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| Local farmer and famous strawberry vendor Ron Spada, from left, eats barbecued chicken dinner with Inez Amato and Jackie Meeks at the 2006 Rossi Farms Barn Bash. The 10th Annual Barn Bash is Saturday, July 14 from 6 p.m. to Midnight at Rossi Farms, 2983 N.E. 122nd Ave. Tickets are $12. This is a 21 & over event. |
| PHOTOS BY: TIM CURRAN |
The tenth annual fundraiser will be 6 p.m. to midnight July 14 at the farms, Northeast 122nd Avenue at Shaver Street. The $12 admission will get you all the barbecued chicken, green and potato salad, baked beans and strawberry shortcake you can consume. You can also purchase the product of Widmer Brothers Brewing, which will donate a number of kegs to the cause. There will be a Wild West Show courtesy of Tom Mannen and his Turkey Creek Productions, a Civil War battle enactment complete with the shooting of cannons, and live music by three bands: Last Rodeo, Larry Wilder and the Stumptown Stars (formerly the Columbia Cutups), and No Strings Attached. While they play, you and your mate can dance in the style of your choice. There will be no new world premier movie this year, but past productions, such as “The Legend of Parker Rose” by Mannen, the Rossi family and your friends and neighbors in Parkrose, will be projected on the walls of the barn for your viewing pleasure. Finally, the horseshoe pits are still out there, and if you’re so inclined you can so indulge yourself, and probably find someone to play against you. In addition to Widmer Brothers, there are more than 30 corporate sponsors this year.
Parkrose Youth Football was the original inspiration for the event, but it has become a fundraiser for the Parkrose Youth Activities Fund, which provides support for 12 youth activities, not all of them strictly athletic. “Not everyone can play football, but everyone is good at something,” Rossi said. Giving them the opportunity to shine at that something “can be huge for a kid at that age.” For some, it can be a critical impetus to stay in school. The fund provides the cash to keep such activities going at a time of school budget cuts.
The barn dance, now in its 11th year, is a piece of neighborhood cultural continuity. For the first time in generations, the Rossi family is not farming this year. Largely for economic reasons, the family has arranged for the Garre family to farm its 25 acres, and no one is selling fresh produce from the family barn. However, asked if this is the last year for the festivals and benefits he has become noted for, Rossi said, “I plan to do this indefinitely, and I think I can. Our plan is for the land to stay within the family.”
Airport Plan CAC adds citizen reps
Community groups studying the proposed Portland International Airport Master Plan update have been complaining for months that a proposed Public Advisory Group that would work with city and Port of Portland planners on the project is too stacked in favor of airport user groups at the expense of the surrounding community. The Portland City Council heard the complaint and, largely at the behest of Commissioner Randy Leonard, added a few more representatives to the citizen side.
As proposed by the Port, the group would include one representative from each of the four most affected neighborhood coalitions — East Portland, Central Northeast Neighbors, Northeast Coalition of Neighbors and Neighbors North — plus one representative each from Vancouver, Clark County, east Multnomah County, and someone representing the aircraft noise issue. At the behest of council, the committee will also include two more neighborhood representatives to be selected by the Office of Neighborhood Involvement, and an environmentalist. Further, instead of a civic seat for the larger community, there will be a seat for a member of the Airport Issues Roundtable, a long-standing grass roots watchdog group. This will bring the committee’s total composition to 28.
Port officials have expressed displeasure with the new additions to the group and reportedly are seeking to add representatives for local jurisdictions. The jockeying over membership in the group is likely to delay the start of the process.
“The Port generally likes to stack the deck in their favor by a two to one margin,” one observer said of the record at a recent meeting.
Mid-county gardens under till
The grand opening of the Senn’s Dairy Park community garden was somewhat lacking. About a dozen people showed up, but the only officials were Parkrose Neighborhood Association Chair Marcy Emerson-Peters and Portland Park Bureau Community Garden Program Director Leslie Pohl-Kosbau. Representatives of Costco and Burgerville did show up to provide free flowers for planting and cookies, respectively. Most importantly, people started tilling and planting the southeast corner of the park at Northeast Prescott Street and 112th Avenue, with the officials doing as much work as anyone.
The 26 10-foot square plots in Senn’s Dairy, plus four other new locations, are the first extension of the Community Garden Program to east Portland, Pohl-Kosbau told the Memo. After considerable debate, the city has decided to place a community garden in the new Hazelwood Hydro-Park too. There will also be gardens in Boyles Park at Southeast 108th Avenue and Francis Street, and on land owned by the Church of the Brethren at Southeast 127th Avenue and Market Street.
Plots are still available at Senn’s Dairy, Pohl-Kosbau said. However, for the program as a whole, there is a waiting list of 550 people seeking plots in particular parks. “Most people live within walking distance of their plots, which is the ideal,” she said, “but some drive from more than a mile away.”
Community garden plots can be rented for planting on a first-come, first-served basis for $45 a season plus a $10 refundable deposit. For more information call 503-823-1612.
TriMet wants fewer trees at new MAX stop
TriMet is seeking to amend the terms of its land use approval for a station on the proposed I-205 MAX line at Southeast Main Street and 99th Avenue. The terms of the agency’s original permit for the facility called for them to plant 160 trees there. TriMet is seeking to lower this to 108.
Urban renewal issues
The Portland Development Commission will do a conceptual plan for the possible development of a 1.5-acre parcel of vacant land it owns at Northeast 102nd Avenue and East Burnside Street, next to the Children’s Receiving Center, PDC staffer Sara Culp told the Gateway Regional Center Program Advisory Committee last month. “This won’t result in a development at this time, but it will give people something to think about,” Culp said. She also commented that given Multnomah County’s trend toward the consolidation of social service, it is possible that the Receiving Center may someday be declared surplus as well.
Culp later said that the urban renewal district’s budget included $2 million, to be spent over a five-year period, for the development or preservation of housing serving very low-income people earning zero to 30 percent of median income.
PAC member Frieda Christopher, representing the David Douglas School District, expressed some concern about aid to this kind of project. “The percentage of children in our district who are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches is creeping up toward 70 percent,” she said. “Our last bond measure for new schools failed. Our enrollment was flat this year, but if it starts creeping up again, we’re in deep trouble.”
Alesia Reese of the Woodland Park Neighborhood Association echoed these concerns and pointed out that investing in housing projects that are tax exempt is not the way to increase the district’s scarce supply of tax increment funds for needed projects.
Linda Robinson of the Hazelwood Neighborhood Association said that a possible source of funds for new public open space and recreation areas is Metro’s $15 million bond measure. She also said there are two publicly-owned land parcels that could be developed for recreational use: a parcel owned by the David Douglas School District near Floyd Light Middle School, and a 37-acre tract between the I-205 and I-84 freeways just south of Rocky Butte, owned by the Oregon Department of Transportation.
Finally, last month, the Gateway PAC elected Bob Earnest of the Hazelwood Neighborhood Association as its new chair. He succeeds Doreen Warner, who stepped down after two years in the position.
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