ON VACATION

The RAPSU BLOG is on Vacation, but Read Below.

There will be only one meeting in September. It will be on SEPTEMBER 10, the 2nd WEDNESDAY. We could not obtain the Multicultural Center on that Thursday. The topic of the meeting will be announced in the September RAPSU Newsletter which will come out in late August or early September.

If you Click Here, you will get a new website from searchme.com that has the RAPSU webpages set up as stacks, like visual pages in a book. You will need to have Adobe Flash Player installed to use this website. To install Adobe Flash Payer Click Here.

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There is a preferences tab at the top right of the site which will allow you to choose a dark or light background. It will also allow you to open the page you click on in the same window or in a new window (or new tab, depending how your browser is configured.)

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Portland Views

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Let's hope some real good comes from this

The Summit for American Prosperity: Washington and Metro Areas Working Together

Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program will host The Summit for American Prosperity: Washington and Metropolitan Areas Working Together. The event will take place at the Washington Hilton Wednesday evening, June 11 and Thursday, 12, 2008.


This Summit launches the next phase of our Blueprint for American Prosperity: Unleashing the Potential of a Metropolitan Nation, an ambitious, multi-year initiative to build long-term U.S. prosperity by reinvigorating the federal role in promoting the health and vitality of America's metropolitan areas. This Summit will build on the Blueprint's earlier efforts to demonstrate that the nation's assets are concentrated in our metro areas, and are the vital engines of the U.S. and global economy.

Among those who will be addressing the Summit are:

* Michael Porter, Professor, Harvard Business School
* Henry Cisneros, Chairman, CityView
* Strobe Talbott, President, Brookings
* Michael Mandel, Chief Economist, Business Week
* James A. Johnson, Vice Chairman, Perseus LLC
* James D. Robinson III, General Partner, RRE Ventures and Former Chairman & CEO, American Express Company
* Michael Crow, President, Arizona State University
* Hilary Pennington, Director of Special Initiatives, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
* Ron Sims, County Executive, King County, WA (Seattle)
* Rob Atkinson, President, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation
* James Traub, Contributing Writer, New York Times Magazine
* Tom Darden, President, Cherokee Investment Partners

Bruce Katz, Vice President and Director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings will unveil an exciting new framework for improving the federal partnership with states, localities, universities, other non profit leaders and the private sector - a true Blueprint for American Prosperity - to better leverage the great assets of our metropolitan areas.

Alan Berube, Howard Wial, Rob Puentes and Bruce Katz will introduce policy recommendations and specific, federal "legislatable" ideas to build this new partnership, in such key areas as: infrastructure, workforce housing, education, energy, and innovation.

We are excited about The Summit for American Prosperity and the timing of this important discussion. The next Administration and Congress will confront increasingly complex global and domestic realities, and their improved partnership with local and regional leaders and the private sector will be essential to helping our nation adapt and prosper in this new environment.

In short, the Summit will be a valuable opportunity to place this important discussion on the national stage and to strengthen our collective efforts to promote reforms.

We also hope you will share this information with others and join hundreds of corporate, civic, political, academic and philanthropic leaders from around the country to discuss this new policy agenda.

June 4, 1919: Congress Passes 19th Amendment

Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

"The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."

The Nineteenth Amendment (Amendment XIX) to the United States Constitution prohibits each of the states and the federal government from denying any citizen the right to vote because of that citizen's sex.

The Nineteenth Amendment was specifically intended to extend suffrage to women. It was proposed on June 4, 1919 and ratified on August 18, 1920.

The Congress proposed the Nineteenth Amendment on June 4, 1919.
The following states ratified the amendment:

1. Illinois (June 10, 1919, reaffirmed on June 17, 1919)
2. Michigan (June 10, 1919)
3. Wisconsin (June 10, 1919)
4. Kansas (June 16, 1919)
5. New York (June 16, 1919)
6. Ohio (June 16, 1919)
7. Pennsylvania (June 24, 1919)
8. Massachusetts (June 25, 1919)
9. Texas (June 28, 1919)
10. Iowa (July 2, 1919)[4]
11. Missouri (July 3, 1919)
12. Arkansas (July 28, 1919)
13. Montana (August 2, 1919)
14. Nebraska (August 2, 1919)
15. Minnesota (September 8, 1919)
16. New Hampshire (September 10, 1919)
17. Utah (October 2, 1919)
18. California (November 1, 1919)
19. Maine (November 5, 1919)
20. North Dakota (December 1, 1919)
21. South Dakota (December 4, 1919)
22. Colorado (December 15, 1919)
23. Kentucky (January 6, 1920)
24. Rhode Island (January 6, 1920)
25. Oregon (January 13, 1920)
26. Indiana (January 16, 1920)
27. Wyoming (January 27, 1920)
28. Nevada (February 7, 1920)
29. New Jersey (February 9, 1920)
30. Idaho (February 11, 1920)
31. Arizona (February 12, 1920)
32. New Mexico (February 21, 1920)
33. Oklahoma (February 28, 1920)
34. West Virginia (March 10, 1920, confirmed on September 21, 1920)
35. Washington (March 22, 1920)
36. Tennessee (August 18, 1920)

Mothers Rule.
Harry T. Burn, Sr. was a member of the Tennessee General Assembly for McMinn County, Tennessee. Burn became the youngest member of the state legislature when he was elected at the age of twenty-two. He is best remembered for action taken to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment during his first term in the legislature.

Burn had originally planned to make clear his intention to vote "nay" in any session. However, a letter from his mother asking him to vote in favor of the amendment helped to change his mind. Mrs. J. L. Burn (Febb Ensminger) of Niota, Tennessee, had written a long letter to her son, a copy of which he held during the voting session on August 18, 1920. The letter contained the following:

Dear Son: Hurrah and vote for suffrage! Don't keep them in doubt! I notice some of the speeches against. They were bitter. I have been watching to see how you stood, but have not noticed anything yet. Don't forget to be a good boy and help Mrs. Catt put the "rat" in ratification. Your mother

After much debating and argument, the result of the vote was 48-48. Burn's vote broke the tie in favor of ratifying the amendment. He asked to speak to the House the next day and told them he changed his vote because his mother asked him to and that she had always taught him that "a good boy always does what his mother asks him to do."

Ratification was completed on August 18, 1920.

Three more states had ratified it by 1923.

1. Connecticut (September 14, 1920, reaffirmed on September 21, 1920)
2. Vermont (February 8, 1921)
3. Delaware (March 6, 1923, after being rejected on June 2, 1920)

Prolonged holdouts were:
4. Maryland (March 29, 1941 after being rejected on February 24, 1920; not certified until February 25, 1958)
5. Virginia (February 21, 1952, after being rejected on February 12, 1920)
6. Alabama (September 8, 1953, after being rejected on September 22, 1919)
7. Florida (May 13, 1969)
8. South Carolina (July 1, 1969, after being rejected on January 28, 1920; not certified until August 22, 1973)
9. Georgia (February 20, 1970, after being rejected on July 24, 1919)
10. Louisiana (June 11, 1970, after being rejected on July 1, 1920)
11. North Carolina (May 6, 1971)

And the last state, 65 years after official ratification in 1919:
12. Mississippi (March 22, 1984, after being rejected on March 29, 1920)

1948 US Postage Stamp: Elizabeth Stanton, Carrie C. Catt, Lucretia Mott

Women's Equality Stamp 1995

19th Amendment Stamp 1998

Susan B Anthony Dollar 1999

Susan B. Anthony, who died 14 years, 5 months and five days before passage of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote, was honored as the first real (non-allegorical) American woman on circulating U.S. coinage with her appearance on the Susan B. Anthony dollar. The coin, approximately the size of a U.S. quarter, was minted for only four years, 1979, 1980, 1981, and 1999. Anthony dollars were produced at the Philadelphia and Denver mints for all four years, and at the San Francisco mint for all production years except 1999.

Modern Day Hippy Blues

Modern Day Hippy Blues

To listen Click Here.

Looking for my wallet and my car keys
Well they can’t have gone too far
Just as soon as I find my glasses
I’m sure I’ll see just where they are

Catching the Sun

Photos like this have been circulating around the Internet for the last month.

Click here to see more.

And you think the United Nations has troubles

Drowning in the high desert at Shaniko

Sunday, June 01, 2008

James Smith is a mite careless with the spell-checker -- the signboard outside his Shaniko jewelry store misspells "bargains" on five separate occasions -- but small-town cautious when it comes to controversy. "I'm a businessman in a town where I cannot possibly take sides," Smith, 72, says. "There are a lot of sides out here, and if I go with one side, I have the rest of the bunch on my backside."

But get the man going on stubbornness and lost chances, "get me riled up," Smith says, "and I get to West Virginia talkin'. And what they say where I come from, the hills of West Virginia, is don't bow your neck. You get your neck bowed, set at an angle, and you can't turn."

If you mean to prosper, Smith figures, you must remain flexible: "You can't get your neck out of shape."

At this lonely bend in the road on Highway 97, just above the plunge down to Antelope and the Big Muddy, necks are bowed big time.

Bob Pamplin is gone. Bob Pamplin has moved on, leaving behind a vacant hotel, a capped well and a lot of stubborn pride. Hard as it may be for the riled-up, frustrated townies to admit, the man's passion for historic preservation and his checkbook were keeping Shaniko tethered to the 21st century, and it's hard to imagine this neck of the central Oregon woods surviving without him.

Not much remains of the railhead that bragged of being the inland wool capital of the world 100 years ago. Earth, wind and fire have all taken whacks at Shaniko. The closest school is in Maupin, the nearest gas pump 28 miles north in Grass Valley. Abandoned junkers, rusting in the weeds, have outnumbered people in town for as long as anyone can remember.


But in the late '90s, Pamplin, who owns the 60,000-acre R2 ranch five miles down the road, came along and saw "a great Western town."

Pamplin -- who still owns the majority of Ross Island, Columbia Empire Farms and a group of Portland media outlets -- is a longtime fan of history and legacy. "You can't create history," he says. "You can't make a Stone Mountain." History is what's left after the heavyweight title bout with time, and he was impressed by what was still standing at this juncture of the high desert.

"Shaniko," Pamplin said, "is the genuine article."

So, he bought it. Or most of it. He bought the Shaniko Hotel, the wool barn, the wagon shed, the RV park, a handful of the downtown shops, and 20 buildable lots.


Over the past 10 years, Pamplin restored much of what he owned. The Robert Pamplin Corp., he said, also donated $215,000 toward other restoration efforts in the town.

He frustrated many of the 32 people who live in Shaniko year-round when he blew up the historic grain elevators and fired many of the old hotel employees, but he generally impressed folks with his commitment to the community and his financial clout.

That clout, however, couldn't deliver Pamplin a reliable water supply. The hotel was still hooked up to Shaniko's century-old system, a wheezing array of surface springs, cisterns and wooden pipes that pumped 80 gallons a minute.

Pamplin needed a steady source of pure water for the hotel, so he spent $40,000 drilling a well on his property over by the wool barn. At 430 feet, the drill team hit an aquifer that cranked out 250 gallons each minute.

But when Pamplin asked the town council for an easement to run a private waterline from the well to his hotel, the request was denied.

"Our charter states everyone inside the city limits needs to be hooked up to city water," said Sandy Cereghino, the Shaniko chamber director.

The solution was fairly obvious: a complete new water system for Shaniko, fueled by Pamplin's well.

"Bob said, 'I'll let you use my well if I can have free water,' which we thought was great," Cereghino said. "He'd already paid to have the well drilled. We thought this was the answer to our prayers."

As Pamplin and the town elders began negotiating over the terms of the deal, money clearly wasn't the issue: Pamplin was already spending $4,000 a month to help Shaniko monitor and operate the old system, a total of $279,000 to date, he says.

Pamplin agreed to give Shaniko, free of charge, a 50-year lease on his well, along with $120,000 in cash so the town could apply to the state for the block grant necessary to fund the new system.

What he wanted in return was the assurance that the hotel's daily need for 5,000 gallons -- a mere 20 minutes of water at that 250 gallons/minute rate -- would take priority over the town's demands, and that he would be indemnified against any claims concerning the quality of the water supply.

When it comes to liability, Pamplin says, "I'm a wonderful target with a bull's-eye on my back."

The principals caucused. The lawyers threw in their two cents' worth. And before you knew it, you had necks bowed all over town.

The locals resent that the town needs Pamplin's money -- "We quit asking for money last summer because we detected a pattern of dependency," Malvin Harding, head of the Shaniko Restoration Group, told The Madras Pioneer newspaper -- and that his money so dramatically reshaped the local economy.

"We don't have a lot of money here," said Debbie Holbrook, the city recorder, "but we invest our lives here. That means as much to us as a check."

And Holbrook said many Shaniko residents were concerned that Pamplin had plans for the town that he wasn't willing to share: "We would have loved to have seen his vision for the town. We might have wanted to share it. But it seemed like he had to have his own thing, and that bugged the rest of us, who work hard together. Rich people don't live in the world we live in."

Pamplin, in turn, grew annoyed when the town told the state it had permission to use his well and his water in a separate application for a new delivery system. "You can't do that," he said. "It upset us no end."

In February, Pamplin's representatives presented their third and final offer to the city. "They decided to go in another direction," said Floyd Aylor, the president of Columbia Empire Farms. "So, that's what we did. We went in another direction."

Pamplin moved out, lock, stock and upscale Western bar. He put all his properties up for sale for $3.1 million. He shut down the hotel, the cafe and the RV park.

He capped the well and closed the corporate checkbook.

"He's punishing us," Sandy Cereghino said. "I don't think he expected us to stand up to him. We're going to survive."

I wonder. Though Shaniko has a number of events on the calendar -- Pioneer Days, Shaniko Days, a holiday bazaar and a music festival -- the price of gas will put a serious crimp on weekend jaunts on Highway 97. Mayor Goldie Roberts, who runs the ice cream parlor, and James Smith both insist this summer will be their last operating in town.

Smith hasn't give up hope that Shaniko may yet be saved. "I hope Mr. Pamplin is as smart as I think he is," he said. "And I think he's a lot smarter than to throw things away. I think the lawyers wrote too much into the agreement. Maybe they can work it out. If they don't keep their necks bowed, they'll be OK.

"The town is damn sure worth it."

But Pamplin isn't optimistic. "I don't know how I could have been more generous, more understanding or more supportive," he says with weary finality. "I'm a great example of why no one wants to move in there. It's their town. They like it the way it is. And they want control. Who in the world would take that on?"

Steve Duin: 503-221-8597 1320 S.W. Broadway, Portland, OR 97201

steveduin@news.oregonian.com

http://blog.oregonlive.com/steveduin