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neighborhood news
Winston Churchill famously said, "first we shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us". Indeed, the 'built environment' -- the collection of structures, streets and open spaces that makes up our cities, towns, and suburbs -- affects each of us deeply. It makes a difference who constructs what where, how many 'empty' lots are left empty, and which business moves in down the street. This section is for posts about zoning, planning, gentrification, sprawl, neighborhood association goings-on, urban growth boundaries, the effects of Measure 37, anti-Walmart and Starbucks campaigns, and anything else dealing with life not-in-the-country. It's also the place to post small local news that doesn't fit any of the grander categories. For example: interesting weather, non-political community events, star-gazing anamolies, etc.
From the open publishing newswire:
I have been asked to speak here tonight because of the way I have been spending my time lately, which is growing vegetables, fruit, and herbs in a bunch of different plots around Southeast, and doing most of the traveling, hauling, etc., by bike. "Bicycle-based urban agriculture," it has been called. I am running the operation as a CSA. A CSA -- which stands for "Community Supported Agriculture" -- is a business arrangement in which a set of households provide resources, fiscal and otherwise, to a farmer in the Winter and Spring and in return recieve produce throughout the Summer and into the Autumn.
Together with my farming partners, who also ride their bikes everywhere, we are growing food for 40 households out of all these plots. We also have "The Staple Foods Project", with its own set of supporters, which is intended to raise survival foods such as quinoa, soybeans, sunflowers-for-oil, soup peas, lentils, and more. The overall goal of these projects is food independence, for a small number of people anyway, by this winter. Also, we will share whatever it is we learn with whomever wants to know. When it comes to food growing, none of us can afford to make any trade secrets.
From the open publishing newswire:
Friday March 28, 2008, the Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters staged a picket line at the site of the Mississippi Avenue Lofts project (Skidmore and Mississippi Ave), demanding that contractor Gray Purcell pay area standard wages and offer area standard benefits. The union picketers showed up at 6:30 am in the rainy and snowy morning, but the situation got heated when a private security guard for the condo-project used the metal fence to to push against the picketers, threatened to mace them, then called the police, reporting a "riot." [ Read More ]
From the open publishing newswire:
Earlier today, as I was traveling down Alder Street, something caught my eye. In a sea of billboards competing with each other for my consciousness, I almost missed it. I almost went right by without registering it. But the face staring out from the huge, seemingly commonplace billboard was one that deserved attention, and quietly demanded it.
I had already looked away when it struck me. I had to back up and look again. Sure enough, in a city where every bare surface is covered with the cold face of commerce, where murals are illegal unless they're selling something and Clear Channel serves as gatekeeper of our collective consciousness, I had stumbled upon something different. This jaunty little pig was not selling anything. More revolutionary still, the little rogue was actually imparting an animal rights message! Surely I must be seeing things, I thought. After all, doesn't Clear Channel own every billboard in the city? Clear Channel once refused to sell ad space for a sign promoting vegetarianism, claiming that such a message was "too controversial." (Though, of course, "public service" slots for the forest industry, claiming that logging saves forests from fires, are not considered controversial at all by Clear Channel. Nor are signs advertising for the meat industry, or billboards selling women's bodies along with the cheap products they adorn and are adorned by.) Upon closer examination, I discovered that this was not a billboard at all, but an expertly executed banner.
From the open publishing newswire:
The public is invited to comment at the hearing in the Council Chambers, 4th and Madison at 2 PM, Wednesday. Comments can also be e-mailed to Karla Moore-Love, Council Clerk
 kmoore-love@ci.portland.or.us or given or mailed to her at 1221 SW 4th, Rm. 140, Portland 97204.
This is your opportunity to tell the Council what you think of more high-rise development, gentrification, and construction downtown. Moyer's architect is talking in the press like a planning Czar. He says he can put skyscrapers anywhere downtown using FAR stratagems if zoning does not allow, as with Moyer Tower. The Block-5 area has been a construction-sacrifice zone too often through the years :1997-2000, 2006-2008, and, if Moyer gets his way, it will be so again 2008-2011. "What market collapse?" say developers, who claim they're building "ten years into the future" and for "an exclusive market." What do you say to the makeover of your city for the benefit of some hypothetical upscale market from out of town? Moyer Tower stands for all of that and more of that.
From the open publishing newswire:
Several months ago, an article was posted here about a road closure in Colton. Most of you have probably never been out there, but I'm fairly certain that you are familiar with official tactics when citizens begin asking questions. The road remains closed and now the man in charge has stopped responding to questions.
What is most interesting is that this road was closed after a mud slide. The slide occurred when the owner of the property clear cut his land. Does that sound familiar? This is happening all over the Northwest. People who care nothing for the land and the soil, cut trees and walk off with their profits while the rest of us are left to deal with road closures and, more importantly, the loss of precious soils and forests. This damage has been done, but I am hoping that when the county gets emails from the people that they will understand that we are out here watching and we are not clueless.
From the open publishing newswire:
Moyer Tower, bigger than Fox Tower and only a block away, is getting no due process from the Design Commission.
The Moyer Tower project was presented to the public from the get-go, not as a project proposal in process, but as a fait accompli. The message to the public: "This is a done deal. Stay away." This proposed 35-story immensity, bulkier than Fox Tower and just a block away, has huge impacts and issues that deserve an honest process. One developer, who has already stamped a footprint upon midtown like no one else, wants to use dubious FAR-transfer stratagems to grab another four million cubic feet of midtown airspace. He, and a submissive Commission, want to do this with only a restricted and perfunctory affectation of a real due-process. His so-called land-use review is held as an afterthought, following a design review. That's doing the process backwards. Mr. Moyer, there is a civic dimension to all of this that you ignore. You think you are so magnanimous for donating Block 5 to the city for a park, but we notice that you have built a profitable six-level parking lot under it, that you have tried to put a big upscale restaurant on the surface of it, and that now you want to steal the air space over it in order to erect another oppressive skyscraper next to it. Next Land-use hearing: December 6, Be there and protest! 1900 SW 4th, 1:30 PM
From the open publishing newswire:
i may be accused of being nostalgic, but how can anyone not feel something as the red and black and other tenants are forced to move away from the 7 corners area, whose sense of place they helped to create? by sharing these thoughts i seek to strengthen my understanding, and stimulate discussion toward a bigger picture of our collective memory.
it's precisely because it is a common story of power, land ownership, the displacement of people and the disruption of the places they gather, that this story needs to be reflected upon. sure, the handwriting of gentrification was always on the wall at 7 corners, and the promises of a community minded landlord were accepted on a basis of minimal trust, but what a drag it is ultimately to be forced to move when it was your own action, creativity, and insight which helped to create the conditions for greedy landowners to exploit!
From the open publishing newswire:
Foster Farms, the infamous poultry company, is looking to build a 1.5 million chicken industrial operation in a farming community in rural Canby, OR. Industrial factory farms are taking advantage of the privileges afforded to family farmers. One rural community has been turned on its head as the family farmers and rural residents who live there have learned that an out-of-state corporation has all the rights and they have none. There are over 200 property owners that will impacted by the proposed operation. Voice your concerns for chickens and the community of Canby. Stop Foster Farms on Oak Grove Road in Canby.
From the open publishing newswire:
The U.S. military "experiment" known as "Operation Noble Resolve 07-2" begins today in Portland, with command centers in Virginia, Texas, Guam, Korea and two locations in Oregon: Salem and Portland. Despite the assurances of the US Joint Forces command that the exercise is "purely a computer-based simulation of an earthquake scenario in Portland", many people in the area are extremely concerned.
Some have mentioned the possibility of the simulation "going live", as happened with the Vigilant Guardian exercise on September 11, 2001. But even without it "going live", there is the little fact that the US military is NOT the organization commissioned by Congress to respond to disasters, and by doing so, as they did in New Orleans following Katrina, they violate the long-standing tradition of 'posse comitatus', which forbids the military from engaging in domestic policing activities. Audio: Interview with Captain May on Atmoic blast scenario for Portland | Established Pattern for Such Drills to go "live" | Tracking Supply Chains With RFID? | 2005 Articles about Noble Resolve/Top Off | Potential Targets | Staging the Portland Nuke (A Comedy of Terrors) | Previous feature on Noble Resolve
From the open publishing newswire:
Wisconsin to China, and then back across the sea to Vancouver, Washington. That was the trajectory of my brand new Trek bicycle, which I bought recently at a bike shop here in Vancouver.
Trek is based in Wisconsin, and some of their bikes, such as the one I bought, are made in China. It wasn't until I got home with my new bike that I saw the big, prominently placed Made in China sticker. I had assumed Treks were made in the U.S. -- if not in idyllic Wisconsin, then somewhere else. This misconception influenced my decision to buy another Trek, (my last Trek, bought years ago, was stolen last year. I wrote about that, using an alias, here:  http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2006/06/341690.shtml )
From the open publishing newswire:
How has the streetscape plan come to arrive on Mississippi and how does it relate to Rachel Elizabeth's appeal of The City Garden development scheduled June 25th before the Historic Landmark Commission?
Let's start at the very beginning. Mississippi Ave is in a Pedestrian District. This means that new developments must provide a 12 foot sidewalk. There are two ways that this is achieved, the builders either step their building back 2 feet or the street may be narrowed. In either case, the Developers provide (pay) for the modifications to the right of way. It is more common for new developments to step back their building. This is what PDOT told The Mississippi Ave Lofts (MAL) they must do when they were going through review. But, they did not want to do that so they arranged to talk with a PDOT supervisor. They met with Kurt Krueger and the outcome was that the street would be narrowed instead.
From the open publishing newswire:
Last month, I reported that Reklaim Technologies was trying to build a dirty, toxic tire-burning plant along the Columbia river, in the city of St Helens.
At the time that I wrote that report, it appeared that the permit for this facility was a done deal. The groundwork had been laid in the middle of the night, sneaking in under the radar in an effort to avoid citizen involvement in this decision. Ever-grasping planning commissioner Skip Baker appeared to already have his mind made up, and Reklaim spokespersons were already rubbing their hands together in gleeful anticipation of the new facility. However, the people of St Helens have proved to be more than these greedy industrialists bargained for.
From the open publishing newswire:
Speculative industrialists are trying to foist a dirty, toxic tire burning plant upon the community of St Helens, just North of Portland. Despite an underhanded effort to sneak this in under the radar of public comment, hundreds of people showed up last week to register their strong opposition to the proposal. But it seems that corrupt and short-sighted city officials may have already made up their minds, long before the public was even informed about the project at all.
Reklaim Technologies wants to make a killing. Literally, it seems. "Recycling" tires is the next big thing. They say they can get just over a gallon of oil for every tire they burn. They call themselves "eco-friendly," and their website is decorated with pictures of trees and waterfalls and hiking boots. They say that their "patented pending process" will "improve the environment." Those who know bullshit when they see it will recognize this for what it is. It's a lie. A story, manufactured to quell public concerns about the highly toxic process that this company will be using. A lie that will pave the way to profits for Reklaim technologies. |
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