CNA Voices – Thoughts for Veterans Day
By Steve Elder | CNA Media Team
Veterans Day 2019 will be observed Monday, Nov. 11, and is a federal holiday. This year’s Veterans Day marks the 100th anniversary of the ending of World War I. The holiday was originally known as Armistice Day until World War II, and Korea crowded the calendar.
Veterans Day usually is wrapped around by a three-day weekend – usually glorifying commerce and often doing only lip service to those who were killed, wounded or psychologically impaired in the armed forces during their service. (Disclosure: I spent two years in the Army in the 1960s. I saw no combat and have no PTSD.)
Throughout American history aggressive military force has helped establish our moral position in the world. Our worldly reputation is based on how much we are at war and how much we are at peace.
To maintain our war credibility the administration is currently ginning us up for several new wars, particularly in Venezuela and Iran.
At a recent town hall in Clatsop County, U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley was asked what he has done to ensure we engage in diplomacy instead of the use of troops in Venezuela. He spoke of a proposal he had introduced in the Senate which, if enacted, would prevent the president from using armed force in Venezuela.
Not only is the United States ready to attack Venezuela, he said. It is readying us to support more military action in the Middle East. Not seemingly having learned any lessons in Iraq, the administration talks about the threat Iran poses to the United States.
Just in the past few weeks the United States deployed a carrier strike group along with bombers to the Middle East, supposedly to counter possible Iranian threats. A couple of weeks ago, in spite of Congress having voted that the U.S. should not assist in the Saudi-led war in Yemen, another “emergency” was declared by the administration and spending of $8 billion for more guns to Saudi Arabia was authorized.
Miniaturization of the American budget and foreign policy is a bipartisan endeavor. Republicans and Democrats like to claim they are on opposite sides of many issues but, when it comes to militarism, they are on the same side.
Old men and women are sparing no expense, sending young men and women to be killed or wounded. The administration budget request is almost 10% more than the Congress said was needed for military spending.
We have many many things to spend on besides military spending.
Note: CNA respects the views and beliefs of all cultures and faiths. The views expressed by this writer do not necessarily reflect the views of CNA.
Steve Elder, East2@ConcordiaPDX.org, is an inactive lawyer, a developer, activist and old grouch.
RGB is more than just its name
By Garlynn Woodsong | Video Game Enthusiast
It’s no coincidence the acronym for Retro Game Bar is RGB. It describes the red, green and blue connection cables between the collection of vintage gaming consoles and their monitors.
Owners Jason and Shira Yovu opened the bar in May at 6720 N.E. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. Since then gamers have flocked there to enjoy the collection of 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s cartridges and discs that play on 19 consoles.
“We had to buy more consoles, monitors and equipment to open RGB, and also more games for systems like the Dream Cast that didn’t feature prominently in my personal collection,” Jason explained.
Although the form of entertainment at RGB is relatively rare, he’s no newcomer to food service. This is the fourth establishment in which he’s been involved with startup. One was in Maine, where Jason and Shira met almost 10 years ago.
RGB features the games Jason has collected for more than 15 years. “I wanted the games in my collection to be played, not sitting around collecting dust, to have these games be accessible to everyone,” he said.
During the summer, RGB sponsored special weekend hours for minors. “As of mid-October, our all-ages program is on hiatus,” Shira said. “But we hope to redesign it with more options and bring it back by early 2020.”
One of the pleasures for RGB visitors is the opportunity to play on classic systems like the Turbo Graphics 16 from the late 1980s – far less common than its contemporary, the original SEGA Genesis and Super Nintendo systems – as well as a few machines such as a Neo-Geo that were previously coinoperated.
RGB features all original hardware and games, no emulators or replicators. It gives the authentic feel, like a record shop, of using the actual original media. RGB signals are the preferred output from the consoles to the monitors, of course, along with analogue outputs.
“We had to modify some consoles slightly,” Jason pointed out. “That allows them to send the RGB signals for their original full resolution to be displayed on monitors that are much higher resolution than the TVs most people originally played the consoles on.”
RGB serves fare as nostalgic as its games, including themed cocktails and a variety of hot dogs.
Garlynn Woodsong lives on 29th Avenue, serves on the CNA board and is an avid bicyclist. He also is a dad who is passionate about the city his son will inherit. He is the planning + development partner with Cascadia Partners LLC, a local urban planning firm. Contact him at LandUse@ConcordiaPDX.org.
Students practice neighborliness
By Grace Aklestad | student Concordia University-Portland
As a student participating in service leadership at Concordia University-Portland, I found my place on campus, identified a career path of civil service, and am forever changed as an individual, a leader and a global citizen.
Student volunteers seek to build community with and in the immediate Concordia neighborhood, as well as throughout the city.
Our Sept. 13 day of service resulted in 350 volunteers contributing 900 hours throughout northeast Portland with local nonprofit organizations. The effort brought the campus community together, and it helped everyone develop better relations and understanding of the Concordia neighborhood.
University students, faculty and staff cleaned up the communal gathering place of Woodlawn Park, set up for a community powwow with NAYA, packed food for the Oregon Food Bank and helped Faubion School with its picture day.
This is the university’s mission in action: to prepare leaders for the transformation of society.
As a student leader in the Office of Service Leadership, I lead students in weekly service with Night Strike, building relationships with a population experiencing homelessness. Just as people need food and shelter, many are in dire need of a sense of community.
The impact of a game of Uno or sharing a cup of coffee is felt as much as a hot meal or a fresh blanket. The relationships made under the bridge benefit guests of Night Strike, but are even more deeply beneficial to volunteers like myself.
My heart has been forever changed by the people I have met under the bridge. In conversations, I have seen and experienced whole world views shift. This is why CU engages students in service learning: to broaden horizons, understand a variety of life experiences and build supportive communities.
Service at CU is not about changing the community or individuals that comprise it. It is not about the manifestation of our vision in the neighborhoods in which we work.
Service is about using our voices and bodies, as the hands and feet of Christ, to lend help to make changes as the community members see fit.
As a CU student in service, my hope is to interact with community members and help realize the vision they have for improving our community as a whole.
Grace Aklestad is a senior history major from Montana. Upon graduation , sh intends to pursue dual juris doctorate and Arab studies masters degrees.
Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater
By Garlynn Woodsong | CNA Board Member, SW1 | CNA LUTC Chair
Portland city commissioner Chloe Eudaly ordered the rewrite of city code 3.96, which governs the relationship between the neighborhoods, neighborhood associations, district coalitions, business district associations and elements of the city government.
She expressed a desire to increase equity by reshaping who gets a say in city policy. She feels neighborhood associations too often represent white homeowners and exclude renters, people of color and immigrants.
She believes neighborhoods serve as gatekeepers that stand in the way of denser development and additional affordable housing.
Your Concordia Neighborhood Association board does not disagree with her diagnosis. We feel, however, there are effective solutions to increase participation, ones that don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater.
Fundamentally, we believe there is a place for geographically-based groups in our citywide dialogue. Faith- and ethnicity-based groups alone cannot sustain the robust civic life Portlanders pride ourselves in. This is a city of neighborhoods to celebrate, preserve and enhance.
In the spirit of Thomas Jefferson’s concept of a ward republic – and toward the goal of promoting and enabling more diverse participation in the most local geographic units of our democracy – the CNA board made these recommendations to city council:
- Elect neighborhood association board members in county-administered general elections. That’s how it works for East Multnomah County Soil and Water Conservation District and circuit court judges. Our local neighborhood associations provide much in the form of community-building activities. They surely are important enough to rate at least this basic level of recognition.
- Allow individuals to nominate themselves and others for board elections for free.
- Ensure neighborhood associations reach out to all community-based organizations within their borders to make those groups aware of the opportunity to be elected the neighborhood association boards.
- Dedicate a meaningful percentage of revenue from on-street parking – both from residential permit programs and from meters – toward neighborhood improvement project programs comanaged by each neighborhood association in partnership with the city and neighborhood coalition offices. This revenue stream could be used in combination with other funding sources to help deliver more livability outcomes in shorter periods of time. Neighbors would help decide where and when to build bulb-outs, place benches, stripe crosswalks, plant trees, place public art, hold events and otherwise help achieve and maintain community livability goals.
- Head off efforts by some neighborhoods to slow the development of much-needed new homes during our extended housing crisis by the city providing more by-right fastapproval development pathways in all neighborhoods. So, if projects are proposed that meet adopted development and design standards, they can be approved administratively and without the opportunity for delay presented by discretionary review and lengthy public involvement and appeal processes.
- Protect neighborhood livability from new development – rather than destroy it – by empowering neighborhood associations to work with the city to develop and adopt design standards that work as a part of a citywide form-based code. That will allow each neighborhood to articulate and enforce its own local design character, as long as those regulations don’t impede factors measured by the Buildable Lands Inventory that are related to the ability to provide sufficient development capacity within our urban growth boundary.
Garlynn Woodsong lives on 29th Avenue, serves on the CNA board and is an avid bicyclist. He also is a dad who is passionate about the city his son will inherit. He is the planning + development partner with Cascadia Partners LLC, a local urban planning firm. Contact him at LandUse@ConcordiaPDX.org.
CNA Voices – Love, activism & city code
By Suk Rhee | Portland Office of Community & Civic Life Director
Love and activism are frequent topics in these pages, whether quoting Muhammad Ali (August) or demonstrated through master recycling (June). The Office of Community & Civic Life, and Portlanders, proudly share this heritage.
We love working together, and in many different ways. This is seen in Civic Life’s programs, from neighborhood associations, to the city/county youth commission, to the Cannabis Policy Oversight Team. We love learning from change with an open heart, open mind and willing hands to better serve multiple generations.
We also love our city and recognize it is growing and shifting. Civic Life has been directed by the city auditor and council to change the part of city code that is our bureau’s job description. This means updating our current code to engage our city’s dynamic future.
To inform this change, we engaged with a diverse cross section of Portlanders –including those served and not served by Civic Life – about their values and how civic engagement can help us achieve greater things. This is important because government’s responsibility is to reflect all its members.
This year-long process included online surveys, community forums in five languages, working with high school journalism programs, meeting with groups familiar and new, a gathering to bring these groups together and more.
We heard things in common. Portlanders demand more equitable outcomes as we grow from a city of 653,000 to 880,000 by 2035. This means tackling big issues so that working families, communities of color and rent-burdened tenants can keep calling Portland home.
Portlanders want government to recognize their realities and ways of organizing. Some work the late shift, are caregivers, want to participate digitally, combine social and volunteer activities or organize through important cultural traditions.
We also heard differences. Notably, communities’ relationship with government is starkly unequal. The accountability – and the moral and legal obligation – to address this rests with government, not with those in whom government has invested, or not.
After a year of listening to Portlanders, the proposed code language builds on our current network by increasing opportunities for community building and engagement. It commits to delivering more racially and socially inclusive outcomes. It keeps current privileges in place for neighborhood associations, district coalitions and business districts until better systems are adopted. And, names government as accountable for serving all its members, with love for our differences and respect for our shared heritage of activism.
Learn more about the code change here.
Editor’s note: Suk Rhee is the guest speaker at the Nov. 6 Concordia Neighborhood Association annual membership meeting. It’s at 7 p.m. in McMenamins Kennedy School Community Room.
They named it Irvington for marketability
By Doug Decker | Historian
The Concordia neighborhood is a quilt of underlying subdivisions, also known as plats filed by developers more than 100 years ago when they first laid out – and then carved out – streets and lots from the fields and forests that occupied these gentle slopes above the Columbia River.
My June column mentioned Foxchase, one of those plats. But there are many more, each one with its own history: Kennedy’s Addition, Ina Park, Lester Park, Town of Creighton, Heidelberg, Sunderland Acres, Concordia Green and the largest of all, Irvington Park.
Interesting, isn’t it, that the makers of our neighborhood wanted to name it after another neighborhood that already exists? That’s marketing for you.
The Irvington Park plat occupies the area from 25th to 33rd avenues, between Rosa Parks Way and Killingsworth Street, an area of about 175 acres. That’s big by northeast Portland plat standards.
When the Irvington Park plat was filed back in November 1890, the Irvington neighborhood we know today south of Fremont Street was already a going concern with wide streets, big houses and wealthy business people moving in and building up the area. Today we would say property values there were definitely skyrocketing.
The initial developer of Irvington Park here in Concordia in 1890, Edward Quackenbush, liked the vibe of the original Irvington – which he was not party to, by the way – and wanted to cash in on the coattails of its identity, something that other east Portland developers tried to do as well.
Check out the adjacent advertisement from The Oregonian July 10, 1907, that implies a connection with “Irvington Proper,” but also points out that prices in Irvington Park are way less expensive.
Other eastside developers did the same thing, which was annoying for the Irvington real estate people. But it worked.
With the help of the Alberta Streetcar, homeowners flocked to Irvington Park and the commercial district around Alberta Street boomed. A community club was organized, a club house and dancing venue was built near 30th Avenue and Ainsworth Street.
And something else happened: community spirit. Here’s a paragraph from The Oregonian July 25, 1915:
“There never was a finer feeling in a community than now exists in Irvington Park – and their community club has done it and its work will go on benefitting one and all and bringing them closer and closer together.”
Ask the Historian is a CNews standing feature that encourages readers to ask questions about the history of the neighborhood and its buildings. Is there something you’ve wondered about? Drop a line to CNewsEditor@ ConcordiaPDX.org and ask Doug Decker to do some digging.
Doug Decker initiated his blog AlamedaHistory.org in 2007 to collect and share knowledge about the life of old houses, buildings and neighborhoods in northeast Portland. His basic notion is that insight to the past adds new meaning to the present.
Local artist fuses glass into jewelry, more
By Nancy Varekamp | CNews Editor
Twelve bars of soap turned Susan Hathaway into an artist at age 6, although now her medium is glass
“My grandparents worked with their hands,” she recalled. “They influenced me to want to work with mine.”
Her grandmother had planned to put the bars of soap to traditional use. However, when the grandmother returned home one day, Susan and the grandfather had put a carving knife to use. The result? Twelve animals.
In high school, her medium became paper and ink. Calligraphy launched Susan’s early career in an Old Town shop, where she penned wedding and shower invitations, framed pieces, and more.
A young man on a bicycle delivered sandwiches to the shop one day and now he – David – and Susan have been married 45 years.
When Susan was 26, she found her permanent artistic calling during a stained glass class, a gift from her mother. Cutting and applying lead and solder to colored glass wasn’t sufficient.
“From then on it was all about fusing glass,” Susan said. With the gift of a kiln from her uncle, she became a self-taught glass maker.
During the 10 years she managed a daycare center in the Concordia home the Hathaways bought in 1978, glassmaking time was limited. When Susan was able to hire part-time help – fellow Vernon School parent Teri Knesal – she was afforded time to work with glass.
“Teri and David became my marketers,” she explained. And they continue to help out at street fairs and craft shows in northeast and southeast Portland, and previously for 20 years at Saturday Market.
You can also look for Concordia Glass earrings, necklaces, hair clips, garden stakes, angel ornaments and five-character nativity sets on sale nearby at:
- Sharon’s Hair and Nails, 4216 N.E. Mason St.
- Hollywood Senior Center‘s Golden Treasures shop
- McMenamins Edgefield’s Gorge Glashaus
Although Susan stopped selling to Made in Oregon after a few years and left Saturday Market two years ago, she can still be found at local craft fairs with David and Teri.
“I’m her chauffeur and sometimes her ‘show-er,’” David rhymed. He retired three years ago years ago from Cloudburst Recycling.
Selling wholesale to stores helps pay the bills, but the shows offer them contact with the customers, Susan pointed out.
“It’s nice just to have people appreciate what you’re doing, and I enjoy talking to the other vendors.”
David agreed and added, “The entry fees you pay to be in many of them – like the Hollywood Senior Center and All Saints School – go to a good cause.”
Editor’s note: Find Susan – and most likely David and Teri – Saturday, Nov. 9, at the Hollywood Senior Center Holiday Bazaar from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 1820 N.E, 40th Ave. In addition to shopping at the Concordia Glass table, you’ll find other local crafters with their wares, plus soup and pie for lunch.
Nancy Varekamp is semiretired from her career in journalism, public relations and – her favorite work engagement – writing and editing targeted newsletters.
Surely we can make our streets far safer
By Garlynn Woodsong | CNA Board Member, SW1 CNA LUTC Chair
There are several ways to make streets safer. One is lowering speed limits, like Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) did recently on several Concordia roadways.
Killingsworth Street is one that Concordia Neighborhood Association (CNA) has asked PBOT to reduce the speed limit. After all, Oregon Department of Transportation speed zone standards state business districts should be posted at 20 mph.
However, PBOT refuses to lower the speed from 30 to 20 for the sections of the street at 30th and 15th avenues – clearly micro-business districts – with constant pedestrian traffic crossing the street, as well as significant cross traffic and turning movements that include TriMet buses.
In response to CNA’s request, PBOT engineering associate Mike Corrie replied, “After reviewing available data, we have determined the current speed zones on Killingsworth to be appropriate given the layout, and similar to other comparable-sized roads in the area. Therefore, no changes were recommended.”
This response is hard to reconcile with PBOT’s focus on Vision Zero, and the “20 is Plenty” campaign that apparently does not apply to our section of Killingsworth.
It’s possible, with the high volume of traffic on Killingsworth, lowering the posted speed limit alone might be sufficient to slow down traffic. This should certainly be the first step tried.
While lowering speed limits is something that CNA will continue to advocate in locations where it makes sense, such as the micro-business district of Killingsworth, we also are interested in solutions to lower speed by calming traffic with physical methods.
One is Ainsworth Street. Recent data shows, for two days in February, counts were measured on 4,330 trips average per day eastbound, and 4,154 westbound. The posted speed on this roadway is now 20 mph, having been lowered from 30 within the past couple of years.
During the survey, 91.8% of drivers were observed traveling above the posted speed limit eastbound, and 94% westbound. Of those, 13.8% of eastbound traffic was traveling at least 10 mph above the posted speed limit, as was 21.1% of westbound traffic.
Multiple times a day in each direction, some drivers were measured traveling at speeds above 45 mph. This on a street with elderly citizens in mobility devices and people pushing strollers.
So 20 mph signs didn’t help. A traffic-calming solution could include traffic-circle-type installations at intersections that would require traffic to slow down to navigate each circle. That would eliminate the ability to drive fast in a straight line down the long stretches between the very few stop signs at 33rd and 15th avenues and MLK Jr. Boulevard.
On Alberta Street, the situation is a bit different, although we don’t have traffic count data yet to quantify this precisely. The speed limit was lowered to 20 mph but anecdotal evidence suggests that at times when traffic is light – such as during morning rush hour – some drivers choose to use Alberta as their own personal freeway on-ramp, despite the presence of children walking to school.
A physical safety solution on Alberta could include raised crosswalks, such as those found on 42nd Avenue between Fremont and Knott streets.
Only through a combination of speed limit reductions and physical changes to the built environment can we achieve our desired outcomes: a safe neighborhood and city where nobody is seriously injured or killed in traffic accidents.
Garlynn Woodsong lives on 29th Avenue, serves on the CNA board and is an avid bicyclist. He also is a dad who is passionate about the city his son will inherit. He is the planning + development partner with Cascadia Partners LLC, a local urban planning firm. Contact him at LandUse@ConcordiaPDX.org.