Commentary:
Brainstorming
The jam-packed agendas of Hillsdale Neighborhood Association meetings often yield interesting news about this place we call home. It can range from revelations about plans to tear up streets for replacement water lines to someone's proposal to turn one lot into 10.
The August meeting agenda was less ambitious, but neighborhood chair Don Baack took the opportunity to prompt a wide-ranging brain-storming session.
He and the 12 or so others there weren't disappointed. It certainly got my juices flowing, overflowing at times. Some of the overflow is found below.
Before I get down to specifics, please note that the association meets the first Wednesday of the month at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, 2201 SW Vermont, at 7 p.m. Your attendance and participation are welcomed and encouraged.
The group that met in early August asked what "theme" might identify Hillsdale. With the Rieke solar panel array in mind, some thought Hillsdale might be a "model alternative energy community." We might even strive to be Oregon's first "energy-independent community."
On an admittedly non-green note, I chimed in that we have two prominent towers in and around Hillsdale: The Healy Heights Tower and the Watershed "Hillsdale" tower. How about building two or three more towers and become known as a tower village? We could invite mounting tower tops with their sweeping views of hills and dales. The lovely Italian village of San Gimignano, known for its medieval towers, comes to mind.
I didn't mention it at the meeting but how about being known for our used book (and video and CD) vendors? Rows of stalls might be an appendage to the Sunday Hillsdale Farmers Market. The model for being a used book Mecca exists in the Welch village of Hay-on-Wye.
The neighborhood association discussion led to nitty-gritty issues like the lack of parking in the Town Center and abundance of "Park and Hide" commuters. What if a coalition of the Neighborhood Association and the Hillsdale Business and Professional Association leased all the parking space in the Town Center and then managed it, charging a parking fee for non-patrons? The revenues would support the community. The community of Chestnut Hill in Philadelphia does just this.
Part of the money might also go to pay a "Town Center" manager. We still have a Hillsdale Plan, now more than 10 years old. It needs updating, which should come about after community meetings this fall with Sera Design consultants. The hard part is making the plan happen. Parking hassles, haphazard signage, and the lack of safe "feeder" sidewalks are already problems we know about. We need to solve them.
I have thought for a long time that Hillsdale needs a new semi-autonomous relationship with the City of Portland. The lead story in this issue points to the kinds of problems the city bureaucracy causes grassroots community movements. Hillsdale should be a model of independence in matters that we can accomplish and that the city can't or won't.
We should have the same semi-autonomy from the Portland Public School District. Hillsdale and its schools should be one. Moreover, I'd replace "schools" with vibrant, intergenerational, year-round "community learning centers." The Portland School District could pay the Hillsdale School district to take students from beyond our borders. Riverdale School District could serve as a model.
But here I have moved well beyond the discussion on that first Wednesday night in August. That's the nature of brainstorming. The brain is never quite the same after the storm passes through, and for some of us, the storm rages on.
Our two-amp sign
There's an addendum to last issue's response to letter writers' concerns about the new "Hillsdale" sign's energy consumption.
Sheila Greenlaw-Fink is executive director of Community Partners for Affordable Housing, the developers of The Watershed where the sign is located. She reports that Tube Art, which made the sign, says that the lighting draws 2 amps of electricity per hour - "similar to a 60-watt bulb." The typical home draws 20 amps per hour.
As reported in the last issue the LED lights are on a timer and do not stay on during the entire night.
405 get The News
If communication defines a community, then the Hillsdale News now defines a reading community of roughly 700. Late last month, the 400th person signed up to receive the Hillsdale News via e-mail. As I prepare to hit the "send" button, the number has reached 405. Another 300 readers visit the News on the web site every month.
Thanks for reading - and caring about Hillsdale. RS
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Wes Risher shows off the newly completed sidewalk section he helped pay for.
Neighbors step up to help walkers
step out safely on new sidewalk
In a development that many Hillsdale walkers would like to see repeated, a handful of neighbors have voluntarily paid to have a sidewalk built in front of their homes.
The new sidewalk is along a dangerous one-and-a-half block stretch of Chestnut Street just west of Terwilliger. The route is often used by recreational walkers, Wilson High School Students and Hillsdale Farmers Market patrons.
The project, spearheaded by resident Wes Risher, cost him and his neighbors an estimated $10,000 total. It cost the City of Portland $20,000, according to PDOT officials.
The City money primarily comes from the Safe Routes to School Program. Risher said that the project went forward after he and his neighbors - Stacey Mark and Clyde Dent, and Louis Santiago and Steve Treick - received city assurances that their shares wouldn't exceed $5,000.
Risher said he broached the project with city officials in 1999 and that the process has been "an ordeal," involving layers of bureaucracy, miscommunication and hassles about moving a utility pole.
"The City doesn't know how to do this kind of small improvement," he said. "There is a real disconnect between the bureaus."
Mark Lear, the Portland Department of Transportation officialoverseeing management of the project agrees with Risher that there's aneed to figure out a way to "streamline" projects like the one on ChestnutStreet. He says a review of the project's problems is planned.
He said that the Chestnut Street project "got more complicated as we got into it. "There were definitely bumps in the road."
Implementation problems aside, Risher said, the new sidewalk increases pedestrian safety, which lessens the property owners' exposure to liability for accidents. Moreover, he estimates that the sidewalk reduces his yard maintenance and increases the value of his property.
By narrowing the street to accommodate a portion of sidewalk, traffic speed should be reduced, he added.
Risher is delighted that pedestrians are now stopping to thank him for the sidewalk.
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Food Front nears its "soft" opening
As this issue goes to press Food Front managers had no firm date for the opening of the cooperative's new Hillsdale store.
Food Front outreach manager Tom Mattox said that the best estimate was sometime in the last week of August, but that wasn't a sure thing. Store hours will be from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. seven days a week.
Food Front is planning a low-key "soft opening" to give the store's new staff a chance to focus on settling into their jobs.
A opening celebration party is planned for early October, Mattox said.
Meanwhile, visitors to the Hillsdale Shopping Center are welcomed to stick their heads in the front door and see the progress, he said. The front door has been widened and an extra check stand has been installed, but the floor plan is identical to the one used by Wild Oats. The grocery chain closed the Hillsdale store last October after it was bought by Whole Foods.
Mattox reports that member/ownership sign-ups continue at the Hillsdale Farmers Market. Sunday, August 3, Food Front's market booth netted 40 new member/owners, a particularly high number, Mattox said.
Individual and household memberships are $150, which may be paid in $5 monthly installments. It is not necessary to be a member/owner to shop at Food Front, which also has a store on NW Thurman. To find out more visit the Food Front web site.
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Photos by Ned Mc Sheehy
Two Bull Run River dams create reservoirs for water destined for Portland
Hillsdale delegation visits
the source of Portland's water
By Arnold Panitch
In early July, a group of Hillsdale residents, including this correspondent (seen to the left), visited the source of our water: The Bull Run Watershed beneath the slopes of Mt. Hood.
The all-day bus tour on Saturday, July 19, was sponsored by the Hillsdale Neighborhood Association and organized by the Portland Water Bureau. Twenty-three passengers plus a guide and driver started the day by visiting the Columbia River Wells Project, just East of the Portland Airport. From there it was on to Bull Run Lake adjacent to Mount Hood.
Portland is one of six big cities that offers unfiltered water to its residents. New York City and Boston are among the others.
The Portland Water Bureau serves 880,000 customers with water that arrives to our faucets mostly by gravity, with a little boost from pumping stations where needed. Astonishingly, water arrives from Bull Run to Mt. Tabor and Washington Park reservoirs unaided by pumps.
The trip included hiking, sometimes amid lingering snow. The group even descended the staircase on the backside of the tall dam (see photo).
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Fred Meyer nixes housing as part of store plans
In less than two years, Fred Meyer plans to tear down its Burlingame Store and replace it with one that is twice as large.
To the disappointment of some neighbors, the $35 million "flagship" store development on the Barbur transit corridor won't include housing.
At a July neighborhood assocation meeting, some suggested assembling a Fred Meyer/Hillsdale team to explore transit-oriented housing development. But Fred Meyer VP for Real Estate and Store Development Bob Currey-Wilson said that housing (230 units were considered by planners) on the site didn't pencil out.
The construction, starting in the spring of 2010, will leave the community without a Freddie's for a year, say store officials.
Fred Meyer, which is owned by Kroger, will raze the old store, which was opened in August 1950 and was the chain's first.
The new store, at double the size of the current one, will be about the size of the Tigard Fred Meyer store and will have a garden center and an apparel section. The planners would like the new structure to be LEED certified for its "green" features.
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Flapjack feed, book sale attract hundreds
The July 27th Hillsdale pancake breakfast and Hillsdale Alliance Book Sale, despite their names, weren't about flapjacks and books.
They were about community, say organizers.
The serpentine line of those waiting for breakfast became a relaxed social procession as neighbors got acquainted and shared news.
Members of the Hillsdale Neighborhood Emergency Team also worked the lines in an friendly effort to organize for disaster.
"The feeling of community and general togetherness was so thick you could have cut it with a dull knife," said Mike Roach, co-owner of Paloma Clothing and president of the Hillsdale Business and Professional Association.
He reported that the HBPA's "Customer Appreciation Blueberry Pancake Breakfast" fed 659 patrons and "probably" broke even. This year, HBPA organizers had to rent tables and chairs, which increased the cost. Increased food prices added to expenses, Roach said.
The event, the 32nd annual, was dedicated to the late John Braidwood, a commercial property owner and a generous backer of past pancake breakfasts.
The book sale, whose proceeds will go to a nascent Hillsdale Community Foundation, raised a record $4350 after expenses. The event relies on book donations from the community and is organized by the Hillsdale Alliance. The organization includes the Hillsdale Neighborhood Association, HBPA, the Hillsdale Farmers Market, Neighborhood House and Hillsdale's three public schools - Rieke, Gray and Wilson.
The Alliance has held five sales which have netted approximately $15,000. The money is held in a special account at Southwest Neighborhoods Inc. (SWNI). Foundation organizers are developing by-laws as part of their effort to gain IRS non-profit status for the foundation.
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Briefly:
Speed limit lowered on Capitol Highway
Capitol Highway drivers take heed in Hillsdale. The speed limit between Cheltenham and SW 25th has been lowered from 30 mph to 25 mph.
The reduction results from years of lobbying by the Hillsdale Neighborhood Association with the support of the Hillsdale Business and Professional Association.
Discover your inner chalk artist
The Wilson Cluster Chalk Art Festival, a free sidewalk chalk art event for all ages and abilities, will be held on Sunday, Sept. 7, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Hillsdale Farmers Market
The event, hosted by the Wilson Area Arts Council (WAAC), shows off everyone's artistic flair and celebrates the arts in the nine Wilson Cluster schools.
Organizers invite everyone to stop by and pick up a bucket of chalk at no cost and create works of art on the sidewalks.
Those who would like to volunteer, contact Linda Doyle at lsdoyle@earthlink.net or (503) 246-5979.
The Wilson Cluster Chalk Art Festival is supported by the arts council, Portland Public Schools, Hillsdale Farmers Market, Paloma Clothing, and Worksound.
Workshop for "change agents" offered
Dick and Jeanne Roy, Hillsdale residents and founders of the Northwest Earth Institute as well as the Center for Earth Leadership, are offering a free six-session class that many, including their Hillsdale neighbors, might find enlightening and useful.
Offered through the Center, "How to Be an Agent of Change in Your Circle of Influence" covers, in the words of Dick and Jeanne, "the theory, practice, and tools of a change agent working within a chosen circle of influence. Each class participant will select one circle of influence, develop a strategy and plan for change, and take steps of early implementation, in consultation with other members in the class."
The class sessions are on Thursdays starting Sept. 18. Advance registration is required.
For more information and to register contact Emily Cain at the Center for Earth Leadership, emily@earthleaders.org; www.earthleaders.org; 503-227-2315.
Aug. 23rd school clean-up needs volunteers
Back-to-school means more than getting the kids ready.
The schools themselves need some help, which is why dozens of volunteers pitch in to spruce up the schools on Portland Public School Community Cares Day.
This year's effort will be held the morning of Saturday, August 23.
Organizers and school administrators are urging neighbors to mark calendars and meet at the schools at 9 a.m. with tools for gardening and outdoor maintenance. The event lasts until noon. Refreshments are provided.
For a list of schools and their contacts look here.
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Rick Seifert
Editor, Hillsdale News
(503) 245-7821
editor@hillsdalenews.org
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