Monday Mailing
Year 26 • Issue 40 15 June 2020 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.
Quote of the Week:
“Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.” – Harriet Tubman
Oregon Fast Fact
Native Language Preservation and Instruction Partnership was formed in 2005 to support implementation of endangered American Indian language and culture instruction programs in Oregon schools.
12.
Big Money Bought Oregon’s Forests. Small Timber Communities Are Paying the Price. (Hannah Fuller & Paige Crenshaw) Parking Requirements and Foundations Are Driving Up the Cost of Multifamily Housing There’s Already an Alternative to Calling the Police Death of the Office ‘Safe Streets’ Are Not Safe for Black Lives Oregon Department of Education Biliteracy Seals Awarded in Tribal Languages for First Time Greening the Gold Rush A Climate Changed Oregon Office of Economic Analysis: Economic Disparities, an Ongoing Discussion Oregon Gov. Kate Brown Will Release Inmates to Limit Coronavirus Threat in State Prisons; About 100 Meet Criteria (Katie McFall) RESOURCE – State of Oregon Equity Framework in COVID-19 Response and Recovery PODCAST - #COVIDStreets, How Cities are Re-Designing Streets for Safety and Livability (Emily Bradley)
1. Big Money Bought Oregon’s Forests. Small Timber
Communities Are Paying the Price.
A few hundred feet past the Oregon timber town of Falls City, a curtain of Douglas fir trees opens to an expanse of skinny stumps.
The hillside has been clear-cut, with thousands of trees leveled at once. Around the bend is another clear-cut nearly twice its size, then another, patches of desert brown carved into the forest for miles. Logging is booming around Falls City, a town of about 1,000 residents in the Oregon Coast Range. More trees are cut in the county today than decades ago when a sawmill hummed on Main Street and timber workers and their families filled the now-closed cafes, grocery stores and shops selling home appliances, sporting goods and feed for livestock. But the jobs and services have dried up, and the town is going broke. The library closed two years ago. And as many as half of the families in Falls City live on weekly food deliveries from the Mountain Gospel Fellowship.
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“You’re left still with these companies that have reaped these benefits, but those small cities that have supported them over the years are left in the dust,” Mac Corthell, the city manager, said. To access the full story, click here.
2. Parking Requirements and Foundations Are Driving Up the Costs of Multifamily Housing
Laying the literal groundwork for apartment buildings is expensive—and often unpredictable. Clearing the site and preparing the ground can reveal previously unknown obstacles that must be dealt with before construction begins. On average, site preparation and substructure work amounts to 5% to 15% of hard costs, but these are often difficult to estimate accurately in advance. “You can’t control costs until you get out of the ground,” one contractor told us. In this article, we explore strategies to improve the efficiency of constructing apartment buildings through cost savings in site preparation, substructure work, and parking. This is the third piece in a series on how innovations in design and construction can reduce the costs of multifamily housing. Prior articles discussed cost categories for different building typologies and proposed strategies to save money on land and soft costs. A key question we address in this piece is whether and how zoning reforms that reduce minimum parking requirements could lower the cost of building apartments. To access the full story, click here.
3. There’s Already an Alternative to Calling the Police
As citizens across the country fill the streets to protest police killings of Black people, the violent response from law enforcement has added urgency to a national conversation about police brutality. Pressure is mounting to reform or abolish police departments. City officials in Western urban centers like Los Angeles are reducing police budgets — L.A.’s currently totals $1.8 billion — and reinvesting in underfunded social initiatives. The Minneapolis City Council voted in June to disband its police department entirely. As cities look for what’s next, there is already a proven system of de-escalation for the high volume of mental health calls that police respond to, which often end in violence.
Mobile, community-based crisis programs employ first responders that are not police to address disturbances where crimes are not being committed. One of the nation’s longest-running examples is CAHOOTS — Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets — in Eugene, Oregon. CAHOOTS has inspired similar programs in other cities in the region, including the Denver Alliance for Street Health Response, Mobile Assistance Community Responders of Oakland and Portland Street Response in Oregon. To access the full story, click here.
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4. Death of the Office
In the spring of 1822 an employee in one of the world’s first offices – that of the East India Company in London – sat down to write a letter to a friend. If the man was excited to be working in a building that was revolutionary, or thrilled to be part of a novel institution which would transform the world in the centuries that followed, he showed little sign of it. “You don’t know how wearisome it is”, wrote Charles Lamb, “to breathe the air of four pent walls, without relief, day after day, all the golden hours of the day between ten and four.” His letter grew everless enthusiastic, as he wished for “a few years between the grave and the desk”. No matter, he concluded, “they are the same.” The world that Lamb wrote from is now long gone. The infamous East India Company collapsed in ignominy in the 1850s. Its most famous legacy, British colonial rule in India, disintegrated a century later. But his letter resonates today, because, while other empires have fallen, the empire of the office has triumphed over modern professional life. To access the full story, click here.
5. ‘Safe Streets’ Are Not Safe for Black Lives
This spring, a pandemic cleared cars from the streets. Many U.S. cities seized the moment by announcing new bike lanes and networks of “slow streets” that limit vehicle traffic. It is a transportation planner’s dream to hear that thousands of miles of streets are being reorganized to make room for more walking, biking and playing. But to me, as a Black planner and community organizer, the lack of process and participatory decision-making behind these projects was an absolute nightmare. Pop-up bike lanes, guerrillaurbanist playgrounds, and tactical walkways have been notorious for being politically crude for as long as I’ve been in the field: By design, their “quick-build” nature overrides the public feedback that is necessary for deep community support. Without that genuine engagement, I feared that pandemic-induced pedestrian street redesigns would deepen inequity and mistrust in communities that have been disenfranchised and underserved for generations. To access the full story, click here.
6. Oregon Department of Education Biliteracy Seals Awarded in Tribal Languages for First Time
Oregon’s Department of Education (ODE) Biliteracy Seal has set many high school students on the path to greater success in post-secondary education by marking them as highly proficient in reading, writing, listening, and speaking in one or more languages in addition to English. And now, 2020 marks the first year that high school graduates in Oregon will receive a Seal of Biliteracy on their diploma for their proficiency in languages spoken by two of the nine federallyrecognized confederations of tribes in Oregon. Students from other confederated tribes are working toward the seal for upcoming years as their language revitalization programs expand into the higher grades.
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ODE originally piloted this program during the 2014-15 school year, to recognize the language students bring to their academic experience in Oregon, as they enter school already speaking multiple languages or dialects. “We wanted to honor the languages our students bring to their education, and to honor world language learning of all of our students,” said program administrator Taffy Carlisle. To access the full story, click here.
7. Greening the Gold Rush
Jay Noller, director of the Global Hemp Innovation Center at Oregon State University, has taken three trips to China to study the use of hemp in fabrics. Oregon State University’s innovation center is the largest in the country. Noller says his research in China will help to make hemp grown in the Pacific Northwest more suitable for use in textiles. The trips to China are part of the research center’s efforts to find new industrial uses for the plant. The market is in desperate need of diversification. Nearly all of the state’s hemp, a strain of the cannabis plant, is processed into cannabidiol (CBD) oil, which is touted as a natural remedy for common ailments. The sector is oversaturated with growers, which are all dependent on similar supply chains. To access the full story, click here.
8. A Climate Changed
During her four years working at the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington , D.C., Nora Apter saw the impacts of energy-efficiency policies at the state and federal levels.
Apter graduated from Lewis and Clark College in 2012 and spent eight years in the nation’s capital working to strengthen federal environmental laws. She returned home to Oregon in March to become the climate program director for the Oregon Environmental Council, a nonprofit organization that advocates for environmental policies in the public and private sectors. One week after starting her new position, Apter was not just in a new role but in a new economic climate. “My first day on the job was March 9, and the next day I went to Salem and got to pretend to take credit for the governor’s order,” she jokes. “I rounded out the week by packing up my desk to work from home because of COVID.” The day after Apter started her new position, Gov. Brown signed executive order 20-04, which directs 19 state agencies to adopt new standards and oversight responsibilities with the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 45% below 1990 levels by 2035 and 80% by 2050. To access the full story, click here.
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9. Oregon Office of Economic Analysis: Economic Disparities, an Ongoing Discussion
The world is data rich these days. One of our office’s roles is to bring to life this data to better understand, and better explain what is happening. Not everything our office does is directly tied to the revenue forecast, even as it does further our understanding and ability to communicate with policymakers and the public. The key as a researcher is to always peel the onion. There are new layers to uncover and examine. Good analysis should always lead to more questions.
Our office tries to look beyond the headline economic data to see what it means in terms of the daily life of Oregonians. We typically analyze and think through the implications when it comes to different regions of the data, for workers in different industries or occupations, or by their level of educational attainment. In recent years we have taken a few steps — not a lot, but a few — to further explore the changes seen for different racial or ethnic groups in the state. We need to do better. We will do better and are working to incorporate a regular section in our forecast document that adds this additional lens through which to examine the latest socio-economic data. The key is we know that economic gains do not accrue equally. There are some segments of our society that truly only benefit during tight labor markets and full employment. As the economy strengthened in recent years, we saw better job and income growth in rural Oregon, among those without a high school diploma, those with criminal records or self-reported disabilities, and certainly among our communities of color. Even with these gains, there remains large gaps, or disparities when it comes to socio-economic opportunities and outcomes. To access the full story, click here.
10. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown Will Release Inmates to Limit Coronavirus Threat in State Prisons; About 100 Meet Criteria Gov. Kate Brown on Friday told the Oregon Department of Corrections director to review inmates for possible release to limit the spread of coronavirus in the state prison system.
Brown asked the department to perform “a case-by-case analysis” of inmates who are vulnerable to the virus and outlined a list of criteria for possible commutation. An agency spokeswoman said about 100 inmates meet the governor’s criteria. The Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem is the largest coronavirus outbreak in the state. The latest count as of Thursday shows 139 inmates there have tested positive, with several dozen staff members also diagnosed with the virus, the department reported. Many inmates have balked at testing out of fear they will be transferred to an even more restrictive setting so the number of cases may underrepresent the actual state of the disease in the prison. To access the full story, click here.
11. RESOURCE – State of Oregon Equity Framework in COVID-19 Response and Recovery
During the unprecedented time of the COVID-19 pandemic, Governor Kate Brown’s top priority is to keep all Oregonians safe and healthy. Efforts to mitigate COVID-19 have illuminated how connected our communities are, and how disproportionate effects in one community affect us Page 5 of 6
all across the state. At the same time, Governor Brown and state public health experts recognize that COVID-19 has had disproportionate infection rates and other negative effects on specific communities, including Native American, Tribal members, Black, African American, Latinx, Asian, Pacific Islander, linguistically diverse populations, and those with disabilities. The State of Oregon Equity Framework articulates the specific communities that must be included and considered, core elements to advance equity, and guiding questions for developing strategies and evaluating efforts. Governor Kate Brown’s Equity Values: Prioritizing Equity: Commitment to prioritizing equity and addressing racial disparities on all responses and as we consider and work toward recovery from COVID-19. Addressing Health and Economic Impacts: Address underlying systemic causes of health and wealth inequalities exacerbated by COVID-19 and disproportionately impacting Oregon’s historically and currently underserved and under-resourced communities. Ensuring an Inclusive and Welcoming Oregon: Commitment for Oregon to be an inclusive and welcoming state for all regardless of race, ethnicity, culture, color, disability, gender, gender identity, marital status, national origin, age, religion, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, veteran status, and immigration status. To access this resource, click here.
12. PODCAST - #COVIDStreets, How Cities are Re-Designing Streets for Safety and Livability
COVID-19 is necessitating rapid change in our cities. As many stay-at-home orders are lifting, people are getting outside, but we still need to stay 6 feet apart, so citizens and cities are stepping up in some interesting ways. How do you stay 6 feet apart when many sidewalks aren’t even 6 feet wide? The answer might just be rethinking the design of our streets and our cities overall. From tactical urbanism to open streets to changing the very notion of what a shared street is: we discuss with Jonathan Berk, placemaking advocate and a Director at Patronicity; and Jeff Speck, city planner, author, and long-time advocate for more walkable cities. To listen to this resource, click here.
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