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Rare tree saved by community action

A large and beautiful tree in our city has been saved by a concerted community action culminating in a public meeting with the developer who owns the property on which the tree is located. The Portland Paradox Walnut located at 5024 SE Mill St is over 100 years old and remarkable because it spreads out more than 120 feet and has a trunk more than 16 feet around,. The builder who owns the property, Steve Melkerson of Caliber Homes, responded to the neighbors’ concerns with a commitment to preserve the tree. He showed neighbors plans to build 12 multi-family units, down from the original 14, at the April 23 meeting.

Brian Mitchell, MTNA Land Use Co-Chair, was a leader in the campaign to save the tree.

Modernization of Franklin High School is underway

Planning and design continues through 2013 and into 2015. During construction, from summer 2015 until summer 2017, the Franklin community will be temporarily relocated in newly renovated Marshall High School. Students will return to a fully modernized Franklin High in the fall of 2017. The work is proceeding under the $482 million Portland Public Schools bond fund approved by the voters in November 2012.

Click here for the latest information about this project and to see how you can particpate.

More on the reservoirs

Neighbors rally for reservoirss turned out by the hundreds July 12 to protest the City’s plan to replace the three open reservoirs at Mt. Tabor Park with underground storage tanks. The demonstrators lined SE 60th Ave. below Reservoir #6. Many passing motorists honked their horns in support of the movement to save the reservoirs despite a City Council vote in early June to comply with a much disputed federal regulation calling for their closure by the end of 2015.
 
 The protests continued on Saturday and Sunday with a somewhat smaller but still enthusiastic groups of reservoir supporters. There  were virtually no signs of disorder for which the City had prepared.

The protest concluded Monday night with the arrest of four people who showed up for the first time late that night.  The protest organizers had negotiated with the park rangers that they could peacefully stay past midnight and then would fold the protest at 12:30 am.  Everyone who had been out there for days was happy to hear the news of the agreement.  But  the four people who arrived last minute made some declarations about how they were going to save the reservoirs by getting arrested and then they refused to leave.  All four were arreste

Attention is finally focused on DivisionStreet safety concern
Proposed lane reorganization may solve long-standing problems

Division Street Safety Project, as it is known, is built around a proposal to reconfigure the lanes on Division from 60th to 80th from two lanes in each direction to one traffic lane in each direction with a dedicated turn lane down the center and bike lanes on the sides. Goal is to improve traffic safety for all types of transportation along the corridor.

Key project objectives, as outlined by the Portland Transportation Bureau, include reducing the number of pedestrians, bicyclists and motorists killed or injured in crashes along SE Division Street, and to make it safer to walk, bike or take transit along SE Division, now considered one of the 10 most dangerous streets in the city.

 For a thorough examination of Division Street safety issues, and what our nerighborhood associations are doing to help, read this article by Paul Lesitner of the Mt. Tabor Neighborhood Association, and MaryLouise Ott, of the South TaborNeighborhood Association. Both the STNA and MTNA set aside time at their February and March meetings to give community members a chance to ask questions and share their opinions and suggestions.

200 neighbors rally in rain to save open reserviors

The rain was coming down steadily Oct. 28 but that did not deter a crowd of about 200 from attending a demonnstration around Reservoir 6 in Mt. Tabor Park.With a new City Council taking office after the November elections, there is still hope the five open reservoirs in Mt. Tabor and Washingon Parks can be preserved despite a much disputed federal order that they be closed. The exisiting City Council voted 4 to 1 against a compromise plan for saving the open reservoirs, despite overwhelming popular support for the proposal. Wih a new council coming in, there is hope Portland can follow the example of the city of Rochester, NY, which has won a 10-year reprieve from a similar federal regulation. Photos show some of the eager resrviors backers attending the Oct. 28 rally. See more photos are our Facebook page.

R 'n' R half-marathon fun skips our neighborhood this time

: The Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon, which caused some consternation last year when streets were blocked to let the runners pass, this year is bypassing our neighborhood. The course for the May 19 event this time will go no further east than 37^th Ave. See www.runrocknroll.competitor.com/Portland.

MTNA tidies up 50th Avenue entryway

From left, Greg Snider, Dawn Smallman and John Rutherford were among about a dozen neighbors who spent about 90 minutes Aug. 29 pulling weeds and otherwise cleaning up the neighborhood entryway, at SE 50th Avenue and Hawthorne Blvd.

As of late November, it appeared a professional landscaper would be retained by the MTNA to maintain the site for about $650 per year.

The site, developed by the MTNA on a curb extension, features a two-sided monument welcoming visitors to the neighborhood.

MTNA members key in fight to save open reservoirs

From the Southeast Examiner

Open reservoir backers are regrouping for a vigorous campaign to keep the reservoirs as they are, safe and scenic repositories for much of Portland’s drinking water. Two advocacy groups, the longstanding Friends of the Reservoirs (FOR) and the recently formed Citizens for Portland's Water (CPW) have joined to work on behalf of the reservoirs.

Besides influencing state and local lawmakers and rallying the public, advocates also hope to gain the attention of the news media, which they feel have been more inclined to listen to fatuous claims that the open reservoirs pose a health hazard. Rate payers are sufficiently burdened, they say, without having to pick up an expected near billion-dollar tab for shifting drinking water storage from the reservoirs to underground tanks and building an unneeded treatment plant, as required by the federal LT2 rule.
(Click here to read more)

(And click here to see an MTNA message urging the City Council to "press on" in the fight to keep the reservoirs as they are and here for a lucid historical look at the controversy by MTNA board member Paul Leistner.)