Category Archives: politics

Make Plans to Attend Now!!!

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City Council candidate Loretta Smith is coming to the next member meeting of King Neighborhood Association!

That next KNA meeting isn’t until Wednesday, September 12 — but make plans now to attend, ‘cause this is a golden opportunity to talk to and hear from the woman who may be Portland’s next new commissioner come November!

Ms. Smith is running for the Portland City Council position currently held by retiring Commissioner Dan Saltzman. So whether you’re concerned about potholes or police, homelessness or short-term rentals, this is a chance to help your neighborhood’s issues get heard.

In keeping with KNA’s mission to strengthen our neighborhood’s voice in city government, we’ve also extended an invitation to have JoAnn Hardesty as KNA’s guest in October. Ms. Hardesty is also running for retiring Commissioner Dan Saltzman’s seat.

This means that no matter which candidate you support – no matter which woman wins – you have the opportunity right here in King neighborhood to hear from and speak to Portland’s next city commissioner!

And speaking of elections – at KNA’s meeting last week, members elected a new KNA treasurer and elected Diego Gioseffi as the At-Large #4 representative. This means that for the first time in years, every board member and officer has been elected by members rather than appointed by the board. Our new treasurer is Sarah Moses, who is a certified public accountant!

But wait! There’s more! We’ve still got a couple vacancies on the KNA board of directors that need filling! So attend a couple meetings to get your feet wet, and then throw your hat in the ring to help steer KNA to bigger and better things!

Finally, as part of our goal to make KNA more democratic and more member-oriented, we’re working on a re-write of KNA bylaws to give more power and more say to KNA members. So if you’ve got ideas on how you want to see KNA improved, please send your thoughts and ideas to me at margaret@kingneighborhood.org

‘Cause this is YOUR King Neighborhood Association!

See you September 12!

Margaret O’Hartigan, Chair

Portland’s mayor calls for BPS to study development, infill in neighborhoods.

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Mayor Hales is seeking your support for his proposed budget request to fund a comprehensive review and update of the City’s single-dwelling zone development standards.

Mayor Hales has directed the Bureau of Planning & Sustainability to conduct this review. Responsive to neighborhood concerns about the compatibility of new development, the 18 month project will include:

 

  1. Evaluation of how the scale and pattern of single family development varies across neighborhoods.

 

  1. Proposals for changes to zoning code provisions that affect scale and design of new single-family dwellings:
  • lot coverage,
  • height,
  • setbacks, and
  • required rear yard area.

 

  1. Update to rules and policies related to infill development on “skinny” lots.

 

  1. Update to rules to increase the types of infill units in single-dwelling zones to allow more households and a greater range of incomes to find housing in single family neighborhoods.  This includes allowing flexibility that encourages innovative housing types and development.

 

  1. Evaluation of these proposals in terms of impact on housing supply, housing cost and development economics.

 

You may voice your support for funding this project in several ways:

 

  1. Contact Commissioner offices to share your support.

 

  1. Testify at the May 20 City Council budget public hearing at 6:30PM here in Council Chambers at City Hall.

 

  1. Letters to the editor of local media

 

We look forward to your engagement throughout the length of this project.

 

Matthew Robinson

Policy Analyst

Office of Mayor Charlie Hales

City of Portland

503.823.4045

Lew Frederick on the 1% and Martin Luther King Jr.

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Listen carefully and you will hear the 1% taking power

The following is part of a speech made by Rep. Frederick at the 27th Keep Living the Dream Celebration for Dr. King at Highland Church.

Good afternoon, I’m Lew Frederick, State Representative from House District 43, North and Northeast Portland.

I think this holiday is one that many people think they understand very well, after all, it is of relatively recent origin. And Dr. King is a hero of my lifetime, not of the deep past. I grew up with him as the father of my playmates. But the holiday is also poorly understood, because the history of Dr. King’s legacy and that of the Civil Rights movement have been stripped of much of their nuance, sophistication and complication over the years.

Dr. King’s final book, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? is not referenced very often when folks are finding meaningful quotes for our annual speeches. In it, we see how his ministry had expanded, how his leadership on civil rights, or let’s say “human” rights, though grounded in the racial struggles of the time, was clear in its purpose of addressing oppression in its many manifestations. He made a compelling argument, in 1967, for a guaranteed income. He wrote:

The contemporary tendency in our society is to base our distribution on scarcity, which has vanished, and to compress our abundance into the overfed mouths of the middle and upper classes until they gag with superfluity. If democracy is to have breadth of meaning, it is necessary to adjust this inequity. It is not only moral, but it is also intelligent. We are wasting and degrading human life by clinging to archaic thinking.

Read the rest at BlueOregon.

Rally to Save Saturday Delivery

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From local King letter carrier, Jamie Partridge:

Save Saturday Delivery &
Door-to-Door Mail Delivery
Save Community Post Offices

March & Rally
Downtown Portland
Sunday, Jan. 8th, 2 – 3:30pm

Rally at Pioneer Courthouse Square
March to Portland Main Post Office (NW Hoyt @ Broadway)
*** FAMILY FRIENDLY, BRING CHILDREN ***

Congress is getting ready to vote on HR 2309 & S 1789.  These bills would:

  1. End door-to-door and curbside delivery for 90% of postal patrons
  2. End Saturday delivery
  3. Close thousands of community post offices
  4. Close half the mail processing plants
  5. Eliminate hundreds of thousands of jobs
  6. End overnite delivery of first class mail

TIME TO STAND UP AND SHOW UP!

more info: National Association of Letter Carriers 82, 503-493-5903
www.saveamericaspostalservice.org
www.savethepostoffice.com
www.nalc.org

Jamie Partridge
503-752-5112

Occupy Northeast Neighborhood Assembly Jan. 7 at Chapel Pub

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Shiva Markandeya, a self-identified Occupy Portland outreach committee member, has invited members of the Humboldt and King Neighborhoods to attend a meeting this Saturday, January 7th at the McMenamin’s Chapel Pub on 430 N. Killingsworth, 5 – 8pm.

According to the press release:

[T]he Occupy Portland Outreach Committee has created a project to gather various communities in this city who are interested in learning more about this modern movement and to encourage these communities to be more involved in seeing economic fairness and civil rights manifest in Portland neighborhoods. We hope to include every part of the city beginning with a few areas first, like North and Northeast Portland. The name of this project is called Occupy Northeast Neighborhood Assembly where we will come together and discuss our grievances and develop action based solutions among ourselves to address local and national concerns. There are many issues we plan to focus on which includes supporting the amendment to abolish cooperate personhood at the state level, administering education and strong support for those neighbors who have been wronged by our banking system which causes many families to receive unjust evictions from their homes, to create initiatives to remove the wrongful use of money from politics, to help families cope with joblessness and income disparities, and to develop green and sustainable permaculture practices that build community and bring people together.

The release states that this will be the first in an ongoing series of local meetings and that:

We understand that community, friendly associations, neighbors and the trust that is shared between them is power. When we are unified and working together in a common purpose our power is strengthened. We need all of our voices to be raised against the very things that ails us in this society. And we invite you and your associations to join us in making great efforts in trying to better our poor and middle class condition and improve the quality of our lives.

Shiva Markandeya can be reached at:
OPDX Outreach Committee
opdxshiva@gmail.com
503-477-3512