Commentary:
The Hillsdale News turned over a new page this month when I transferred its modest revenues ($1,194.20 to be exact) from a Hillsdale Alliance account with Southwest Neighborhood Inc. (SWNI) to my own "Hillsdale News" account at Hillsdale's Key Bank.
With the concurrence of the Alliance, ownership is now in my hands.
The publication was started 27 months and 53 issues ago with a portion of a small City of Portland neighborhood grant administered through SWNI. The money paid for start-up costs.
Since then, I've volunteered my time (roughly six days each month) and attracted sponsors, who pay for on-going web hosting and newsletter distribution fees. I'm grateful for the sponsors' support, and you should be too if you value this publication. Thank them when you patronize their businesses.
Like most neighborhood on-line publications, this one is a small money maker - at best. I made the financial switch largely to free SWNI's Sylvia Bogert and Ginny Stromer of tracking the money and to alleviate the Alliance of any legal liability for content.
I'm not sure what to do with modest excess revenues. I may buy myself and neighborhood kibitzers a beer or two from time to time. At some point I may replace this sluggish, six-year-old Apple iMac, which I've been using for the cause. Some of the excess will be donated to community projects, probably through the Hillsdale Community Foundation.
My own greatest reward will continue to be any benefit you derive from this publication.
Rick Seifert
Editor
Letters to the Editor
More Beavers in Hillsdale
Editor:
There are beavers in Stephens Creek too. Here is a photo I took in April 2008 while walking across the nature park's Raz-Baack bridge.
Eamon Molloy
Editor's note: in Issue #51, The News reported on beavers in Fanno Creek.
Food Front explains prices
Editor:
We at Food Front appreciate the recent article in the Hillsdale News (Issue #52). It was very thoughtful and comprehensive.
With regard to prices: in general, prices at natural food stores tend to be higher than conventional grocers. There are good reasons for this: paying our farmers and local producers a fair and sustainable price is one. Also, many products made with natural ingredients may be more expensive at the checkout line, but over the long haul, are they a better value as they are gentler on the earth, and they promote good health and sustainable communities.
For the most part, we feel our prices are in the same ballpark with other grocers when you compare a very broad selection of the same items.
It's always tricky to focus on the exceptions. For example, I found Tao Awake Tea, a popular brand, listed for $5.99 at the Hawthorne Safeway a few weeks ago. Our price is $3.99. But, I don't think we can come to any sort of conclusion based on this one product.
In the end we feel our prices reflect the true cost of having a community-owned grocery store that sells good food, cares about its neighborhood, and won't ever sell out to a national chain (and then close, as Wild Oats did.) One of the reasons we opened a store in Hillsdale is we were confident that we were moving into a community that appreciates real values over the lowest possible price. And we are thrilled to begin our second of many, many years in Hillsdale.
Tom Mattox
Community Outreach Director
New "privileged" class
Editor:
Bikers have been installed as the new Oregon class of privilege.
Bikers do not want to pay license fees for their bikes, or other fees related to their biking. Bikers do not put in sweat equity to build bike paths or run bake sales to pay for bike amenities. Bikers in their spare time do what they do best. They ride their bikes, and they lobby.
I support safe roadways and walkways for our community. I do not want to see pedestrians or bikers killed. But someone has to pay the bills for the bike facilities.
When asked this year by the Legislature to enact a registration fee on bikes, the biker response was NO! Their rejection resulted in deletion
of Portland's desired bicycle projects
from from the legislated project list.
This is a proper rebuff of the bikers.
Bikers, when challenged on their penuriousness, say they pay taxes elsewhere. So do the rest of us, but we still pay to ride Tri-Met, drive our cars, or use our phones.
Bikers need to lobby for taxes upon themselves to support their requests for transportation projects; bikers need to raise funding to contribute to communities to build bike-friendly storage places; bikers need to recognize that a sustainable community needs financially responsible actions by all of its members to pay the bills for their impact upon the community budget.
Portland can once again be an egalitarian community when bikers pay their share of the bills.
I ask that bikers raise their hands and tell community and government what they are willing to pay for as bikers, not just what they want to be paid for by the community at large.
Glenn Bridger
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Hundreds of bicyclists pedaled through Hillsdale for Lucky Lab's "Tour de Lab."
$5000 Foundation incentive
Bicyclists, businesses seek to make
Hillsdale more bike-friendly
Hillsdale bicycle enthusiasts see great promise for biking here, and several have come together with plans to make the community more bicycle-friendly.
Spurred on by the possibility of a $5000 grant from the Hillsdale Community Foundation, a newly formed group is looking into one or more "bike corrals" for the Hillsdale Shopping Center. Four Hillsdale Town Center businesses - Moving Moxie, Food Front, Om Base Yoga and Baker & Spice - have volunteered to join in the planning.
One shopping center site that holds promise is between Baker & Spice and Food Front near the abandoned loading zone for the grocery.
Bicyclist and Hillsdale neighbor Dave Johnson, a retired Intel manager, is leading the effort. He attracted the business support when he took the corral proposal to the September meeting of the Hillsdale Business and Professional Association (HBPA).
The new group has grown quickly to approximately approximately 12 members.
Sarah Figliozzi, a bicycle program specialist for the City of Portland, said she was pleased with how receptive HBPA was.
Johnson and Figliozzi made the point that providing convenient parking for bicyclists has been shown to attract more business. Even converting a parking space into a bicycle corral can result in a net gain or available car parking. If those who normally drive to the shopping center decide to bike, it frees up car parking.
Whether that would be the case in Hillsdale isn't clear, but several at the HBPA meeting thought it could be worth exploring.
The bike group is on a tight deadline. Their application for the $5000 is due Oct. 16.
The local effort is consistent with The City of Portland's encouraging "20-minute" neighborhoods, communities whose streets are safe enough to allow pedestrians and bicyclists to reach a neighborhood commercial core in 20 minutes.
And then there is the opportunity of attracting distant bicyclists to Hillsdale. On Sunday, Sept 13, hundreds biked through Hillsdale on the "Tour de Lab," a cross-city bike event between three Lucky Lab pubs. Only a handful of bikers were seen to stop in Hillsdale, which has no obvious place to secure bikes.
In the pasts decade, bicycle counts in Hillsdale show a 20 percent increase in bike traffic. Bike counts this summer show an average of 295 daily bike-riders at SW Vermont and SW 30th.
Some local bike enthusiasts believe Hillsdale could become a hub of bicycling activity.
Mark Lear, who lives in the community and works for the City, says that the community's hills, which pose a bicycling barrier to many, could be a draw for those seeking a "celebrate-the-hills" challenge. Pedaling and pumping up to Council Crest offers a cardio-vascular workout, he says. And then there's the exhilaration of the downhill run back to the town center.
Figliozzi, who has helped establish 23 bike corrals in public parking spaces around the city, sees the opportunity for setting up bike safety programs for children at "'First Saturday' bike fairs." Public school parking lots might lend themselves to Saturday morning practice sessions and bike activities.
Members of the new bicycle group note the need to improve signaled intersections so that bikes trigger turn signal lights. Bicyclists point out, for instance, that the signal at Sunset and Capitol highway lacks a sensor.
And while cross-walk buttons are handy for pedestrians, bicyclists can't reach them from the street. Posted maps of area bike routes would also aid visiting bicyclists. who are often confused by our maze of streets.
Meanwhile, as noted in the last issue, city plans proceed for a bike boulevard on Westwood Drive and sections of Cheltenham and DeWitt Street next to the library. The alternative route allows bike commuters to avoid busy Capitol Highway.
The soon-to-be-released Portland Bicycle master plan shows several other Hillsdale streets with the potential to become bike boulevards.
Editor's note: For another perspective on bicycling improvements and how to pay for them, see "New 'Privileged' Class" in "letters to the editor."
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Capitol Hill Road
City to install speed bumps;
neighborhood activists elated
Capitol Hill Road, a twisty connection between Bertha Boulevard, Custer Park and Barbur Boulevard, will receive traffic-calming speed bumps in the next two weeks or so.
Speeders have worried neighbors for years.
Now the 11 bumps, called "speed tables," are expected to lessen the danger to children, many of whom use Custer Park.
The $24,000 project results from years of lobbying, persuasion and fund-raising by neighbors. who call their group, CHR-SOS, for "Capitol Hill Road - Slow our Street."
At the urging of Mayor Sam Adams, the City of Portland announced this summer that it is picking up 60 percent of the cost.
And because transportation officials want to get the speed tables installed before winter, they are willing to proceed with construction even though the neighbors are $2,000 short of their share.
Mellani Calvin, a neighbor who has poured hours into lobbying, said that the speed bump group will have "no trouble" raising the money. They already have donations of $6,200 that they have raised through garage sales, picnics and other events.
Some in the group, like Calvin's neighbor Lisa Broten, have been working five years on the project. Calvin said that both the Multnomah and Hillsdale neighborhood associations have been strong supporters.
She noted that tax-deductible contributions can be made to "CHR-SOS" through Southwest Neighborhood Inc. (SWNI), 7688 SW Capitol Hwy, Portland, OR 97219. Checks should be made payable to SWNI, with "CHR-SOS" in the note line.
As for the tables being installed so soon, Calvin said, "I can hardly believe it. But I knew all along we could do it."
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Join the hunt for Hillsdale's
historically significant houses
 Some have sheltered us and past neighbors for more thana century. They have kept us warm in winter and shaded us in summer.
They have been, and still are, "home" to hundreds.
And now members of the Multnomah Historical Association think it's time these most senior of our citizens got some recognition.
The association wants you to look around, acknowledge and report on the oldest houses in your neighborhood.
Sofar, not a single home in Hillsdale has been reported, although PattiWaitman-Ingebretsen of the association's board knows such treasuresexist. Patti is on a "neighborhood history team" with Mike Duffield."Neighborhood History Team."
Amongthe most prominent houses is the home of Col. Henry E. Dosch (shown here), which is ratherhard and forbidding to find because it is at 4825 SW Dosch Park Lane.The lane is marked "private" but the occasional visitor drives throughthe quiet residential neighborhood to look at the elegant house.
The Dosch house issignificant for two reasons: its age (it was built in 1892) and itsbuilder (Dosch was a civil leader and a noted horticulturist.) Thegabled house is already listed in the US National Register of HistoricPlaces.
With a $1400 grant administered through SouthwestNeighborhoods Inc. (SWNI), the historical association wants to build alocal registry to document homes that go back to the early part of the lastcentury and before.
The goal of the program, saysWaitman-Ingebretsen,is to encourage preservation and to acknowledge thearchitectural history of the area.
There's no deadline forreporting the old houses to the association.
MultnomahHistorical Association, despite ambiguity stemming from its name, is devoted to the history of Southwest Portland. It meets at 7 p.m. on the first Tuesday in October, November and December at MHA History Center 2929 SW Multnomah Blvd in the main floor meeting room. |
New Hillsdale Terrace
Neighbors ask HAP to improve
pot-holed California Street
 Hillsdale neighbors want to see a rutted, little-used street upgraded as part of ambitious Housing Authority of Portland (HAP) plans to raze and redevelop the Hillsdale Terrace public housing project.
Improvements to SW California Street (shown to the right, looking down on the housing project) were among concerns raised with housing authority representatives at the Sept. 2 Hillsdale Neighborhood Association meeting.
The housing authority is preparing an application for $22 million in federal funds to help pay for the $44.5 project. If successful, the authority would begin work in the spring of 2001.
HAP officials will return to the Oct. 7 neighborhood association meeting to answer more questions.
Wes Risher, a former neighborhood chair, pressed HAP officials about improving California Street, but HAP Development Director Mike Andrews said the agency had no responsibility for the short street, which, in places is unpaved and a single lane.
"The response was irresponsible," said Risher in an interview. He said the street should be considered as additional access to the Hillsdale Terrace site, which is in a gulch at the headwaters of Stephens Creek, just behind the Hoot Owl Market at Capitol Highway and 30th.
Property on the sloping north side of California Street belongs to the housing authority and could be developed into housing, Risher added.
Risher would also like to see the new proposed project, with its approximately 120 units, include owner-occupied units. As planned, the project will consist of low-income. subsidized rentals.
Because of the site's isolation and construction challenges, Risher said that redevelopment of it is "putting lipstick on a pig."
He suggested that a better site might be on vacant, nearby property that belongs to the Greater Portland Bible Church.
In the early '90s, Risher and other neighbors successfully fought the housing authority over the siting of the Turning Point transitional housing project. The effort forced the authority to move the project from the flood plain of Stephens Creek to a vacant site three blocks north on Bertha Boulevard.
"This sounds a lot like Turning Point," Risher said of the Hillsdale Terrace plans.
Don Baack, another former neighborhood chair, suggested that the bowl-shaped site be raised by using fill from the massive construction project planned to replace the Iowa Street structure on I-5.
In an interview, Shelley Marchesi, HAP's public affairs director, said that a commercial broker had looked at other sites for the project but had found none. No other public property was considered, she added.
She said the per unit cost of the new project is $258,057. The number includes demolition costs, site preparation costs and the cost of relocating current occupants, who live in the project's 60 units, Without the additional costs, construction costs work out to $162,722 per unit.
The Oct. 7 neighborhood association meeting starts at 7 p.m. and is at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, 2201 SW Vermont.
The housing authority will also hold a community open house on Tuesday, Oct 6, starting at 5:30 p.m. at Hillsdale Terrace, 6775 SW 26th. The event will present preliminary designs. The authority's application deadline for the federal money is Nov. 17.
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The Date Book
Thursday, Sept. 24,
7 p.m. - 9 p.m.
Food Front Annual Meeting
Member/owners are invited to attend the annual meeting at EcoTrust Conference Center. NW 10th and Johnson. RSVP by calling (503) 222-5658 x133
Tuesday, Sept. 29, 7 p.m. - Landslide Forum
As the anniversary of the
Oct. 8, 2008,
Burlingame Place landslide approaches, a forum featuring experts will be held at the Multnomah Arts Center Auditorium, 7688 SW Capitol Highway.
Mondays starting Oct 5, 6 p.m. - 8 p.m. - Living Questions
HillsdaleCommunity Church - UCC presents a six-week course of "inviation,initiation, and spiritual formation for progessive, thinking Christiansand seekers." Admission is free. Childcare and dinner are provided. Between Texas and California at 6948 SW Capitol Hwy/ Call 503-246-5474 for more information.
Wednesdays starting Oct 7, 11 a.m. - 1 p.m.
Living Questions
Lunchtime session of the six-week program above. Bring brownbag lunch.
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Wednesday, Oct.7, 7 p.m.
Hillsdale Neighborhood Assocation meeting
Meets at St. Barnabas Church, 2201 SW Vermont. On the October agenda is further discussion of the plan to raze and rebuilt the Hillsdale Terrace public housing project.
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Rick Seifert
Editor, Hillsdale News
(503) 245-7821
editor@hillsdalenews.org
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