Category Archives: Education

Portland Seeks Input on Earthquake Plan

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The Portland Bureau of Emergency Management (PBEM) wants to hear your thoughts about our city’s newly proposed earthquake response document.

Having grown into a major city long before scientists discovered its unique seismic vulnerabilities, Portland is now expected to experience a potentially devastating earthquake of magnitude 9.0 or greater. Work is underway to identify those vulnerabilities and make Portland a more earthquake-resilient city. This work–now embodied in the Portland Bureau of Emergency Management’s new Earthquake Response Appendix–will help lessen the severity of an earthquake’s impact on residents.  See pp. 53-54 on how to prepare your household.

The Earthquake Response Appendix is a supplement to the City’s Basic Emergency Operations Plan and a framework for Portland’s ever-evolving approach to earthquake response. Soon, this document will reach Portland City Council for consideration. In the meantime, PBEM is asking the public to thoroughly examine the appendix and provide feedback.

To learn more about the threats facing Portland’s energy, water, sewer, transportation, communication and building infrastructures; to understand the roles elected leaders, city officials, emergency responders, the private sector and community-based organizations play in the context of earthquake response; and to understand the partnerships established among public and private agencies to help support this response, please read the appendix by clicking here.

To provide insight and comments about the document, click here and fill out the feedback form.

Support the King PTA at Radio Room

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Join us in supporting the King School PTA raise funds to put on its first annual auction by coming out the the Radio Room on 11th and Alberta. The profitshare is on Wednesday, February 8th and runs from 5:30-8:30 but you can stay as late as you like! 10% of proceeds during the event go to King School.

Urban Growth Bounty Classes

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It’s a new year, and the City of Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability is gearing up for its 2012 series of Urban Growth Bounty classes. We hope that you can help spread the word in your neighborhood — it’s a terrific lineup of courses, with plenty of old favorites to go along with some fresh new subjects.

  • Learn everything you need to know about vegetable gardening with Oregon Tilth and Josh Volk. • Find out the secrets of delicious, home-made cheeses with Claudia Lucero.
  • Join Glen Andresen for his unique insights into backyard beekeeping or fruit production.
  • Maximize your garden bounty with Will Newman’s insights into soils and tools.
  • Start your own backyard flock with help from Naomi Montacre’s chicken, goat, and mixed herd classes.
  • Dive into edible landscaping with Jen Aron.
  • Explore the world of food preservation (canning, freezing, fermentation, etc.) with OSU Extension Service and the folks at Living City.

You should register now to ensure a place in these limited-size classes. They’re the perfect way to explore urban homesteading and connect with the community. Feel free to email food@portlandoregon.gov with any questions, or by telephone at 503-823-6947.

http://www.portlandonline.com/bps/index.cfm?c=50648

Portland OIC seeks hosts for Job Shadow Day

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From Asa Pritchard, career coach and youth advocate at Portland Opportunities Industrialization Center:

Many employment programs have been cut from Portland schools, thus reducing the chances our youth have to be successful in today’s workforce. I have come up with a plan – JOB SHADOW DAY! And now I need your help; just one half of a day is all that I am asking.

By allowing a student to observe you on the job, you are providing them with a firsthand look at the skills and knowledge required to succeed in your job and build a career. I know this may be a lot to ask. But we must look out for our youth in our city and do what we can to assure that our future will be in good hands.

This is just a general inquiry. I’m trying to get a sense of who is interested in participating and what positions are available to be observed by our students.

The students really need your help on this one. If you have any other contacts that may be interested please send them my way. I am very much interested in creating a Portland Job Shadow Day. With your help we can make this happen.

Attached is a “Host Profile” for you to complete and email back.

Thank you for your time, I’m looking forward to hearing from you.

Asa Pritchard
Career Coach / Youth Advocate
apritchard@poicrahs.org
Portland Opportunities Industrialization Center
Rosemary Anderson High School
717 N. Killingsworth Ct. Portland, OR 97217
www.portlandoic.org

Host Profile Form

Lew Frederick on the 1% and Martin Luther King Jr.

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Listen carefully and you will hear the 1% taking power

The following is part of a speech made by Rep. Frederick at the 27th Keep Living the Dream Celebration for Dr. King at Highland Church.

Good afternoon, I’m Lew Frederick, State Representative from House District 43, North and Northeast Portland.

I think this holiday is one that many people think they understand very well, after all, it is of relatively recent origin. And Dr. King is a hero of my lifetime, not of the deep past. I grew up with him as the father of my playmates. But the holiday is also poorly understood, because the history of Dr. King’s legacy and that of the Civil Rights movement have been stripped of much of their nuance, sophistication and complication over the years.

Dr. King’s final book, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? is not referenced very often when folks are finding meaningful quotes for our annual speeches. In it, we see how his ministry had expanded, how his leadership on civil rights, or let’s say “human” rights, though grounded in the racial struggles of the time, was clear in its purpose of addressing oppression in its many manifestations. He made a compelling argument, in 1967, for a guaranteed income. He wrote:

The contemporary tendency in our society is to base our distribution on scarcity, which has vanished, and to compress our abundance into the overfed mouths of the middle and upper classes until they gag with superfluity. If democracy is to have breadth of meaning, it is necessary to adjust this inequity. It is not only moral, but it is also intelligent. We are wasting and degrading human life by clinging to archaic thinking.

Read the rest at BlueOregon.