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Jailed
Man Walking
Craig Rosebraugh looked like a man headed for the gallows
last Wednesday. Wearing a black suit and white shirt, he
walked past about 50 supporters and kissed his mother and
his girlfriend before entering the federal courthouse to
meet his doom.
For the second time in two months, the spokesman for the
Earth Liberation Front was to appear before a federal grand
jury seeking information into a $1 million fire at Boise
Cascade in Monmouth on Dec. 25, 1999. The shadowy ELF claimed
credit for the arson. Rosebraugh, who serves as ELF's spokesman,
had been granted limited immunity by the feds, meaning he
was free to answer certain questions without fear of prosecution.
But if he refused to answer questions, as he vowed he would,
he could be sent to federal prison for as long as 18 months.
No one expected him to emerge a free man two hours later.
But he did.
In what is either a brilliant or stupid legal move, Rosebraugh
didn't take the Fifth, as expected. Instead, he invoked
the Reagan defense. To each question put to him by assistant
U.S. Attorney Stephen Peifer, Rosebraugh answered, "I don't
remember."
"I did something they didn't plan for," Rosebraugh told
WW. "I told the truth to the best of my ability."
Several legal experts told WW that Rosebraugh's
move might turn out to be shrewd. "The prosecutor may not
have much leverage" with him anymore, says Stephen Bundy,
a professor of law at UC-Berkeley. But if Rosebraugh lied,
Bundy cautions, he exposed himself to a perjury charge.
There are two signs that the feds may not have much of
a case against Rosebraugh. It's been three months since
the ATF and FBI seized evidence from his home, and no charges
have been filed. More telling, perhaps, is that on April
22, the FBI offered a $25,000 reward for information on
the Monmouth arson.
Does that indicate a weak case? "It could be read that
way," says Bundy, an expert on federal law.
For his part, Rosebraugh will have his memory probed again
before the grand jury in late May. He doesn't seem too worried.
"The U.S. attorney's office is grasping at small straws,"
he says. "What the hell else are they going to ask me?"
--Philip Dawdy
Bad
News for the Car King
Federal investigators notified former Thomason Auto Group
employees this week that racial and sexual discrimination
claims the employees had lodged against their former employer
last year were valid.
In the end, the Seattle office of the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission upheld 12 claims filed by nine ex-employees,
who were represented by Salem lawyer William Stark. Claims
by a 10th employee were denied.
The EEOC decision was a decisive victory for the former
employees. According to Janet Whitfield of the Oregon Bureau
of Labor and Industries, with which the complaints were
originally filed, only about 5 percent of discrimination
claims are upheld.
Former employees applauded the EEOC findings. "I feel vindicated,"
says Brian Pool, an African-American car salesman who charged
that Thomason officials ignored repeated acts of racial
discrimination ("Car King," WW, Feb. 9, 2000). "There's
a great sense of relief for me and my family."
He's not the only one celebrating. In a letter to Pool,
EEOC district director Jeanette Leino said the Auto Group
"tolerated a racially hostile work environment that affected
a similarly situated class of persons," which may open the
door to further claims.
Even before the decision, additional former Auto Group
employees continued to step forward with allegations. Last
month, Stark filed complaints on behalf of a Jewish former
employee alleging religious discrimination and an African
American who reportedly was among the company's top salespeople
last year.
For his part, Scott Thomason says his company has made
major changes in its hiring policies and training. He adds
that he has personally spoken to all 1,200 employees since
February, telling them that behavior of the type found by
the EEOC is grounds for termination. "We take these complaints
very seriously," Thomason says, "and we're working with
the EEOC to resolve them."
The next step in the case, according to EEOC officials,
is a conciliation phase, where the commission will attempt
to mediate a settlement between the two sides. If those
talks aren't successful, the EEOC has the option of joining
Stark in a lawsuit against the Auto Group. "The government
says my clients have provided substantial evidence of discrimination,"
Stark says. "That's a pretty strong indictment."
--Nigel Jaquiss
Performance
Review
My God, boys! Give it a rest!
It has been more than two years since Bill and Monica's
White House romp sent our country's comedic brigade into
overdrive. Most of them have long since gone on.
Not Oregon's finest. Last week some of our state's most
prominent male pols got together for a hoo-ha, and there
were enough intern jokes to keep a low-rent Web site happy
for days.
But let's not be snide.
Earl Blumenauer's second annual comedy-night fund-raiser
provided a few great comedic moments.
Poking fun at George W., Blumenauer's "Texas Census" was
redneck humor at its finest and most juvenile ("Do you own
or rent your mobile home?")
State Rep. Chris Beck was the best of the state House crowd,
performing some uncanny impressions of U.S. Sens. Gordon
Smith and Ron Wyden. The man is funny. "Some people say
I stand by Gordon Smith too much, but remember, I'm the
senior senator in Oregon," Beck's Wyden bragged.
The show stopper of the evening, as has often been the
case on the Senate floor, was Salem Sen. Peter Courtney.
He has the comedic timing of the old Chevy Chase, and his
sarcastic digs are chilling because, well, he's not really
kidding. With a mix of oratory flair and pathological
mannerisms, Courtney held the crowd as he mocked everyone
within swinging distance. It's impossible to recreate Courtney
on paper. Let's just say he growled when he called Blumenauer
a tutti-frutti fastidious jerk, and leave it at that.
Secretary of State Bill Bradbury led the crowd in a pathetic
rendition of "If I Had a Bow Tie," sung to the tune of "If
I Had a Hammer." Don't ask.
City Commissioner Erik Sten was the anchor of the evening
with his list of campaign slogans for the people who should
have run for office but didn't, including:
Diana Snowden: "I Tamed Neil, the Bureaucracy Will Be Easy."
Mark Kroeker: "Sit Up Straight. Comb Your Hair. Stop Fidgeting."
Vera Katz (on an electric sign board): "Vote for Me and
I'll Ban These Things."
Phil Knight: "Vote for Me or You'll Never See Another Dime."
--Patty Wentz
Murmurs
STILL
100 PERCENT ELIAN-FREE!
Lost in the May Day news coverage was the fact that about
40 Powell's employees at the West Burnside Street
store waged a May 1 strike stemming from the filing of an
unfair labor practice complaint by the ILWU against management.
UPS and US Mail drivers honored the picket line, disrupting
but not shutting down the business.
Live from a backyard barbecue, it's...Dmitri from Paris?
Why was one of the world's hottest DJs spinning his highly
original sound in between a Weber grill and an ice cooler
on a lazy weekend afternoon in Southeast Portland? Seems
the spinmaster had just arrived in town Sunday to start
work with Pink Martini for Dmitri's next album. The
odd pairing of Paris and sweet pickles makes sense, since
this celeb-packed 'cue was in honor of Pink chanteuse China
Forbes' birthday. Nowhere in sight, alas, was Black Panther-turned-grillmaster
Bobby Seale, who was also in town last weekend.
It's not quite Phil Knight vs. UO, but 15 senior PSU
faculty members bought ads in both editions of this
week's Vanguard, the campus paper, encouraging students
to respond to a survey about the quality of PSU's University
Studies Program. The peeved profs think the program, started
in 1994 to provide a core curriculum for all students, has
become a watered-down mess, and they are frustrated with
what they perceive as the administration's indifference
to student input.
For those java hounds who are still confused about Diedrich
Coffee (who?) and miss seeing the faces of Jim and Patty
Roberts when they knock back a cup of the black stuff--keep
the faith. Murmurs hears the caffeinated Coffee People couple
plans a return to the business, as close as possible to
their former Northwest 23rd Avenue flagship store.
Murmurs hears that the name of Bruce Carey's new
eatery in the Wieden & Kennedy building is down to one
of two possibilities: The Blue Hour or Avenir. The Blue
Hour refers to twilight and comes from the mind of poetry
lady Sandra Stone, who got it from some French saying. Avenir
also has a Gallic theme--it's French for "Future."
Wrong Numbers
There's strength in numbers, and as the May Day protest
showed, Powell's employees are pretty good at mobilizing
hundreds of supporters in their effort to gain a union contract.
An ad that employees ran in the April 24 edition of The
Nation suggests, however, that employees have more trouble
with numbers of another kind.
Even a rudimentary examination of claims made in the half-page
ad (cost: $1,600) shows that it is misleading and riddled
with errors.
In order to get outside opinion, WW asked professor
Eugene Enneking, chairman of the Portland State University
math department, to review employees' key claim: "Profitability
is up 559 percent since 1996."
There are two problems here, Enneking says. First of all,
without listing the profits in 1996 and "now," the stated
increase is almost meaningless. In fact, 1996 was Powell's
second-worst year in the '90s; the store earned $262,776
after tax. The year employees use for comparison, 1998,
was Powell's best ever; the company earned $1,469,384 after
tax, according to figures obtained from Powell's. The 1998-99
profit figures, which were $258,924 less than in '98, were
available when the ad was placed and could have been used.
"It's misleading to pick high points and low points and
make a claim based on those," says Enneking, who has no
opinion on the Powell's contract talks.
Secondly, he says, the figure of 559 percent is simply
wrong. An economist hired by the union made a basic mathematical
error in calculating the change in profitability from 1996
to 1998. The latter number is 559 percent of the former,
Enneking says, but the change, or difference between the
two years, is 459 percent.
In addition, the ad states, "the most recently available
figures show approximately $40 million in sales (FY 1997-98)."
In fact, sales in 1997-98 were a hair over $33 million,
and in '98-'99 sales reached just over $35 million.
Questioned about the ad's accuracy, ILWU organizer Michael
Cannarella says Powell's has never disputed the figures
used in the ad. The more important point, Cannarella says,
is the number of employees' names (261) that appear as signatories
to the ad. "Seventy percent of the people who could sign
the goddamn thing signed it," he says.
That may be the case, but to compound the other errors,
the telephone number listed in the ad for the ILWU actually
rings at Amica Insurance--which has nothing whatsoever to
do with the union or Powell's.
--Nigel Jaquiss
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