By Melissa Bearns

Six east Concordia kids huddled over large pieces of paper in my living room, intently sketching pictures of the gigantic red oak tree at 4810 N.E. 40th Ave. They painstakingly added details including squirrels, birds and acorns, along with personal notes to the man who will develop the property.

“Thank you for not cutting down the tree,” wrote 7-year-old Roxy. “I love the oak tree because you can ride your bike around it and you don’t have to go too far.”

When the property was sold last summer to Eric Thompson of Oregon Homeworks LLC, neighbors were deeply concerned the oak tree with a trunk diameter of 49 inches would be removed. In November, after a few visits to the planning department for research, I called the developer, who told me he intended to preserve the tree.

He has since filed his initial site plan with the Portland Bureau of Development Services, which shows the tree intact on the lot.

For the past decade, the former property owners hosted annual Labor Day potluck barbecues under the oak’s sprawling canopy. Across the years, residents enjoyed impromptu gatherings and other holiday celebrations.

“The oak has played a really important role in our community,” said Carol Apple, a neighbor of that property for 42 years. “It’s a place where kids love to play. As adults they return, and the oak tree is still there. It creates a sense of continuity. Having a focal point on the block where people gather helps build strong relationships.”

Prior to the sale, the property owner and her neighbor, Cindy Black, nominated it for Heritage Tree status, which would give it a high level of protection in both residential and development situations. The Heritage Tree Committee approved a lesser designation of Tree of Merit.

That affords no additional protection for a tree; however, our red oak appears to be safe from the chainsaws for now. Unfortunately, that cannot be said for many other magnificent trees that are equally important across Portland.

City code Title 11 governs tree management. It includes special protections for trees with trunk diameters greater than 36 inches. But Title 11 also has loopholes, which allow developers and property owners to skirt those protections and cut down even very large trees like the red oak.

I’m researching how the tree code was developed and compromises that were made to honor the different needs in our rapidly growing city. My goal is to find a way to balance those needs and still protect large, valuable trees like this oak.

Melissa lives near the red oak and has nine trees on her property. She has always loved trees, but gained a deeper understanding of their value to the planet and people while reporting on Ascending the Giants, an ongoing project of two Portland arborists to climb and measure the world’s champion trees. She has climbed some of the world’s largest trees, many of which are located in the Pacific Northwest.

Editor’s note: Melissa has more to share on this topic. For the rest of the story, visit ConcordiaPDX.org/preservinggiantoak. And, if you’re interested in following what’s happening with the red oak tree, Developer commits to preserve giant oak “The oak has played a really important role in our community.” – Carol Apple learning more about Portland’s trees and neighborhood tree-related events, or wanting to get involved, email Info@SaveOurTreesPDX.org.

By Marsha Sandman | CNA Media Team

Concordia resident Gayle MacDonald, M.S, LMT, has a few tricks up her sleeves. So many that you’d think she has many more sleeves and more than just two hands. But oh what those hands are capable of doing: massage therapist, educator, author, traveler, mentor and astrologer.

Gayle’s family brought her to Portland from Montana when she was just two months old, and she has spent practically her entire life in the Concordia neighborhood.

She has taught health and physical education at Jefferson and Adams high schools. Then, for 1985-1986 she received a Fulbright scholarship to teach health and physical education in Scotland.

After an illness forced her from her original career, she became the health and physical educator she always wanted to be.

Massage became her passion. With her teaching background, the massage school she attended asked her to develop a program doing massage at an assortment of locations, including drug rehabilitation centers and nursing homes, as well as at naturopathic and chiropractic offices.

In 1993 Oregon Health Science University (OHSU) asked Gayle to send massage students to work on cancer patients. Early in her massage education, Gayle had been told massage could cause cancers to spread.

However, her in-depth research indicated otherwise. She learned it is possible, with specialized skills, to offer massage to cancer patients and survivors.

So, since 1994 she has worked with cancer patients, and she has provided specialized massage training to massage therapists at OHSU and other hospitals throughout the United States, Scotland, Australia, Ireland, Sweden and Holland.

In 2005 she wrote “Massage for the Hospital Patient and Medically Frail Client,” now in its second edition. In 2014 she wrote “Medicine Hands: Massage Therapy for People with Cancer,” now in its third edition. They have been translated in two languages.

Gayle is the creator of the Oncology Massage Healing Summit and Oncology Massage Education Associates. You can reach Gayle at MedHands825@gmail. com.

Her students are often seen at OHSU attending to cancer patients who, in the past may have been denied the therapeutic and soothing effects of massage.

What’s next? She is remodeling her home, planning more overseas teaching, developing programs to mentor therapists and teachers, and teaching astrology workshops.

While she is dedicated to teaching, natural health and nutrition, Gail said she would just like a little more time to write Haiku.

After living east, south, north and west, Marsha is home at last. And she wants to hear your story. Contact her at MarshaJSandman@gmail.com.

By Tamara Anne Fowler | CNA Media Team

Winston Ross travels the world writing for Newsweek and, when his assignment end s, he comes home to Concordia. He’s lived in a charming home next to Fernhill Park for the past 1½ years.

He knows he is lucky. Once the original deal for the house fell through for another buyer, he was able to snap it up.

Winston first began writing in junior high in Berkeley, California, when he joined the student newspaper. The faculty adviser gave Winston a lot of leeway. He was able to write opinion pieces, and felt like he had a voice – very rare for a 13-year-old kid. Winston felt he mattered.

He continued on the staff of school papers through high school and then at the University of Oregon.

Upon graduation, Winston wrote about the coast for the Eugene RegisterGuard. Lately, a topic of the utmost urgency is the threat of earthquake and tsunami – especially since a 2015 New Yorker story claimed Portland is due for a catastrophic quake. The Cascadia Subduction Zone is 50-70 miles out to sea and an earthquake would be a disaster for the Oregon coast.

Ten years before that story appeared, Winston traveled to Japan to report for the Register-Guard on that country’s earthquake and tsunami preparedness. He stayed in Japan for several weeks to write a three-part series. But his travels didn’t end.

“For nine glorious months I wandered Europe in search of good stories, from the refugee crisis to true love in Amsterdam to the death of Venice. Datelines included Spain, Germany, Austria, the French Alps, Paris, The Netherlands and Italy.”

Back home, one of Winston’s favorite things is Concordia’s overall walkability. Outside of Europe he has not experienced such a walkable city.

Winston loves the hilly terrain of Fernhill Park. “It feels like a forest or a state park, not a city park,” he said.

He can walk to the Kennedy School where he can soak, watch a movie, or sit inside and smoke a cigar accompanied by a fine scotch.

New Seasons is within walking distance as is Extracto, which, he said, “has the best coffee and a secret back patio.”

Winston is happy that Portland has awakened to the challenges of rampant development.

“We need to work hard to preserve character, stay engaged and fight to keep the charm of our Portland alive.”

Tamara is Edit Kitten, a writer with 20-plus years of experience offering a softer, gentler approach to editing and coaching. Her personal editors – Armani, Max Factor and Spicey’D – are also her cats. Visit her at EditKitten.com or contact her at Tamara@EditKitten.com

By Steve Elder | CNA Media Team

Glen Andresen shares his house and yard on Alberta Court with his cats Boo and Rio. And about 300,000 honeybees.

In addition to beehives, the land around the house he’s owned for 30 years has native fruit trees and organic garden beds. Glen has been keeping bees in his back yard since 1992, and in other people’s back yards since 2002.

Glen has a degree in economics and has studied classical music, but said he’d rather play with bees and dig in the dirt.

In addition to keeping bees, Andresen is a master gardener. He’s the host of the long running hour-long edible gardening show, “The Dirt Bag,” heard the second Wednesday of each month at 11 a.m. on community radio station KBOO.

He also teaches backyard organic beekeeping through Portland Community College, and the gardening supply store Garden Fever. Glen was named the Oregon recycler of the year in 2009 by the Association of Oregon Recyclers.

In 2013 Glen cofounded Bridgetown Bees, a project whose goal is to breed selectively and raise a Portland strain of honey bee queens here that can survive local winters without treatment of any kind.

“It’s not just the cold that’s hard on bees, its the cold and damp,” he said.

Helping reduce the decline of honeybees in the region is an integral goal of the Bridgetown Bees mission. Since 2006, honeybees have been dying off at an unsustainable rate with billions of bees disappearing in the U.S.

Losses are estimated at greater than 40 percent a year. Today there are half as many beekeepers as there were in the 1980s, Glen said.

“The collapse of honeybee populations also threatens the security of our food supply,” he added.

“Honey bee pollination is critical to the cultivation of over a third of our food supply.” Glen sells honey and organic produce from his porch self-serve stand, but most honey is sold through a neighborhood co-op grocery and a local donut shop which is known for its honey-coated offerings.

He usually runs out of honey each year, retailing close to 5,000 pounds in most seasons.

Glen restocks colonies and starts new ones with swarm captures and colony cutouts. He does some 10 building removals each year, some for a fee.

In a normal season he may capture 50 swarms. Anyone who is host of an unwelcome swarm can contact Glen at 503.333.9271 or Glen@bridgetownbees.com.

By Tamara Anne Fowler  | CNA Media Team

“The Fix-It Fairs are a great resource for neighbors who want to learn how to save money, keep their families healthy and improve their homes,” Arianne Sperry reported.

She should know. Arianne is a city employee and nearby neighbor – just four blocks into Woodlawn neighborhood – who has volunteered for more than five years at the events. You may see her at the Saturday, Feb. 24, fair between 9:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. at Madison High School.

“There are exhibitors who can answer questions and point you in the right direction on a number of topics from pesticide-free gardening, to recycling, to how to get around by bike,” she said. “You can even pick up free helpful tools like a faucet aerator or a lead paint test kit.”

The Fix-It Fairs occur three times a year during the winter months, when people are thinking the most about utility savings, keeping healthy and budgeting household finances. The fairs have been held continuously for 31 years.

Sponsors are the Portland bureaus of Planning & Sustainability and Water, Energy Trust of Oregon and Pacific Power, with KUNP Univision and KBOO Community Radio as media sponsors.

The sites change from year to year. Fairs are usually held at middle or high schools which have the room needed to host upwards of 70 community program info tables and the classrooms for dozens of workshops. The Madison event is the closest of the 2018 Fix-It Fairs to Concordia neighborhood.

“You can bring in things that need repair, like clothes or small appliances, and that alone makes a visit worthwhile,” Arianne explained. “But my favorite part of the fairs are the classes. As a new homeowner, a lot of home improvements feel really daunting.

“A lot of people come with a specific class in mind or an item that needs repair. I direct them to the classroom or the repair café. And then, when they’re heading out, I love to hear their excitement at a mission accomplished. They’re waving their now-working lamp or they’ve got a look of determination in their eyes – and an armful of supplies – as they head home to disconnect their downspouts.”

“Everything is free, including lunch, and even childcare is provided.”

Each fair is different, and every season of fairs is different, according to Arianne. But the core offerings remain the same: community programs that provide free or low-cost resources that encourage healthful and sustainable choices.

By Joel Dippold | CNA Media Team

Perfectly timed for Black History Month, February brings multiple screenings of the new film “Priced Out: 15 Years of Gentrification in Portland, Oregon.”

The documentary is part time capsule, part breaking news. It offers glimpses of street scenes that have either been demolished or remodeled beyond recognition, and might leave you wondering what parts of the neighborhood will be the next to go.

Director Cornelius Swart touches on urban planning and macroeconomics, but his focus is on the very personal toll gentrification has taken on members of the African-American community.

The story is told through the personal history of Nikki Williams, who lived what seems like several lifetimes in the Albina area. That historical designation includes Concordia.

Like many African-Americans her age, she had a happy childhood in a vibrant community, but saw that community eviscerated by years of governmental neglect and later by drugs and gangs.

Then, as crime diminished and the neighborhood began to turn around economically, Nikki and her friends and family were priced out of their homes.

They became internally displaced persons, living with the pain of losing the only home they’d known and being displaced by a more affluent white population that seemed not even to care.

The concept of community was central to the film’s production. The director, a professional journalist who also launched and ran community newspaper The Portland Sentinel and managed content for GoLocalPDX.com, assembled an all-volunteer team to document the social and economic upheaval of gentrification.

The team’s first product was the 2002 documentary “Northeast Passage: The Inner City and the American Dream.” In it, viewers meet young Nikki in her new Habitat for Humanity home. In “Priced Out” you see her make the difficult decision to sell and start a new life in another city. (Spoiler alert: it’s Dallas, and she loves it.)

There are several screenings this month. Visit PricedOutMovie.com/new-events. The two closest are: Thursday, Feb. 1, 6:30 p.m., Portsmouth Union Church, 4775 N. Lombard St., and Friday, Feb. 16, 6 p.m., Self-Enhancement Inc., 3920 N. Kerby Ave.

People who have already seen the film recommend staying for the community discussion afterward. To schedule a screening visit PricedOutMovie.com.

You can watch a 2017 remastering of “Northeast Passage” on YouTube. Another documentary the director recommends is “Losing Alberta: Gentrification in Northeast Portland,” put together by a team of Grant High School students, also available on YouTube. Visit ConcordiaPDX.org/cnews-updates for links to these two videos.

Joel is a freelance writer and editor who has lived in Concordia since 2000.