 |
||||||||
 |
MEMO BLOG | |
Memo Calendar | Memo Pad | Business Memos | Loaves & Fishes | Letters | Home |
 |
 |
 |
The Memory Garden, a past recipient of a Neighborhood Grant award, will hold an open house for Alzheimer caregivers on Wednesday, June 4. Formerly a vacant lot located at Southeast Powell Boulevard and 104th Avenue, the garden has been a safe and pleasant visiting and meeting place for Alzheimer sufferers and their caregivers since 2001.
Melissa Bierman, Friends of the Memory Garden board member told the Russell Neighborhood Association last month, “There’s lots of sensory stimulation.” The $3,300 grant allowed for improved maintenance, installation of a drinking fountain and a more secure gate, and upgraded restrooms.
The garden is available for gatherings of caregivers and will be the site of June’s caregiver open house.
The garden could use volunteers to help maintain it, though, Bierman said.
Airport PAG adopts forecast tools
In a rare unanimous vote, the Airport Futures project’s Public Advisory Group last month accepted, at least for now, consultant Geoffrey Gosling’s predictions for future Portland International Airport growth and his methods for calculating it.
Gosling predicts that Portland airport passenger service will increase by 2.3 percent per year and will reach 27 million passengers per year by 2035. Freight operations should increase by 3.3 percent per year and reach 732,000 tons annually by 2035. Both are lower than earlier forecasts, which called for passenger service to hit 27 million by the year 2020. Military operations at Portland Air Base should remain the same and constitute about 1.6 percent of total airport operations in 2035.
Factors that could influence the rate of growth include increases in population and wealth in the Portland metro area, increases in the price of jet fuel (passed on to customers in the form of higher ticket prices or curtailed service), growth in activity of other airports in the state and loss of business to other modes of transportation.
PAG member Fred Stovel of the Rose City Park neighborhood and the Airport Issues Round Table suggested that the forecast issues be revisited later in the process, and Port representatives agreed. Port’s Chris Corich said forecasts would normally be updated every five to 10 years.
PAG member Catherine Ciarlo of the Bicycle Transportation Alliance and Portland Planning Commission asked what the effect would be if the predicted rate of growth were to change. Gosling said that if the rate were slower than predicted, “You’d just change the light bulbs and make sure the roof doesn’t leak.” On the other hand, an increased rate of growth could accelerate the need to think about a dreaded third runway at the airport, an addition that critics say could add drastically to airport noise problems.
Longtime airport critic Erwin Bergman of the Cully neighborhood suggested another factor could be a theoretical “carbon tax” for environmental impacts — and a new mind-set that “it’s a sin to fly.”
Gosling agreed that a tax of the sort Bergman proposed could be imposed in the future. He didn’t think it would have much effect, but admitted that it might.
The Port held two open houses last month, each attended by about 50 people. Those who attended indicated that the amount of flying they would do in the future would depend on the price of airline tickets, convenience of flying and the quality as well as reliability of airline service, in that order.
Park Planning gets under way
The Portland Bureau of Parks and Recreation has scheduled a public workshop to begin creating a master plan for a proposed Beech Park. The session will be from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. on May 19 at Shaver Elementary School, 3701 N.E. 131st Ave. The property in question consists of two undeveloped parcels, totaling 15.71 acres, adjacent to Shaver Elementary. A master plan is a prerequisite to development in or physical improvements to PP&R properties.
According to PP&R planner David Yamashita, similar processes will soon be under way for two other east Portland PP&R properties: Parklane and Clatsop Butte. Parklane is a 25-acre property at Southeast 155th Avenue and Main Street. Clatsop Butte is 41 acres and is located approximately at Southeast 152nd Avenue and Cooper Street.
MEMO Advertising | MEMO Archives | MEMO Web Neighbors | MEMO Staff | Home