Comment:
Murder he didn't write
When there's a fatal shooting, as there was late Thursday evening, Oct. 13, in the Wild Oats parking lot, you can count on the media giants to gobble it up.
Accordingly, I left the story to them. (By the way, my attitude toward covering high school athletics is the same, for similar reasons.)
The fatal shooting of Michael Christopher Mason, 25, was reported in a heart beat on the if-it-bleeds-it-leads TV news tabloids and two days later in The Oregonian. The newspaper described Mason as a registered sex offender, whose last address was on NE 162nd.
The story was more interesting for what it didn't report than for what it did. For instance, it had no explanation for what Mason, who also faced meth possession charges, was doing in the Hillsdale parking lot. I tried to find out, but he police weren't giving out any more information. They still aren't, pending their investigation.
I've told them to put me on their call-back list.
If you want my questions for the cops, when they are ready to talk, go to Murder on my mind, my blog entry on The Red Electric, my personal site.
A Pitch
If you are reading this because it came to your e-mail in-box, you are among 226 "subscribers" to Hillsdale News. The number is significant because the News is now posed for its final "doubling" to get it to 450 subscribers.
Why is that important?
In order to sustain this publication, I'd like to attract four or five Hillsdale advertisers. For a modest sum of $15 a month, they could buy small logo ads that would link to their web pages. The revenue would cover costs, primarily ones I need to pay our internet providers.
My sense is that 450 subscribers, who are obviously interested in our community, are a worthy readership for local advertisers to reach. Moreover, supporting Hillsdale News helps build loyalty to our community and to our local commerce.
So here's the deal: Please contact a neighbor or two who might want to stay in closer touch with Hillsdale events. Either direct them to hillsdalenews.org where they can type their e-mail addresses into the "join" box on the web page, Or, with their permission, add them to the list yourself.
Then congratulate yourself for helping make the News financially sustainable.
The alluring SOLV Clean-up
I've featured the SOLV clean-up prominently in this issue because it is a great event that should attract more participants. I've pitched in on the past four clean-ups. What a great sense of accomplishment to spend two or three hours with friends and neighbors filling bags with trash. I consider each white, bulging bag as a trophy.
My particular clean-up target is the "Hillsdale Gateway" on Capitol Highway between Sunset and Barbur Boulevard.
Volunteers are equipped with an orange safety vest and a "grabber," which puts a comfortable distance between you and what you are picking up.
Don't ask.
If you have a scavenging gene (and who doesn't), this event taps into it. The finds are sometimes astonishing. As I was out photographing for the story, I came across a glistening but grubby Mitsubishi hubcap. I've cleaned it up to a mirror-like shine. Now I'm trying to figure out what to do with it besides stare, Narcissus-like, at my reflection in it.
Some of the finds unleash the imagination. I once found an elegant stiletto-heeled woman's shoe. What happened to its mate? How did it end up on the Multnomah I-5 off-ramp?
If all this isn't enough to get you to pitch in, consider the coffee and donuts before setting out, and the pizza on returning.
I mean, how can you afford not to be there?
See you at 9 a.m. at the Portland Christian Center parking lot on Saturday Nov. 3.
Rick Seifert
Editor
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Links to Alliance Members
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Trash has been piling up on the I-5
Multnomah Boulevard
off-ramp
SOLV/SWNI clean-up wants YOU!
Muffins, pizzas bracket
trash
collection
Pick up trash, eat well and be a merry raffle winner!
That's what volunteers will be doing on the morning of Saturday, Nov. 3.
The fall SWNI/SOLV Litter pick-up starts with coffee and muffins at 9 a.m. at the Portland Christian Center at Dosch and Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway. Then the activity moves to collecting cans, cardboard boxes, paper cups and other treasures along our littered roadsides. It all ends at noon with mounds of trash-filled bags, 20 pizzas and a raffle.
And if you want to clean out your garage or basement, recyclers will be on hand at the Center's parking lot to collect it by category.
Volunteers, who work in crews, are given orange safety vests, "grabbers" and white sacks. They bring their own work gloves and wear long pants and shirts with long sleeves
Karen Johnson, who organizes the clean-up, which is also held in the spring, says that the event has been held at least four years.
Raffle items and gift certificates have been donated by merchants including Paloma Clothing, Noah's, Salvador Molly, Pizzacato, Lucky Lab, Village Beads, Thinker Toys, Annie Blooms, Baker and Spice, Acapulco's Gold, Paint Pots, Topanian, Birdie's and Sip D'Vine,
(Note: The editor recounts his adventures as a volunteer in the comment section to the left.)
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Burlingame Freddie's plans
for 2009 changes
As soon as 2009, the Burlingame Fred Meyer Store on Barbur Boulevard could look a lot different. It may be considerably larger, including an apparel department and a garden center.
One thing an updated Burlingame Fred Meyer won't have is housing, although company officials studied that possibility for the past year.
Housing, or "mixed use," on the site fits with regional plans for increased housing density on transit corridors like Barbur. Higher density and greater use of mass transit takes pressure off expanding the urban growth boundary.
Tax abatements are available to encourage such "transit oriented development."
But recently, Bob Currey-Wilson, Fred Meyer vice president for real estate, informed the Hillsdale Neighborhood Association that company officials and developers have concluded that housing on the site isn't feasible.
"It's a big disappointment," said Don Baack, Hillsdale Neighborhood Association president. Currey-Wilson called the possibility "a dream" that didn't pan out.
Currey-Wilson, who is a Hillsdale resident, said that such a mixed-use project posed several problems including:
· The closure of the store from a year to 18 months.
· An estimated cost of $50 million, not including loss of business at the store. Currey-Wilson called the figure "frankly shocking"
· High housing construction costs prohibiting developers from making a "meaningful" contribution to the infrastructure costs of the larger project.
Other problems forced Fred Meyer to scale back ambitious plans, "with or without housing," Curry Wilson wrote.
In an interview, he said that a critical old retaining wall is "a huge question mark" in engineering plans. The wall along Bertha Boulevard dates from the store's origins in the early Fifties. "We can't find any engineering drawings of it," he said.
Structural problems with old pilings and the wall might limit changes to a remodel, Currey-Wilson said, but that would be a "worst case."
Fred Meyer is eager to upgrade and expand the store so that it can include apparel, he said. Another possibility is a garden center on the upper level of the current parking structure.
Store officials would like to keep the grocery part of the store open during construction. If pile driving becomes necessary to replace old footings, noise would force the store to close for that part of the work.
Focus groups with customers revealed a "real affection for the history, decor, and intimacy of the store, and even the pylon sign," Currey-Wilson said.
Although, Fred Meyer is owned by Cincinnati-based Kroger Stores, Currey-Wilson said, "Fred Meyers operates fairly independently. In fact, because of our strong general merchandise business, we are doing a lot for Kroger."
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City okays Bertha crosswalk,
seeks pedestrians
at Sunset sites
One down, two to go.
That's how some Hillsdale neighbors see the results of an October 16 meeting with Portland Transportation Department officials about installing three new crosswalks.
They received assurances that a crosswalk next to a planned community garden would be put in place in the next few weeks. The other two crosswalk candidates, both on Sunset Boulevard, are questionable, but neighbors aren't giving up on them.
Officials also said the City would sign-off on lowering speed limits on Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway and Capitol Highway, but the State Department of Transportation will have the final say because the streets are state roads.
If approved, speed reductions from 30 mph to 25 mph would take place on Capitol Highway from SW 25th/Vermont to Burlingame Avenue through the Hillsdale Town Center, on SW 30th from Vermont to Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway and on SW Capitol Hill Road from Bertha Boulevard to Barbur.
A new cross walk will go in on Bertha Boulevard at Chestnut, across from the Stephens Creek Nature Park entry. But Rob Burchfield of PDOT told the group that neighbors would have to document the need for crosswalks on Sunset at SW 18th Avenue and at Martha Street.
Neighbors are organizing to conduct pedestrian counts at the two sites after Burchfield questioned the need for the crosswalks due to a lack of pedestrians.
Neighbors are concerned about the safety of children crossing Sunset at the intersections.
More than 50 neighbors had signed a petition asking for the Sunset crosswalks.
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Up-date
Food Front manager tours
old Wild Oats store
After two walk-throughs of the vacated Wild Oats store, Food Front general manager Holly Jarvis reports that the Portland co-op is still studying the feasibility of opening a Food Front store there.
"We are interested in it, despite its small size. We can serve the neighborhood from there," she said, adding that the size, though a concern, wasn't a "deal breaker."
John Braidwood, who has shown the store for his wife's family, the Wardins. who own the shopping center, declined to answer questions, saying only, "The new tenant in Hillsdale will be neighborhood grocer."
In the past, Braidwood has said the Wardins are willing to wait for the right grocer tenant.
Mike Roach, co-owner of Paloma Clothing and president of the Hillsdale Business and Professional Association, said Braidwood's brief statement "means a lot to us because it represents a commitment to the community."
"A big time real estate owner wouldn't care about having a grocery there. They'd probably make more money and have an easier time leasing smaller spaces created out of the existing one. It also means that John is willing to buck the trend to bigger grocery stores."
Food Front's Jarvis said she has the impression that others have shown interest in the old Wild Oats space. The interest is understandable, she said. "Hillsdale is a great neighborhood for retailers in general."
Even if Food Front's feasibility studies are positive and if the Food Front board agrees to move ahead and if a lease agreement is negotiated successfully, the earliest Food Front could open would be early spring, Jarvis said.
Jarvis added that the longer the store is vacant, the harder-and more expensive-it is to re-establish patronage.
In the meanwhile, she noted, nearly 60 people from the Hillsdale area have e-mailed to encourage Food Front to come to the community.
Many customers at Food Front's store on Northwest Thurman have also urged her to pursue opening the second store, she said.
Books needed for Dec. 9 book sale
The Hillsdale Holiday Book Sale at the new Watershed Building on Dec. 9 could use a few hundred good books. So it's time to prune your shelves to help your neighborhood.
Proceeds go to the organizations of the Hillsdale Alliance (listed to the left). You can drop off your books at the next four Hillsdale Farmers Market at the pick-up truck parked at the north end. The drop-off dates are Oct.28, Nov. 4, Nov. 18 and Dec. 2 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. |
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Letter to the Editor
Hands off school athletic fields!
Editor,
I am dismayed that some in the Hillsdale community continue to advocate for use of school property (the so-called "Rieke Triangle" and "Rieke Bowl") as a permanent venue for the Hillsdale Farmers Market and other community events.
To my knowledge these people never mention that the "Rieke Triangle" is part of the Wilson High School athletic complex, that the "Rieke Bowl" is the home field for the Wilson Women's Softball program, that the field is heavily used by Little League summer and fall, or that the field is maintained by parents like me throughout the year.
The proposed use of the "Rieke Triangle" is contrary to the goals of the Wilson athletic program to improve facilities for the women's softball program, which includes construction of batting cages there.
The proposed use of the field as a summer venue for "plays, concerts and other summer events" is at odds with its use by the Wilson softball and Little League baseball programs. It is not just that the field would be over-scheduled, but that the field itself would be damaged, creating hazards for the players.
This fundamentally is a question of equity for the women's athletic programs at Wilson. If you question that, please imagine the same proposals impacting the Wilson baseball field and batting cages.
As the father of a Wilson softball player and as a former Little League Board Member, I say to these proponents "Hands off!" the school athletic fields!
Thomas Benke
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Rick Seifert
Editor, Hillsdale News
(503) 245-7821
editor@hillsdalenews.org
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