Portland teens at center of landmark changes in schools
Local students led charge for anti-discrimination program, school name change at Portland Public Schools.
While historic efforts to combat racism and discrimination within Portland s schools are afoot, Southwest Portland students have been at the forefront of change.
On Tuesday, Feb. 9, the Portland Public Schools Board of Directors recognized February as Black History Month, while also unanimously approving an Anti-Racist and Anti-Oppression Learning Community policy banning hate symbols and hate speech from school settings. The policy stems from the Oregon Board of Education s adoption of All Students Belong, which prohibits depictions of the Confederate flag, swastika or noose for any school-sponsored activities, with exceptions for teaching curriculum.
Oregon lawmakers on pace to consider close to 4,000 bills in partially remote session
Updated Feb 11, 2021;
Posted Feb 11, 2021
House Speaker Tina Kotek, D-Portland, elbow-bumps with Rep. Jami Cate, R-Lebanon, (right) at the Oregon State Capitol on Jan 11, 2021. Kotek said this week that the number of bills lawmakers introduce this session could reach 4,000.The Oregonian
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Oregon lawmakers are on track to introduce the highest number of bills in a decade, suggesting the overwhelming majority of them won’t get even a momentary hearing as the Legislature operates mostly online until at least April due to the pandemic.
House Speaker Tina Kotek told reporters this week that she expects the total number of bills could approach 4,000. If that happens, it would be the most pieces of legislation introduced in an Oregon legislative session since at least 2009, according to The Oregonian/OregonLive’s analysis of legislative data.
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Oregon lawmakers have filed a spate of bills aiming to reverse decades-old timber tax cuts that deprived counties of billions of dollars and to eliminate a quasi-governmental state agency that has acted as a lobbying arm for the industry.
The measures follow an investigation published last year by Oregon Public Broadcasting, The Oregonian/OregonLive and ProPublica. The newsrooms found that timber companies, increasingly dominated by Wall Street real estate trusts and investment funds, have benefited from tax cuts that cost counties at least $3 billion over the past three decades. Half of the 18 counties in Oregon’s timber-dominant region lost more money from tax cuts on private forests than from the oft-blamed reduction of logging on federal lands stemming from environmental protections for the northern spotted owl.
‘We have counties in deep trouble’: Oregon lawmakers seek to reverse timber tax cuts that cost communities billions
Updated Feb 05, 2021;
Posted Feb 05, 2021
A younger tree grows in an area of clear cut forest off Misty Mountain Lane in Seaside, Oregon, on December 28, 2020.Brooke Herbert/The Oregonian
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Oregon lawmakers have filed a spate of bills aiming to reverse decades-old timber tax cuts that deprived counties of billions of dollars and to eliminate a quasi-governmental state agency that has acted as a lobbying arm for the industry.
The measures follow an investigation published last year by Oregon Public Broadcasting, The Oregonian/OregonLive and ProPublica. The newsrooms found that timber companies, increasingly dominated by Wall Street real estate trusts and investment funds, have benefited from tax cuts that cost counties at least $3 billion over the past three decades. Half of the 18 counties in Oregon’s timber-dominant region lost more money fro