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By LEE PERLMAN
THE MID COUNTY MEMO
Editor’s note: The following is a roundup of a variety of stories from veteran city beat reporter Lee Perlman.
In the compendium of new items, he touches upon the Weed and Seed anti-crime effort in Hazelwood and Montavilla, the Project Safe Neighborhoods program, an update on the El Rodeo nightclub, Parkrose School District’s efforts to create a skatepark, the controversial Infill Design Project, the new mayor engaging the Office of Neighborhood Involvement, the sheriff’s office nearing a sale, and the CascadeStation hearing being postponed.
As a feature of the Memo, we will on occasion offer such a compendium of current news items from the same reporter.
Weed and Seed
Those citizens and officials working on a Hazelwood-Montavilla Weed and Seed, a community anti-crime measure, agree that it’s a worthwhile project, but that more needs to be done internally before it can get off the ground.
A new issue is that the project’s director Sharon White announced last month that she was leaving her position effective Jan. 25. She stressed that she maintained high hopes for Weed and Seed, but that she had been offered a permanent position with Portland Office of Transportation, “which offers me more stability than a program that’s funded until September.”
At press time it wasn’t funded at all, “official recognition” from federal funders not having occurred. “Things in D.C. are slow,” White offered.
The program seeks to deal with crime problems while organizing community resources to fight such problems on an ongoing basis.
Project Safe Neighborhoods
A related but different program, Project Safe Neighborhoods, uses a special federal prosecutor and community organizing to deal with safety issues such as guns, youth gangs and domestic violence. In East Portland, program director Juan Mayoral told the Hazelwood Neighborhood Association last month, the program will do outreach to the Latino and Slavic communities.
“This area is changing fast,” Mayoral said. “The Latino and Asian communities here are growing fast. There are conflicts at school.” In inner northeast Portland, city officials didn’t acknowledge the growth of African-American gangs until they were almost out of control. Here, Mayoral said, “It’s important to start talking about this before it happens.”
An issue is the various language barriers. “It takes five years to be fully fluent in a foreign language,” Mayoral said. Hazelwood Chairwoman Arlene Kimura added that English as a Second Language classes are packed.
Another issue is indigenous attitudes. In many Slavic communities, Kimura said, “There’s a small village mentality that resists interaction with any part of the government.”
Mayoral said that part of the program’s efforts is to get new arrivals “involved in the civic process.”
El Rodeo license application withdrawn
Portland Police Bureau Officer Mike Gallagher told the Hazelwood Neighborhood Association last month that owner Martin Garza had withdrawn his request for a liquor license for his El Rodeo nightclub at Southeast Division Street and 124th Avenue, due to problems in the area and negative recommendations by public agencies. Garza apparently intends to reapply in a few months, and by then hopes to show that problems are under control.
Portland Parks and Recreation
Portland Parks & Recreation is continuing its search for sites for a public skateboard park, and land owned by the Parkrose School District is high on their list, Hazelwood Neighborhood Association’s Linda Robinson reports. The parcel in question at Northeast 122nd Avenue and Prescott Street has all the attributes needed for such a park, plus a lack of opposition from nearby residents, she says. Also on the short list is Ventura Park in Southeast Portland, and land owned by the Oregon Department of Transportation at the confluence of Northeast 122nd Avenue, Siskiyou Street and Interstate 84.
Infill Design
The Portland Planning Bureau is moving forward with the Infill Design Project. Conceived by Portland City Commissioner Randy Leonard, it is intended to make new medium density developments in older, established neighborhoods compatible with their surroundings.
Such projects account for 89 percent of new multi-family construction, planner Bill Cunningham told the Portland Planning Commission last month, and are “more contentious than high density projects that are remote from most neighborhoods.” He added that 42 percent of such projects - row houses and “plexes,” are in East Portland. A major issue often is “streetscapes dominated by parking rather than by landscaping,” he said.
“Some feel we’ve been over-reliant on row houses,” as a way to provide infill, Cunningham said, and that “cottage clusters” or garden court apartments might make a better model. In these cases, units have parking and open space in common, making significant landscaping more feasible.
Cunningham’s proposed strategy so far consists of looking at zoning code changes that might interfere with good development (such as a prohibition on shared driveways that could provide more room for landscaping), encouraging the creation of pleasing prototypes that developers could copy, and continuing dialogue.
Hazelwood Neighborhood Association Chairwoman Arlene Kimura complained that the proposal so far doesn’t do enough to mandate landscaping and tree preservation. Right now, she says, there are no regulations requiring developers to preserve trees in building in multi-family zones. In single family zones they are required to preserve 35 percent of existing large trees, or pay into a fund for replanting, but developers often sidestep this by clear-cutting the land before they apply for permits or adjustments, she said.
Potter engages ONI, Kennedy-Wong
New Portland Mayor Tom Potter said during his campaign that he would be sensitive to neighborhood concerns. Even before taking office, he made some moves that indicate he was serious.
Bucking tradition, Potter held his official swearing-in ceremony not at City Hall, but at David Douglas High School. He took all city bureaus under his own responsibility, as is usual for a new mayor, but announced that he would retain control of the Office of Neighborhood Involvement. Finally, he hired Elizabeth Kennedy-Wong, director of the Southeast Uplift Neighborhood Program, as an aide with responsibility for neighborhood involvement and education.
Neighborhood leaders throughout the city had complained of ONI’s management by Portland City Commissioner Randy Leonard, who made significant changes without prior discussion with neighborhood leaders. Eight community activists, including Russell Neighborhood Association Chairwoman Bonny McKnight, ran unsuccessfully against Leonard in last year’s primary. Kennedy-Wong was a frequent critic of such changes. Southeast Uplift, which provides services to local neighborhood associations, is the largest of seven city neighborhood offices, which serve that purpose; the East Portland Neighborhood Office provides similar services here in Mid-County.
“I think that’s good,” McKnight told the Memo last month regarding Potter’s moves. “I’m glad the bureau’s not going back to Commissioner Leonard. Elizabeth comes from the neighborhood movement, and she should know what was wrong with it.”
Hazelwood Neighborhood Association Chairwoman Arlene Kimura adds, “I’m very hopeful that the staff Mayor Potter brought with him recognizes that the city extends east of Interstate 205, and that ONI has a real purpose other than meeting (state public involvement) Goal One.”
Sheriff’s office nears sale
Multnomah County is moving toward sale of Hanson Building, currently the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office at 12240 N.E. Glisan St. County facilities manager Doug Butler originally set Jan. 24 as a deadline for public comment on terms and conditions for the sale of the property, which would help pay for the creation of a new Justice Center at a site yet to be determined in Gresham. The Hazelwood Neighborhood Association, which fears the property will become part of the Ron Tonkin auto complex, last month asked for the deadline to be moved back. Lynn Dingler, an aide to Butler, says the request could probably be accommodated.
CascadeStation hearing postponed
A Portland City Council hearing on revised regulations for the CascadeStation project, scheduled for last month, has been postponed to 3 p.m. Feb. 10 in Council Chambers at City Hall, 1221 S.W. Fourth Ave. The 120-acre site east of Portland International Airport is slated for mixed-use “urban development.” A series of amendments requested by CascadeStation LLC, a subsidiary of the Bechtel, Trammel Crow and Charter Oak companies, would among other things allow “big box” retail development on the property in three locations. Ikea, a home furnishings store based in Sweden, has been one interested party.
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