Commentary:
 When it was announced that Hillsdale was one of three business districts chosen for the Main Street economic revitalization program, one of my colleagues on the task force said, "Now the real work begins."
Indeed.
Raising $30,000 in pledges and filling out out a 36-page application was really boot camp for the work to come.
What is the Hillsdale Community Foundation task force going to need in the weeks ahead?
Here's the short list: Focus, a smart hiring decision, volunteers and patience (and perseverance) with reluctant commercial property owners.
Let's take them one at a time.
"Focus" is the strong advice of Claudia Plaza, who is the Portland Development Commission's guide and mentor to the three chosen districts - Hillsdale, NE Alberta and St. John's. At the June 18 announcement ceremony, she stressed the need for solid, measurable progress. Measurable, in particular, to the Portland City Council in particular.
In these uncertain economic times, future funding for programs like Main Street is shaky, she cautioned. The Mayor and the commissioners want to see results.
So do we, and focus (and hard work) are the keys.
Plaza also said that the foundation's board's hiring the right person as our district manager is vital. Hire the wrong person and the whole program founders. The right person is an important key to success.
Then there's the question of volunteers. The Main Street effort will establish five committees, one each for promotion, design, revitalization, organization and sustainability. The good news is that several folks have already stepped up to volunteer, but we need more. In particular we'd like to see some new faces with some fresh ideas. So don't be shy. Contact me (editor@hillsdalenews.org) or anyone else on the task force to pitch in.
Another way to glean volunteers is to streamline and incorporate some of the work of existing volunteer organizations.
Major property owners were understandably reluctant to sign on to the Main Street program during the application period. They've taken a "show me" position. Show them we must - and, with time and patience, enlist their enthusiastic support.
The list goes one, but the above top mine for now. I hope you'll consider contributing to this effort if you haven't already. Main Street is the best shot we've had in years to make Hillsdale fulfill its huge potential.
Kafka in Hillsdale
One of the weirdest local stories I've come across is in this issue. It's utterly Kafka-esque. And to think that it happened within parking distance of the Hillsdale library.
Check it out. It's to the right of this column.
Imagine parking for years on the eastern, unsigned shoulder of Sunset Boulevard because the opposite side of the street is, rightly, posted "No Parking." You logically assume if the place you park has no such sign, you are within the law.
And then, one day last month, you and others get $70 parking tickets. The City of Portland's response? You should have known you were illegally parked.
Huh?
If you have a complaint, one ticketed parker was told, explain it to the judge.
Somebody has some explaining to do all right, but it isn't the parking "violators" and it isn't to the traffic judge. The explanation needs to come from the beyond-the-pale parking bureaucrats, and the public should be the judge.
Rick Seifert |
Letters to the Editor:
The June 8 Hillsdale News article on Hillsdale Terrace
quoted Ray Hallberg as saying the Terrace proposal is
"outrageously" expensive. Instead, Hallberg urged the Housing Authority of Portland to
apply for "Section 8" rent subsidy funding. While I disagree with Mr.
Hallberg's criticism of the proposal, I certainly support his call for
increased Section 8 funding.
Unfortunately, I do not believe such funding is an alternative for
Hillsdale Terrace residents. We at Neighborhood House are in
the business of placing poor families in low-income and affordable
housing. Over the last decade we
have seen SW Portland lose rental units available for Section 8 housing partly
because of the surge in condo conversions, which has increased rents, but also
because landlords will not accept Section 8 renters. Placing Hillsdale Terrace
residents in Section 8 would most likely force them to move to East Portland or
Gresham against their will. Surveys show that the majority would prefer to
remain in SW Portland because of our good schools, great transportation,
excellent services, beautiful environment and low crime - the very reasons we
all choose to live here. Homeowners here also value income and cultural diversity and
welcome residents of Hillsdale Terrace, the Watershed and the hoped-for Sears
Armory Housing. Unfortunately the
consequences of relying on Section 8 Housing would force Terrace residents to
leave. The effect would be the same as saying, "Because you are
poor, we want you out. Because you
are poor, you are of no consequence." So I am disappointed that the Housing Authority was not
awarded funding to redevelop Hillsdale Terrace And while their proposal was not
perfect and the location is not perfect, the property is a valuable asset. It is, what we have to work with. HAP heard the concerns of the Hillsdale Neighborhood
Association. They are working to develop ownership homes. They will work to
increase and improve access to and from the Terrace. Now is the time for us to move beyond criticism and work
with HAP to make the Hillsdale Terrace proposal better. Rick Nitti, Executive Director, Neighborhood House
More Dosch reflections
I found your Owen Cramer Dosch Road article interesting. I came into this world at 3001 SW Dosch Road in July 1945. I think it is the first house on the right starting down the hill if I remember right.
I left Oregon in 1986 and don't get back all that often.
Somewhere I think I have a picture looking down the road before it was paved.
I can somewhat remember going to Council Crest with my father to pick up my grandmother at the trolley stop.
When I was 4 my parents didn't like the increased traffic on Dosch Road so we moved down to Flower Terrace where I lived until I graduated from Wilson in 1963.
I have been reading Hillsdale News for a few years. I enjoy reading about my old stomping grounds. Articles like the one about Lynch's Market bring back memories.
Keep up the good work.
Sam Herr
Ogden, Utah
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Hillsdale's Main Street team gathers around Mayor Sam Adams to celebrate.
Left to right are Tom Mattox, Dave Richardson, Richard Garfinkle, the Mayor, Jim Stutts, Rick Seifert, Anne Curran and Mike Roach.
Hillsdale Town Center chosen
as a Portland Main Street District
The Hillsdale business district, which straddles busy Capitol Highway, has been chosen as one of three Portland Main Street districts. In a formal announcement ceremony in St. Johns on June 18, Mayor Sam Adams congratulated the chosen Main Street organizations: the Hillsdale Community Foundation, the St. John's Main Street Coalition and the NE Alberta Main Street Coalition. The non-profit Hillsdale Community Foundation, working with community volunteers, raised the required $30,000 in pledges and submitted a 36-page application to qualify for consideration. An expanded foundation board will serve as the Hillsdale Main Street board. Committees will be formed to address five main areas: organization, economic revitalization, promotion, design and sustainability. Multnomah Village raised the required pledges and completed its application but wasn't selected. Randy Bonilla, one of the Multnomah organizers, said the Village is likely to reapply next year. "We have a leg up because of the knowledge of what we have done," he said. 42nd Avenue Main Street Collaborative was the fifth and final group to qualifying, but its bid was unsuccessful. Adams noted that the Portland programs, administered through the Portland Development Commission (PDC), will be the first "Green" Main Street programs in the country. He said the Main Street is designed to help small businesses, which account for half of Portland' employment. Portland's unemployment rate has been in double digits for 14 months, he added. In an interview, PDC Main Street coordinator Claudia Plaza said that cuts in the City's budget required reducing the City's original pledge to contribute $73,000 to each program in the first year of the three-year program. The City will now contribute $58,000 to each program. The cuts came in money earmarked for sustainability projects, dropping the amount from $20,000 to $5,000. Without the $15,000 cut, Plaza said, two, not three, districts would have been selected. She added that future Main Street funding will depend on the City Council's reconciliation of competing demands for public money in hard times. Plaza said that the cut in sustainability funding made sense because the first year of the programs will focus on organizing and planning, not implementing, sustainability efforts. Portland and the PDC are initiating a Main Street approach that has been used and refined in more than 2,000 communities for the last 30 years. The program is designed to revitalize traditional business districts. Major cities such as Boston, Chicago, Milwaukee, Baltimore, Orlando and Washington DC have instituted the program. Main Street National executive director Doug Loescher told the audience of well-wishers and local organizers at St. John's Lady Bug Café that Portland's new program is the first to emphasize sustainability. Each of the districts, working through a local, volunteer non-profit board, will hire a Main Street manager and establish an office. The Hillsdale effort was spearheaded by the Hillsdale Community Foundation, which formed a group calling itself the Hillsdale Main Street Task Force. Foundation board members on the task force were Mike Roach, Jim Stutts, Pam Field, Dr. Richard Garfinkle, Ted Coonfield and Rick Seifert. Non-board members, who played important roles in the effort, were Dave Richardson, Anne Curran and Peter DeCrescenzo. Roach, who is president of the Hillsdale Business and Professional Association, said that Hillsdale Main Street will seek to involve the entire Hillsdale community in the program. Plaza said the selection committee was attracted by Hillsdale's need to address a major thoroughfare running through its business district. "They felt that other districts with the same problem could learn from the Hillsdale Main Street experience," she said. Loesher said that nationally Main Street districts have used the Main Street Model to make auto-oriented districts more pedestrian friendly. Each of the chosen districts now must collect the $30,000 that has been pledged by September and raise another $20,000 in cash or in-kind contributions before March. The local financial commitment is for three years, and 70 percent of Hillsdale pledges were for that duration, said Jim Stutts, the foundation board member who tracked local pledges. Each Portland Main Street program will receive financial and technical assistance and intensive training. Plaza said that Main Street help for the districts will begin almost immediately, with local board training scheduled for July 12 to 14. |
Hillsdale's Main Street objectives
Now that Hillsdale has been named a Main Street District, how might the resulting money and resources be used?
The Main Street application, a 36-page-long document, asked the same question. What would you do if ... ?
In response, task force members wrote that their goal was to create "a dynamic shopping destination that becomes the community center for a neighborhood that enjoys walking and biking and supporting its local vendors and participating in community activities. Hillsdale will be seen as a model for its adherence to and implementation of green strategies."
To accomplish the goal, the task force laid out several objectives: - Increase the foot traffic in the commercial business district.
- Capture more of the 30,000 vehicles that travel Capitol highway daily with incentives to stop and shop.
- Coordinate and implement Town Center plans.
- Increase the number of volunteers focused on improving the vitality of the Hillsdale community.
- Improve the attractiveness of the businesses, signage, parking, and landscape of the core business district.
- Implement bike accessibility design, improve walk-ability, and increase parking capacity and convenience.
- Create and begin implementation of a comprehensive Sustainability Plan for the business district.
- Study and coordinate changes in business mix and attract new magnet cornerstone businesses.
The group wrote that it would begin its effort with "a branding strategy for the district" coupled with promotions and local advertising emphasizing "Hillsdale as the preferred place to shop and the sensible choice based on reducing the ecological footprint by shopping locally."
The task force calls for "community brainstorming meetings to determine current preferences and implementation priorities for making Hillsdale more relevant to its customers and the neighborhood."
Another focus, the application response said, would be on "enhancing the physical space through small and large projects that will be aesthetically appealing while supporting sustainable values." |
Owners of cars parked on Sunset near the library could be given parking tickets.
With no warning, parking area
becomes no parking zone
She and other librarians don't park in the underground library lot in order to reserve the space for patrons.
"We are trying to do the right thing," she said.
But on Friday, May 28, "doing the right thing" earned Tribe and several other Sunset parkers $70 parking tickets.
She said that in all her years of parking on the shoulder strip there have never been signs prohibiting parking. And there still aren't.
She added that one house has a reserved for handicapped sign in front of it, which parkers honor. And the opposite side of the street is clearly marked "No parking."
In fact, she says, the signs suggest that parking in unsigned areas along the east side of the road is fine.
But on that Friday, with no warning, cars there were ticketed.
Fellow librarian Shauna McKain-Storey said the ticketing officers lectured her, saying she should have known that the stretch was a "pedestrian right-of-way" and hence off-limits to cars.
The officer declared that the absence of signs was no excuse for parking on the shoulder. "It's the law. You are supposed to know it," the officer told McKain-Storey.
Meanwhile, Tribe paid her fine but wrote a letter seeking explanation. She has had no response.
Dan Anderson, spokesperson for the Portland Bureau of Transportation, said that complaints like Tribe's are decided by the judge.
Anderson said the parkers were ticketed becasue pedestrians had telephoned to complain about cars parked along the shoulder.
Anderson supported the ticketing officer: There don't have to be "no parking" signs for an area to be legally off-limits to parked cars. "We don't post every rule the City of Portland enforces," he said.
For instance, he said, it's illegal to park in front of someone's driveway, but that's not posted.
If there are enough complaints about parking along Sunset, the City could put in no parking signs, he said.
Until that happens, unknowing parkers still park along the unsigned stretch as the above photo, taken on June 18, attests. Can those unsuspecting, uninformed parkers expect to get tickets?
Maybe, Anderson said. Hillsdale isn't routinely patrolled for parking violations. Instead, complaints result in ticketing. "It's a complaint-driven system," he said.
Meanwhile, Don Baack, the transportation chair of the Hillsdale Neighborhood Association, distinctly recalls working with the City traffic officials to have "No Parking" signs installed on the opposite side of the street. Transportation officials at the time pointed out to westside residents that they could still legally park on the east side, Baack said.
Baack said "rogue" parking enforcers should tell the Neighborhood Association what they are doing before they start handing out tickets.
Baack, who is the founder and president of SWTrails, also noted that Fairmount Boulevard, a popular pedestrian street, has dozens of cars parked in the right-of-way, yet there's no enforcement there.
Finally, Baack, who carries pruning clippers with him to trim away foliage that intrudes on pedestrian right-of-ways, half-jokingly suggested that perhaps the owners of the offending shrubs should also be ticketed.
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Briefly
Help needed to find stolen baseball signs
Wilson High School administrators want help finding three large signs stolen from the school's baseball outfield fence sometime in the last six weeks.
The 4-foot-by-8 1/2-foot Corex signs advertised Able Signs, Oregon Sports Authority and Les Schwab Tire Center.
Anyone with information about the thefts should contact Erica Meyers, emeyers@pps.k12.or.us, or Marshall Haskins, mhaskins@pps.k12.or.us or call 503-916-5280 at Wilson.
Decide where gas tax money should be spent
Neighbors are invited to join pedestrian advocates to help assess how newly generated state gas tax money should be spent to improve walkways in Hillsdale and Southwest Portland.
The advocates are encouraging those interested to join in three walks along different nominated routes.
The hour-long walks, which begin near the Hillsdale Oak behind the dance studio, begin at 5:30 p.m.. The dates are Tuesday, June 22; Thursday, July 8, and Monday, July 12.
Participants should wear bright colors and bring water if it is hot.
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The Date Book
Monday, July 21
Summer Solstice service
At the Hillsdale Community Church, 6948 SW Capitol Hwy.
6:30 Simple Supper (Fellowship Hall, enter on Texas Street)
7:00 Service (Sanctuary)
Free and open to the public. Pray for healing yourself, a loved one, and our endangered plan
Sunday, June 27 and the three following Sundays
Book drop-off for Foundation's used book sale
At the Hillsdale Farmers market, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Time to move those used books along to the rest of the community at the July 25th Hillsdale Used Book Sale. Proceeds benefit the Hillsdale Community/Main Street Foundation. Donations are tax-deductible. CDs, DVDs welcomed. Textbooks and dated books are not.
Monday, June 28
Hawaiian Luau: 2010 Volunteer Recognition
7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Multnomah Arts Center auditorium. In recognition of outstanding volunteers from all Southwest Portland's neighborhoods. Dinner and dessert will be served.
Saturday, July 3
Usual Suspects Hillsdale Litter patrol
Become a "usual suspect" by joining for an hour of litter clean-up in the Hillsdale Town center. Meet at 9 a.m. on the Food Front "porch." Bring a grabber, if you have one, and trash bag. Wear work gloves. Good clean-up fun. Refreshments, compliments of Food Front, follow.
Wednesday, July 7
Hillsdale Neighborhood Association Meeting
7 p.m. at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, 2201 SW Vermont. Agenda items include: Mittleman Jewish Community Center Master Plan, Hillsdale Greenway/Bike Boulevard, Hillsdale Main Street program
Saturday, July 17
Wilson Alumni baseball games/social
11:00 a.m. The first game is for the even-numbered classes; the second game for odd-numbered classes. A three-inning game between the two alumni groups will be held in between games.
A post-game, no-host social will be held at the Cider Mill for alumni, family and friends.
Sunday, July 25
HBPA Pancake Breakfast/HCF Book Sale
In the Key Bank/Casa Colima parking lot. Breakfast from 8:30 a.m. to Noon. Proceeds benefit the Hillsdale Business and Professional Association. Book Sale from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. with proceeds benefiting the Hillsdale Community/Main Street Foundation.
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Rick Seifert
Editor, Hillsdale News
(503) 245-7821
editor@hillsdalenews.org
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