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Obama Omnibus bill to fund Eastside Streetcar
President Barack Obama signed the 2009 Omnibus Appropriations bill that includes $45 million in appropriations for the Eastside Streetcar Loop. The money signals a first-ever federal investment in streetcars.
In a release issued by Mayor Sam Adams, he wrote, “These federal dollars mean immediate jobs for Portland and an investment in the long-term health of our City. Not only will we see increased investments in our city’s commitment to sustainability, we will also jumpstart the streetcar manufacturing industry in Oregon.
“The streetcar system is a long-term economic investment tool for the City, delivering both jobs and clean, green transit. It is also a vital piece of the Portland region’s world-class public transit system. The streetcar system also furthers Portland’s goals of limiting urban sprawl and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
“This would not have happened without the advocacy and tenacity of Oregon’s Federal Delegation, especially the hard work of Senator Ron Wyden, Congressman Earl Blumenauer, Congressman David Wu and Congressman Peter DeFazio Their work on this project has been relentless, and their coordination with the City of Portland and other jurisdictions has been commendable.
“I want to thank all those who’ve fought for this by my side for more than four years, making trips to D.C. to lobby for the funding, and working locally to build support. I especially want to thank the Portland Streetcar Board and Portland Streetcar, Inc. for their great work.
“The Eastside Streetcar Loop is a small starts project, requesting $75 million in federal funds and costing under $ 250 million. The project is slated to start construction in spring of 2010.”
Obama opens $75M
to Oregon mass transit
President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced the availability of $75,716,939 from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) for Oregon in public transportation funding. The funding was part of $8.4 billion made available to repair and build America’s public transportation infrastructure.
“All over the country, resources are being put to work not only creating jobs now – but also investing in the future. A future that strengthens our transit system, makes us more energy efficient and increases safety,” said Vice President Biden. “With this recovery package, we will be creating jobs, saving jobs, and putting money in people’s pockets. And with these resources, we’ll not only be rebuilding roads and bridges and schools, we’ll be rebuilding America.”
“Investments in public transportation put people to work, but they also get people to work in a way that moves us towards our long term goals of energy security and a better quality of life,” said Secretary LaHood. “That is why transit funding was included in the ARRA and why we think it is a key part of America’s transportation future.”
The U.S. Department of Transportation has already committed $540 million in federally financed loans, about one-third of the total cost, for the intermodal center, which is proceeding on time and on budget.
The U.S. Department of Transportation will monitor state compliance and track job creation. The projects will be web-posted for the public to see with information on projects accessible at www.recovery.gov.
Whole Foods, FTC settle on Wild Oats deal
Whole Foods Market Inc. has reached a settlement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission over the agency’s antitrust challenge to the organic grocer’s 2007 acquisition of Wild Oats Markets Inc.
In a settlement announced in early March, Whole Foods agreed to sell 31 Wild Oats stores, including several that already have been closed.
Under the pact, Whole Foods, the largest U.S. organic grocer, will divest 19 former Wild Oats stores that were closed, 12 operating Wild Oats stores, one operating Whole Foods store, as well as Wild Oats’ trademarks and other intellectual property.
“It will be business as usual in the 13 operating stores to be marketed for sale,” Chairman John Mackey said in a statement. “We will be offering team members in stores that are sold the choice of either a guaranteed job offer in another store or an enhanced severance package.”
One of the currently operating stores put up for sale includes the establishment located at 19440 N.W. Cornell Rd., Hillsboro, OR. Among the 19 already-closed stores being marketed for sale, are two in the Portland area: 2077 N.E. Burnside St., Portland, OR; and 17711 Jean Way, Lake Oswego, OR.
Terms of the deal can take effect pending a 30-day comment period ending April 6. The divestiture trustee will have six months to market the assets to be divested.
Tenants rights project mobilizes
A 6-month tenant rights organizing project (Alliance, Dec. 2008) has started to gather force and mobilize for spring, in downtown Portland, among low-income and Section 8 tenants.
At a recent forum, Janet Hastings, from Elders in Actions, spoke to tenants about her intervention against a slumlord in downtown Portland during the December snow storm, when the heat was off in the Stewart Hotel for three weeks. Janet explained that her spouse delivered for Loaves and Fishes, and a Stewart tenant complained to him about the cold.
Hastings contacted the media and Randy Leonard, and an emergency generator was found and hooked up to once again heat that building.
In the ongoing tenant organizing project, the biggest nonprofit landlord in downtown Portland, Central City Concern (CCC), has been targeted by PSU Progressive Student Union over cockroach and bedbug infestations, lack of repairs, lack of transparency to tenants (closed board meetings and secret board minutes), and safety issues.
In informal meetings with the general manager (three times) and with the GM and the board president (once), attempts were made to communicate to CCC tenant dismay with current management practices, but CCC officials have been quick to say that it is an “oral practice” that tenants not be allowed at board meetings. Tenants may submit a written request to be at a board meeting, which tenants have done, to no avail.
CCC also says that tenants are not allowed to see minutes of board meetings. Tenants have asked for board minutes for the meetings of September, October, November, and December 2008, also to no avail.
When one tenant noted he had been buying individual cans of RAID since last summer, to spray the coed community bathrooms, community kitchens, and walls in the hallways to nuke the roaches, and asked CCC to get rid of the roaches, and/or reimburse the tenant for RAID purchases, a CCC manager responded that “tenants aren’t allowed [in an SRO building] to ask for repairs in common areas of the building, and there would be no reimbursement” (“repair and deduct” under Oregon’s landlord-tenant law) for tenants who helped spray the building.
Another tenant put in 14 written repair requests, to fix a plugged-up toilet, to this same manager, over three weeks, before that health hazard was fixed (in a non-SRO building). The manager said CCC “didn’t have enough money to make repairs.” CCC manages 23 buildings with 1,300 tenants and has an annual budget of $33,000,000 (much of which comes from federal, state and city sources).
Tenants believe that the closed board meetings and secret board minutes may violate Oregon’s Open Meeting Law. Future tenant forums may feature invited speakers Marty Hart-Landsberg, an Economics teacher at Lewis and Clark College (who spoke to 700 people at the recent First Unitarian Church Economic Meltdown forum) and Shane Bemis, mayor of Gresham, as the city of Gresham, in summer 2008, in response to several front page Oregonian articles, cracked down on bug-infested Gresham slumlords by passing the strongest municipal landlord-tenant law in Oregon.
Tenants interested in attending a forum may contact PSU Progressive Student Union at (503) 222-2974 for details.
FEMA awards $1.6M
to Oregon fire agencies
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) awarded $1,683,246 from the Assistance to Firefighters Grants (AFG) program to local fire departments and organizations in the state of Oregon. Nationally, the fiscal year (FY) 2008 AFG awards will provide approximately $500 million to fire departments and nonaffiliated emergency medical service organizations throughout the country.
“Since 2001, the fire departments of this nation have been using these much needed funds to better serve their communities,” said Dr. Denis Onieal, Acting Assistant Administrator of the U. S. Fire Administration. “Today’s firefighters face numerous challenges as they work to prevent and respond to fires in their communities. These AFG funds have a direct impact on the safety of both residents and firefighters throughout the nation.”
The Department of Homeland Security’s Assistance to Firefighters Grants (AFG) program is an important component of the Administration’s larger, coordinated effort to strengthen the Nation’s overall level of preparedness.
The AFG is designed to enhance response capabilities and to more effectively protect the health and safety of the public with respect to fire and other hazards. The grants enable local fire departments and emergency medical services organizations to purchase or receive training, conduct first responder health and safety programs, and buy equipment and response vehicles.
These grant programs are administered cooperatively by two FEMA components: the Grant Programs Directorate and the United States Fire Administration. The full list of past and current recipients and other Assistance to Firefighter Grant program information is posted on the AFG website at (www.firegrantsupport.com).
FEMA leads and supports the nation in a risk-based, comprehensive emergency management system of preparedness, protection, response, recovery, and mitigation, to reduce the loss of life and property and protect the nation from all hazards including natural disasters, acts of terrorism and man-made disasters.
Recovery Act benefits state law enforcement
President Barack Obama announced $2 billion in Recovery Act 2009 funding allocations for state and local law enforcement assistance available through the Edward Byrne Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) Program, including over $22 million for the state of Oregon.
The JAG Program supports a variety of efforts such as hiring and support for law enforcement officers; multijurisdictional drug and gang task forces; crime prevention and domestic violence programs; and courts, corrections, treatment, and justice information sharing initiatives.
The breakdown of JAG allocation amounts for Oregon, state and local governments can be viewed here: www.ojp.usdoj.gov/BJA/recovery
JAG/recjag/OR.xls.
“These funds are a vital component in our effort to not just revive our economy, but to build a new foundation for lasting prosperity and security,” President Obama said. “By keeping police officers on the streets whose jobs were threatened by budget cuts and ensuring states and municipalities have the tools and equipment necessary to fight crime, this money will simultaneously help jumpstart the American economy and protect our citizens.”
The procedure for allocating JAG grants is based on a formula of population and violent crime statistics, in combination with a minimum allocation to ensure that each state and territory receives an appropriate share of funding. Sixty percent of the allocation is awarded directly to a state and 40 percent is set aside for units of local governments. Funding will be used by states and more than 5000 local communities to enhance their ability to protect communities and combat crime.
The Recovery Act includes more than $4 billion to assist state, local and tribal law enforcement and for other criminal and juvenile justice activities that help to prevent crime and improve the criminal justice system in the United States while supporting the creation of jobs and much needed resources for states and local communities.
Medical marijuana bill read, proposed
Initiative Petition 28, the Regulated Medical Marijuana Supply System Initiative, has now been introduced by the Oregon Senate Judiciary Committee as Senate Bill 812. The bill would provide patients with safe access to medical cannabis, establish a low-income assistance program, fund medical marijuana research and generate millions of dollars in revenue for the state.
Senate Bill 812 had its first reading and is now on the Senate President’s desk. The Senate President should soon send the bill to a committee.
The Oregon Legislature will consider a variety of bills that reform the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program (OMMP), but Senate Bill 812 is the only bill that contains a comprehensive plan to address the main problem with the program — the fact that patients do not have reliable access to medicine.
This bill will allow licensed and regulated producers and nonprofit dispensaries to supply medicine to patients while helping solve Oregon’s budget crisis through licensing fees and taxes placed on any profits earned.
This bill will provide patients with more choices and provide regulation that is currently lacking through inspections and mandated accounting. Nonprofit dispensaries will not be allowed to operate within 1,000 feet of a school or in residential neighborhoods. Initial financial projections estimate that the bill would generate approximately $30 million the first year and $1 billion within the first decade.
It appeared that the Oregon Legislature was reluctant to consider the bill even though it has the approval of 59 percent of Oregon voters because of federal intervention. Now that the Obama Administration has announced that the federal government’s policy is to yield medical marijuana jurisdiction to the states, the Senate Judiciary Committee sponsored the bill as a committee bill.
Senate Bill 812 will be discussed by the Oregon State Pain Management Commission at their next meeting on March 12 as the Commission seriously considers to join as sponsors of the bill. Please contact your legislators and encourage them to support this important bill.
Please check www.voterpower.org for updates.
Foie gras protest against gastrosophists grows
Overtly pricey eateries wherein the industrial overcrust and inebriated city people pile up unhealthy and tormented calories — such as the vicious force-feeding to grow a particularly vomitous, fat-engorged, disease-stricken liver in the tortured duck or goose — what good do those establishments offer our community?
The following is a listing of establishments activists are trying to get to stop serving foie gras. ”Link to a google mapsearch of current foie gras restaurants in PDX. Aimal advocates are asking that you call or write in to the owners of these establishments to please ask them to stop promoting the tortured abuse of these birds for human consumption:
Blue Hour
250 NW 13th Ave
Portland, Oregon 97209
Bruce Carey – Owner, Kenny Giambalvo - EC/Co-Owner
503.226.3394p 503.221.3005f
info@bluehouronline.com
Viande Meats & Sausage, Co, Inc.
(503) 221-3012
735 NW 21st Ave
Portland, OR 97209
Benjamin Dyer
Humane treatment advocates politely urged Mr. Dyer to remove foie gras from his offerings, but he refused. Mr. Dyer then wrote a letter to the Portland Tribune, saying the activists’ outreach efforts are simply misleading people, and that there “is a broad spectrum of how foie gras ducks are raised.” Please write, and remind Mr. Dyer that ALL ducks raised for foie gras are cruelly force-fed.
Le Pigeon
738 E Burnside St Portland, OR 97232
503-546-8796
lepigeon.com
Nicky USA, Inc
223 SE 3rd Avenue
Portland, Oregon 97214
Geoff Latham
1-800-469-4162
info@nickyusa.com
Geoff Latham has organized a group titled, “In Defense of Foie Gras” whose mission statement declares that they are working to educate consumers about the “humane” treatment the ducks receive at foie gras production facilities. Politely contact Latham, and let him know that the only “blatant lies about the foie gras process” he references are lies coming from individuals creating a profit from animal exploitation, abuse and cruelty.
Carafe
200 S.W. Market St
Portland, OR 97201
Wife & Husband teamwork makes the nightmarish work, Julie Hunter & Pascal Sauton
jupa@carafebistro.com 503-248-0004
Carlyle Restaurant LLC
1632 NW Thurman St
Portland, OR 97209
Bruce Goldberg – Owner, Jake Martin - Executive Chef
info@carlylerestaurant.com
503-595-1782
Alberta Street Oyster Bar
2926 NE Alberta St Portland, OR 97211
Bruce & Kathleen Kaad – Owners, Laurel Gunderson - Executive Chef
Please contact these product-of-pain pushers and inform them about the suffering these birds endure. Let them know that animals feel pain, too! There is no excuse for serving items of unconscionable cruelty!
Visit nofoiegras.org/fsrestaurant_bad.htm to see a strategized, broad-roots campaign to end foie gras!
DEQ suspends LNG project review
The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has suspended review of the air and water discharge permits requested by the Bradwood Landing LNG terminal because of two important victories by LNG opponents. DEQ cannot review permit applications if the project is violates local land use laws. First, Clatsop County Citizens for Common Sense passed a referendum on September 16, 2008 that barred LNG pipelines in protected areas. Second, Columbia Riverkeeper and partners won a challenge at the Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA) that overturned the county’s approval of Bradwood Landing. Based on these two victories, DEQ has suspended review of all permits for the LNG terminal and pipeline.
“DEQ’s action of suspending the permits is another major blow to Bradwood Landing,” stated Brett VandenHeuvel, Executive Director of Columbia Riverkeeper. “Bradwood is trying to push through an incredibly unpopular project, but 67 percent of Clatsop voters rejected the pipeline and LUBA overturned the rest. Considering the broad state-wide opposition and Bradwood’s legal problesm, I don’t see this as a viable project.”
A letter issued yesterday from the Oregon Department of Justice said that DEQ will likely deny the permits if Bradwood does not agree to suspend them. The Department of Justice stated, “if Bradwood is not agreeable to such a suspension, DEQ will be forced to proceed and that means the likely denial of the NPDES and ACDP permits based on the lack of compatibility with ... land use regulations.”
“Bradwood over a barrel with DEQ saying either suspend your permits for a long time or we will deny them now,” Brett VandenHeuvel stated.
Laurie Caplan, referendum organizer for Clatsop County Citizens for Common Sense, stated, “We’re celebrating because DEQ’s action is a direct result of our referendum that rejected LNG pipelines. It’s the truest example of democracy where citizens can choose to protect our local economy and safety instead of being a back door to send gas to California.”
“We’re pleased that Bradwood’s permits are suspended because LNG is bad for business. It will harm the fishing industry, decrease property values, compete with renewable energy projects, and stain Oregon’s green reputation,” stated Peter Huhtala, Executive Director of the Columbia River Business Alliance (co-petitioners in the LUBA victory).
The following parties prevailed in the LUBA appeal: Columbia Riverkeeper, Columbia River Business Alliance, Oregon Chapter of the Sierra Club, Columbia River Clean Energy Coalition, Jack Marincovich, and Peter Huhtala (represented by Jan Wilson of the Western Environmental Law Center) and the Columbia River Inter-tribal Fish Commission (represented by Julie Cater).
An NPDES (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System) permit is a state permit necessary to discharge polluted water into the river. An ACDP (Air Contaminant Discharge Permit) is a state permit necessary to discharge air pollution. Bradwood cannot go forward without both permits. Section 401 of the Clean Water Act requires the state to certify that the project complies with state water quality standards. DEQ has also suspended the application for this permit.
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