla- ture contributed $10 million toward the construction of a 600-room headquarters hotel at the Oregon Convention Center, the fi ght over the controversial project is far from fi nished. Metro is pursuing the $195 million project to increase “I have no the number of large conven- doubt that tions at the if Portland center. Offi - cials with the builds the regional gov- hotel, it will ernment cur- TRIBUNE PHOTO: JONATHAN HOUSE attract rently are in discussions hen Betsy Weil visits shops on Portland Bureau of Transportation commission- more with their Northwest 23rd Avenue she ex- er. And it increases fossil fuel burning. conventions counterparts COAXING DRIVERS pects to drive around awhile look- Novick says he’s going to start a public rela- to town.” with the City Wing for curbside parking. She says tions campaign to sway people from the practice of Portland it rarely takes more than 10 or 15 minutes to of cruising for parking. He’d like to appeal to our — Dean Phelus, and Mult- TO CHOOSE fi nd a spot. Could Weil save some time by park- sense of environmental stewardship, our pocket- American Alliance nomah County ing a little farther away from her destination books, and, just possibly, our competitive in- of Museums to fi nalize and walking? stincts. His goal? what must be Well, yes, she says. But there’s “We want to be able to say Port- a multijuris- something about the driving/walk- landers are the fastest parkers in STORY BY dictional fi nancing package. ing equation that eludes objective the West,” Novick says. Opponents of the project, analysis, Weil says. When she’s in PETER KORN Cruising is one of the few trans- which include the owners of ex- NOT TO the car, the extra driving always portation topics that hasn’t been isting hotels in the area, con- seems worth it, despite the fact that well studied, says UCLA traffi c ex- tinue to assail the project as when she’s had to park farther than she wanted pert Donald Shoup, partly because it is hard to risky for taxpayers. to, it wasn’t so bad. recognize. Shoup added to the knowledge base “Metro says the hotel will at- “You think it’s a really long walk, and then you when he sent his urban planning students to ob- tract more conventions, but get there and it was only 10 minutes,” she says. serve drivers in tiny Westwood Village, a com- there’s no guarantee of that. Welcome to the club. mercial Los Angeles district near the UCLA cam- The public might end up subsi- CRUISE Most of us are, like Weil, willing to cruise for a pus. dizing the hotel even more parking spot rather than just park and walk. Shoup found that on average, the Los Angeles than the plan calls for,” said Maybe we feel lucky. Maybe we remember that drivers spent 3.3 minutes cruising for a parking Paige Richardson, who repre- Betsy Weil (above) pulls out of a valued parking space next to one time we got a spot right in back of Powell’s space, traveling on average about two and a half sents a group of hotel owners. Papa Haydn on Northwest Irving Street. Like most drivers, Weil more distinctly than all the other times. times around a block. But those short cruising They include the owners of the is willing to drive around the block a few times looking for that Steve Novick would like us to think differently. Hilton, Benson, Governor, Lu- perfect parking spot. Cruising for parking creates congestion, says the See CRUISING / Page 2 cia, deLux, Westin, Paramount and Mark Spencer hotels, in addition to the Asian American Hotel Owners Association, which has 275 members in the Portland area. But a number of meeting planners are convinced such a hotel will attract more large Changing neighborhoods fi ght for balance conventions to Portland. “I think they’re already lin- Planners try to buck 2004 — encouraged by city ur- those responding to the survey ing up,” said Ed Potillo, confer- ban renewal policies that sup- said they were white. Only 6 ence and membership director trend as urban ported the line and new nearby percent described themselves of the National Alliance of developments. as black or African-American. Black Educators. diversity diminishes Seventy-one percent of area That’s a dramatic change from “I have no doubt that if Port- residents moved the history of the land builds the hotel, it will at- By STEVE LAW and JIM REDDEN there since the area. tract more conventions to The Tribune line was built, ac- TribSeries The income and town,” said Dean Phelus, se- cording to a mail education levels nior director of international A recent Metro audit sup- survey of area FIRST OF TWO STORIES also increased. programs and events for the ports allegations that city residents conduct- According to the American Alliance of Muse- development policies con- ed for the audit. Of U.S. Census data, ums. tributed to the gentrifi ca- those who regularly ride MAX, median household incomes in Potillo and Phelus are on the tion of North Portland. 65 percent said they moved the Killingsworth area in- Customer Advisory Board of The audit found the popula- there because of the line. creased from $38,983 in 2000 to Travel Portland, a nonprofi t or- tion within a quarter mile of As the new residents moved $50,083 in 2012. Forty-fi ve per- ganization that supports tour- the Killingsworth MAX station in, the demographics of the ar- cent of area residents now have ism in the region and backs the TRIBUNE PHOTO: JAIME VALDEZ on North Interstate Avenue ea changed. The audit says it at least a bachelor’s degree, a Kevin LaRocca, who has lived in North Portland for two years, steps off has changed substantially since became less diverse in age, race See HOTEL / Page 9 a light-rail train at the Killingsworth station. the light-rail line was built in and ethnicity. Ninety percent of See GENTRIFY / Page 5 “Pamplin Media Group’s pledge is to Portland Tribune Cogen admits ■ Multnomah County Chair Jeff Cogen admitted to an extramarital affair with a female county deliver balanced news that refl ects the to affair with employee in an email to all county workers Tuesday evening. Search: Cogen stories of our communities. Thank you Online for reading our newspapers.” county employee Read it fi rst at portlandtribune.com — DR. ROBERT B. PAMPLIN JR. OWNER & NEIGHBOR A2 NEWS The Portland Tribune Thursday, July 18, 2013 Cruising: Rhyming slogan might do trick ■ Wilke likes to study how ani- From page 1 mals search for their food. He uses the example of a bird that times, according to Shoup, cre- stays around the same pond ated “an astonishing amount of day after day pecking out traffi c.” worms to eat. Eventually, the Adding up the total time and supply of worms grows small- distance lost by cruisers over er. At what point does the bird the course of a year in West- decide to move to another pond wood Village, Shoup came up where the worm pickings with 950,000 driven miles that might be better, or might be could have been avoided if the worse? That, Wilke says, is the drivers had immediately found definition of a sequential a spot in a parking garage or on search problem, and our hunt- the street.