This is a conference room just across the semi-circular driveway of the Medical Office Building, at 501 N Graham. (directions)

0. Welcome and Introductions (10 min)

1. (Kristin) Read & Approve minutes (5 min)

2. Changes to agenda?

3. (Dave Harvey) Portland Superfund site (30 min)

4. (Amanda) Request for sponsorship of Music Festival (15 min)

5. (Allan)  Food for the board retreat? (10 min)

6. (Katy) Overview of Neighborhood System

7. Land Use Subcommittee Update

8. Other committees and Public Comment

The events feature exhibits from numerous community partners and an extensive schedule of workshops held throughout the day. Experts will be available to talk with you about water and energy savings, home and personal health, food and nutrition, community resources, recycling and yard care, lead testing, bike tune-ups and more!

Saturday, February 25 2012
Jefferson High School
5210 N Kerby Avenue
8:30 a.m. – 2 p.m.

To find out more information about scheduled workshops, visit www.portlandonline.com/bps/fif

The Fix-It Fairs are presented by The City of Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability with support from the following sponsors: Energy Trust of Oregon, Pacific Power, Portland Housing Bureau and Portland General Electric.

Albina Cooperative Garden

Yes, now it is Winter, but soon it will be Spring. Green buds will be pushing out from every plant node. You will have the urge to get outside and grow things. How will you start your vegetable growing experiment in the year 2012? Will you go alone outside to your muddy back yard (not to malign your back yard), or to the little pot on your windowsill (it’s a lovely windowsill, by the way), or to the parking strip you tore up last year (well, that’s not really a problem, the grass will grow back) and wonder “what next? Do I have to do this alone?”

Perhaps instead you’ll join the Albina revolution.

You want collard greens? We can grow collard greens. You want eggplant? We can do that. There’s only one small caveat, we need your labor and your generous spirit to lift this garden up.

If you have ever wanted to work on an organic farm with intrepid, all-weather, experienced farmers, you have a golden opportunity before you. Wait no longer!

Over the next 1st and 3rd Saturdays, around 10:30 am, come down to the Albina Cooperative garden at N Russell just West of N Vancouver. Meet the Project Grow farm team and various and sundry volunteers. There is no contract to sign, no set commitment, and no experience necessary. You are wanted just the way you are, and any level of participation is welcome.

With your labor and love, this beautiful South-facing lot will be transformed by Summer into a field of vegetable crops to be shared among us. Come work the farm right here in the heart of the city. The land has been tilled, the rows and the paths laid out. The next step, through Winter, is screening the tilled sod to remove rock, and hauling compost – a vigorous and rewarding job. You will feel virtuous, yet you won’t be alone. While you are standing over screens picking out rocks, or shoveling soil, you may find yourself talking with neighbors or new friends about books, plant biology, cooking … then you might have a doughnut break. You won’t know until you come. It’s everything you’ve ever wanted in a neighborhood. It’s yours. Love it, and let it feed you.

Who Supports the Albina Cooperative Garden?

Tim Donovan

Project Grow at Port City has received a five year lease from Emanuel hospital to lead the creation of this garden. Support comes from Legacy Emanuel Hospital, Eliot Neighborhood Association and the Lloyd District Association, with a very crucial grant from Portland Bureau of Environmental Services. The leadership comes from Project Grow’s farm specialists Tim Donovan and James Ragsdale, the resources come from the above organizations, and the cooperative labor comes from the community. The resulting produce is shared equally between members.

How Does it Work?

While there will be a set number of members in the garden (to ensure there is enough produce to go around), there will be greater capacity for membership than traditional plot-rental gardens.  Membership will be yearly, with competitive (read: crazy cheap!) prices.  Fertilizer, seeds, materials, and tools are all covered in the membership share; no need to sink a bunch of money into a money-saving food project!

In this model the group will define the atmosphere. The work may be a singular endeavor,  or there may be a competitive spirit that drives the growers. In either case it is meant to nourish the soul.  Everyone is invited to come pitch in on our weekend work parties, and interested residents of Lloyd & Eliot neighborhoods are encouraged to get in touch to apply for garden membership (email albina@portcitydevelopment.org) for the 2012 season.

The Albina Cooperative garden will be land worked together and the resulting produce will be shared. It is an urban agrarian experiment in self-organization. What happens when neighbors come together to farm the same land and harvest the same crops together? Working a field with other farm hands may transport you to another time or place. It’s positively revolutionary!

Interesting times create interesting experiments. Work began in May of 2011, and we have a guaranteed five years to experiment and transform this little part of Eliot. What will it look like in 2016?

Some of you may be aware of the population of predatory wildlife, including Coyotes. They commute through our parks and greenways on a daily basis. This may seem like a somewhat new and exciting phenomena but they have been politely traveling our streets and parks for many years now.  In fact, they were here long before we were!

Unsurprisingly there are some unfortunate opinions of our four-legged neighbors which can hinder our mutual interactions. Primarily is the “rescuer’s” idea that they are either hungry or displaced by urban expansion. Wildlife is often displaced by human expansion but many of these animals have adapted to our lifestyle. Orderly sidewalks make travel much easier and efficient, working populations leave neighborhoods quiet during daytime and nighttime hours for hunting and we provide an abundance of food.

This is where concern is warranted.  Food is an important part of any territory and our neighborhood is an excellent territory for any wild animal. Most of us have gardens and garbage and outdoor-fed pets. Delicious, for scavengers such as rodents, but before you leap to the wrong conclusion, not so much for coyotes.  Why would a crafty hunter settle for leftovers when they can eat the animals that eat the leftovers?

In rural areas the coyote diet is nearly exclusively squirrels, rats and smaller rodents. In an urban environment this persists.  They prefer to eat the rats and mice attracted to humans, although other small animals will do including cats and small dogs.  Most wildlife prefers to not be seen by larger predators (humans) and there are many more individual animals; coyotes, raccoons, skunks and opossums than any of us are aware of, making lives for themselves in our yards and parks. That is really neat. The concern is just if they decide to get brazen enough to pose a threat to our homes and families (pets included).

Basic prevention and good manners are enough to generally prevent problems.  Simple steps such as confining your property to your property (pets included), securing vulnerable animals (chickens in coops, rabbits in hutches, etc.) not leaving out hazardous or attractive materials and avoiding contact with animals you don’t know should be standard operating procedure.  Reducing attractive nuisances such as unsecured garbage, limiting food to just your outdoor pets (no open bowls of kibble), and keeping up with any composting to ensure swift decomposition will not only keep neighbors happy it will also reduce opportunistic feeders, those rodents coyotes find so tasty.  If you encounter unfamiliar or aggressive animals of any species you should take steps to defend yourself and report the sighting to local authorities.  Otherwise, live and let live.

Alexis Warwick is a former Animal Control Officer.

Volunteers are needed for:

Planting Day – February 11th:

• Loading/Unloading trucks – Unload trees from Nursery Truck, load Neighborhood trucks.
• Neighborhood Truck Driving – Drive your “pickup” truck delivering trees from staging area to planting sites.
• Planting Trees – Help neighbors on planting day plant trees.
• Refreshments and Lunch – Serve pastries, juice, coffee, and lunch items to volunteers.
• Cleanup – Cleanup refreshment table and staging area.

Post Planting:

• Summer Health Inspector – help monitor health of newly planted trees.

Volunteers who are planting trees should arrive at the Friends of Trees office at 3117 NE MLK by 8:45 am on Saturday February 11 to register and get assigned to a planting team.

Trees will be planted in 4 neighborhoods – Boise, Eliot, King, Humbolt – all in one day!

Meet your neighbors and improve the neighborhood at the same time!

If you are interested in volunteering send an email to eliot@plantitportland.org or call 503-552-8678.

Eliot Neighborhood Minutes 1/9/2012

7:04— Introductions (Encouragement by Allan Rudwick to learn about what is going on in your neighborhood and take on a board position.)

Minutes are read and approved

7:15—Crime Blotter

Officer Pete Helzer

Discussion of crime (shootings) specifically at Williams and Fremont an intersection which seems to attract crime.

What can we do?

• Get to know the kids in the community
• Boys and Girls Club
• Offer to mentor at Big Brothers Big Sisters

7:40— Randall Children’s Hospital at Legacy Emmanuel Presentation

Bryce Halverson and Pamela Weatherspoon Reed

• Explanation of each floor and its purpose
• New construction but they already had a children’s hospital. Now they have 165 private patient rooms.
• Grand Opening Saturday, February 11^th 12:00-6:00pm

Lee wants to know what will happen to the old space and would Emanuel Hospital ever consider creating or providing food/pharmacy spaces to enhance the community?

Bryce Halverson responds that the old children’s hospital will be remodeled and made into new departments.  He also states that Legacy Emanuel is always looking for ways to enhance the neighborhood and although things like a pharmacy and places for eating are not in the plans adding to the neighborhood can be seen even through the donation of the land for the community garden.

8:00—Eliot and Blazer Partnership Agreement

Angela Kremer

• Beautification Grant for next three years which is contingent upon having a parking permit plan.
• Angela motions that the board approve livability partnership between Eliot Neighborhood and the Blazers.

Julie Woelfer asks if PAM and the Lloyd District have already signed on.

Angela answers that they have not.

• Motion passes with all in favor none opposed
• Kirsten Jenkins motions that Angela Kremer represent the ENA within the partnership and that she also finds an alternate.

8:20—May Neighborhood Cleanup

Julie Woelfer

• Highlights that last year over ten tons of material was hauled out of Eliot Neighborhood
• Asks for men from Volunteers of America to be involved again
• Asks that Emanuel Hospital provide the space again
• Asks that New Seasons and Wonder Ballroom be kind enough to donate again like they did last year
• Date will be determined, but a weekend in May is the most likely

8:30—Historical Marker Gateway Project

Kirsten Jenkins

Completion is set for spring of 2012

8:40—Board Retreat Date Selection

Allan Rudwick

• Goal of the retreat is to give the board direction and vision
• Open to anyone who would like to come
• March 12^th regularly scheduled meeting—board agenda canceled and meeting lengthened from 6:00-9:00pm

8:50—Subcommittee and NECN updates

NECN Neighborhood Announcements for January 2012

Solarize NE Registration now open
Interested in adding solar to your property? Visit solarize.necoalition.org to learn more!

Forum: Candidate Skills vs. Policy Positions

On January 19, Portland residents are invited to help identify the skills and abilities community members want in Portland’s mayoral and city council candidates. A wide range of community and neighborhood organizations have joined together to sponsor a forum on the topic of skills required of a potential candidate. Information gathered will be used to develop a list of desired skills and sample questions voters can use to evaluate mayoral and city council candidates.

DATE: Thursday, January 19, 2012
TIME: 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
PLACE: St. Philip Neri Catholic Church, Carvlin Hall
2408 SE 16th & Division
Parking available
Transit: On the #4 Bus Line

Forum co-sponsor organizations:
Center for Intercultural Organizing
Coalition for a Livable Future
Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization
Latino Network
Native American Youth and Family Center
Northeast Coalition of Neighborhoods
League of Women Voters of Portland
Southeast Uplift Neighborhood Coalition
Urban League of Portland

Exploring Economic Development

NECN’s Community Economic Development Council will host the next in its speaker series investigating neighborhood economic development in inner north and northeast Portland on February 1, 2012 from 7-9pm at St. Andrews Church, 806 NE Alberta.

Learn how current state, metro and city policies shape neighborhood-level community economic development. Panelists from state, metropolitan, city and community perspectives will address how high-level policies translate into community benefits such as food, shelter, health care, safe places to live, education, transportation, energy, financing & jobs.

NECN and Concordia University host 2 Mayoral and City Council Candidate Forums – We’re seeking input on questions to ask candidates!

NECN and CU are partnering to host two candidate forums in the coming months. The theme of the first is “Livability” and will take place on February 28th. The theme of the 2nd is “Education” and will take place March 22nd.

What topics do you want to ask the candidates about?

Equity? Jobs? Safety? Schools? Columbia River Crossing? Clean Energy?

Submit questions to shoshana@necoalition.org by the end of January.

We will compile all and submit them to the forum moderator to ask of the candidates.

Northeast Coalition Community Committees 

Land Use and Transportation Committee Wed., Jan. 25, 7:00pm, at NECN
Safety and Livability Team  Monday, January 16, 6:30pm at NECN
Community Economic Development Council Thurs. January 19, 8am at NECN

It’s that time of year again: Clean-up Coordinator meeting
Emails haven’t gone out about this yet, however NECN will host clean-up coordinator meetings mid-February. Let your clean-up volunteers know it’s time to start thinking about the date and locations of this year’s clean-up.

Dawson Park Concerts

Pamela Weatherspoon Reed

• 1st meeting Friday, January 13^th at 6:00pm rm. 1003

N/NE Quadrant Study

Laurie Simpson

• How widening I-5 effects neighborhood
• Replacing overpasses
• Building “lids” over freeway
• Much closer to a resolution

9:00—Public Comment

Title Wave Used Bookstore

• 216 NE Knott St
• Monday-Saturday 10:00-4:00
• Gift Certificates Available
• 100 year celebration for the original Albina Library, which is the building they are located in
• Tours of the space are encouraged

New Board Member

• Julie Woelfer moves that John Engleheart-Noel be approved as a new board member
• Board unanimously approves

Mike Doherty has been nominated to the Food Policy Council

• It meets every 2^nd Wednesday of the month from 4-6
• Info on meetings and etc can be found at http://www.portlandonline.com/bps/index.cfm?c=42290

9:10—Meeting Adjourned

We are Project Grow. We offer good services for people with and without disabilities. This whole area is inclusion and everyone is allowed to come in here. It is also an employment job for people with and without disabilities, it gives you something to do and make money. You can come here and have good things to do, stay busy, go to dances. We have a community garden; it makes the world a better place, we are planting things. Mondays and Wednesday are homemade art day. We also do a haunted house and it is amazing. We like to go to coffee in the neighborhood and last Monday went to Powell’s.

I think that at the beginning of the year (2011) we went to city hall to talk to the commissioners to try to get them to not close project Grow. We let them know how important this is to us and to keep this open for all people with disabilities to have work to do and have more to do in their lives. This is a great place and it needs to be here. We need to do more advocating to get more people to come visit here. Some people ask us questions about what we do here at Project Grow. People need to know what employment means for people with disabilities… No one belongs in a sheltered workshop, it is not a job! People with disabilities have feelings and need real jobs, we need to have a place in the community where we are respected and treated like adults. We are not children anymore and want to be treated with respect. People need to have jobs in the community and get along in life with everyone else.

People like free stuff. Maybe we can give people coffee if they come and visit us, we will make it for you. We also have eggs for sale from our chickens here. Once a month we have a dance here. It is fun and you should come by. We also have Friday morning meetings where we talk about things that we want to do and what people are interested in doing. Its your turn to speak up…

Eleanor Bailey - Artist

As the newly elected chair of the Eliot Neighborhood Assciation (ENA), I am looking forward to an exciting year.  Why?  Because I enjoy meeting people and talking about what’s happening in our neighborhood now and what the future holds for us.  I enjoy the sense of community that comes with being involved with the neighborhood association.  I see great promise in our community, and I hope to contribute by creating and encouraging positive changes.

As chair of the ENA Board, I would like to invite each of you to attend a meeting this year.  I’m not asking you to join the board, but I would like to see you at just one meeting.  Come with a friend if you’re nervous, but you’ll find that we’re not too scary a group.  At my first meeting, I sat in the back, not too sure of where I fit in, and tried not to make much of a ruckus; however, a couple topics were interesting to me, and I chimed in.  I found that it’s hard not to participate in a discussion about your neighborhood.  And now I realize the more diverse the group in the room, the more perspectives we can bring to an idea, issue, or problem.

The Eliot Neighborhood Association is the primary contact point between the City of Portland and the people who live in Eliot.  The ENA works hard to strengthen our community through a quarterly newsletter, neighborhood cleanup activities, community gardening, and summer concerts at Dawson Park, among many other things.

Our neighborhood meetings regularly have about 10-15 people attending meetings, representing just 0.25% of the 3500 people living inside our neighborhood boundary.  Some of our peer neighborhoods have much more participation, and residents of those neighborhoods have a correspondingly greater amount of power to affect things around them.  Come out to a meeting to meet new friends and share your thoughts on how you’d like to see our community grow.

The Eliot neighborhood board meets the second Monday of every month.  The public is welcome to attend.  Board positions are open.  Currently renters, business owners, and minority residents are under-represented at meetings and on the board.

Eliot Land Use and Transportation Committee

Meeting Minutes – January 16, 2012

Meeting was called to order by Chair, Mike Warwick at 6:30 PM as scheduled.  A quorum was present.

Review of NE Quadrant freeway proposals

Mike reviewed the current status of the freeway options being considered by ODOT and PDOT as part of the NE Quadrant planning process.  The three neighborhood representatives to the NE Quadrant advisory committee were invited to review the most recent analyses and proposed options based on the December advisory committee discussion and decisions.  Staff from ODTO and PDOT spent the time over the holidays simulating a variety of options and their impact on freeway and surface street traffic.  Staff wanted to present these to the neighborhood representatives in advance of the meeting.  There was a limited amount of information handed out at the meeting so Mike brought what he could to review with the LUC.  He prepared a more complete description of the options which is posted on the Eliot website.  It updates his article in the Eliot News.  The same materials were presented to the NE Quadrant committee January 19^th and are available in the “packet” for that meeting on the Portland Plan web site.

In summary, staff determined the greatest improvements were provided by removing and replacing the existing freeway overcrossings and adding an auxiliary lane for merging/exiting traffic.  Additional benefits are provided using the braided ramps south of Broadway.  This results is two options the staff want to consider (aux lane and braided ramp).  Staff developed two options for reconfiguration of surface streets to manage freeway traffic and reduce conflicts between pedestrians and bikes.  One option involves putting “lids” over the freeway at Broadway/Weidler and Vancouver/Hancock.  The Vancouver/Hancock lid creates a connection across the freeway at Hancock that is new; that connection is expected to create cut-through traffic in Eliot and is, therefore, being opposed by Eliot’s representatives (as well as residents on Hancock and adjacent to Rodney Street.

Proposed “New Seasons” Development

The owners of the former Wonder Bread site south of Fremont between Williams and Vancouver have asked for a pre-application meeting with the city to discuss their proposal for a new single story building and associated parking that may be used for a New Seasons store.  New Seasons will (may) be a tenant only.  They are not the project developer and therefore, aren’t the one that needs to comply with zoning and building codes.  The committee shared their knowledge of the project.  Mike will attend the pre-app.  The meeting is for the benefit of the developer, however if neighborhood representatives show up they are usually asked for comment, so Mike asked the committee for any comments he should make.  The committee agreed on three major concerns:  first, management of traffic the store will attract given the area already suffers from poor traffic flow and conflicts with bike commuters; second, opening up the right of way to extend Ivy Street through the site; third, building the building to allow for future expansion upwards (adding floors over the store).

At the pre-app the City responded that traffic wasn’t a planning issue and therefore couldn’t be a basis for objecting to a proposal.  Mike made it clear that simply adding traffic signals on Cook would not address the likely problems that will develop because the site plan doesn’t have a surplus of parking.  He said there will be conflicts over parking on residential streets that the City will have to address.  That seemed to fall on deaf ears.  The developer indicated the parking lot would be accessed via an alley through the site, but the lot lines are such that it doesn’t line up exactly with Ivy.  They will provide sidewalks that will align with the sidewalks on the south side of Ivy as a result.  They also indicated they only intend for this to be a single story building.

Pre-app for Proposed High Rise Apartment Building on the SE corner of Williams and Fremont

Ben Kaiser is proposing to build a new multi-story apartment block on the block facing the proposed New Seasons.  His application requests a change from a medium density residential (R) zone to an “employment” (E) zone.  The primary purpose of a E zone it to support employment/job creation activities, typically light industrial.  While residential development is allowed, it is not encouraged.  However, the E zone provides more leeway for development, including fewer restrictions on building setbacks and other features that makes it attractive for lazy developers, as is painfully obvious in some of the new apartment blocks on Williams north of Fremont.  Ben’s pre-app appears to envision towers of 45 and 65 feet high adjacent to single story residences on the edge of the Eliot Historic Conservation District.  Mike suggested that Eliot oppose the zone change since it does not provide any employment as well as the proposed heights next to the historic district.  The committee agreed and Mike will carry that message to the pre-app meeting.  Since Ben is known to at least two committee members, he will be given a heads up prior to the meeting and offered a chance to amend his proposal at the pre-app.

Lot Division for 18 NE Stanton

A developer recently purchased this lot, which is substandard (40 feet wide instead of 50).  It is adjacent to the residence of Board member Joan Ivan who lives in one of Eliot’s few remaining Victorian cottages.  The developer is proposing to partition the lot into 3 parcels with two in the rear and one in the front with a common green to tie the rear lots to the street frontage.  The front parcel will abut Joan’s property.  They also intend to ask for a variance for the side set back to compensate for the fact the lot is narrower than normal.  Once the partition is granted, the buildings on each parcel the single buildings can be approved without LUC review.  It wasn’t clear to Mike how we could affect that element of the proposal or even if we could change the planned partition.  The committee agreed that if the common green and front parcel were reversed, we wouldn’t have a problem, but that if they are not, we would not approve the side setback request, at least, if it was in our purview.  Mike is going to find out what power we have and present our concerns to whatever staff he can as well as to the developer.

Meeting was adjourned shortly before its 8:30 scheduled end.

In 1993 the Albina Community Plan called for the identification of a gateway at the convergence of N.E. Grand Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd that would announce the entrance to a historic area of Portland, enhance the pedestrian environment, and incorporate multicultural public art.

The gateway consists of a plaza that will provide space for community gatherings and events.  Featured in the plaza are four 20 foot high weathering steel heritage markers with twelve interpretive markers that honor the history of the North Northeast neighborhoods in four major themes; Community, Civil Rights, Immigration/Migration, and Commerce and Culture.  The perforated weathering steel fence surrounding the plaza buffers the plaza from the heavy traffic flow on NE MLK while allowing clear sight lines into the plaza.  The fence and heritage markers will be lit with energy efficient LED lights creating a soft glow for nighttime interest.  Canopy trees in the plaza define the space and provide shade and seasonal color for visitors.

For more information on this project you can contact Irene Bowers, Senior Project Manager at Portland Development Commission or visit http://www.pdc.us/ura/convention_center/heritage-markers.asp.