Buckman Community Association

BCA Minutes: 10-9-03

BCA General Meeting Minutes 10/09/03

In Attendance were: Lily Witham, Aron Homberg, Larry Koppy, Joshua Bickle,
Elzbieta Osiak, Virginia Davis, Delores Dee, Jim Everden, Ann Bowling, Don
MacGillvray, Jack Maynard, Ann Bowling, Ross Williams, Peter Fry, Gilly
Burlingham, Anne Hughes, Donna Milrany, Bethany Pratt, and M’Lou Christ.

The meeting was chaired by Jack Maynard, as Susan Lindsay was out of town. Jack recently attended the nursing home meeting about the Marqui property
at SE 28th & Taylor and gave a report. A Good Neighbour Agreement is being
drafted. The Sunnyside Neighbourhood Association is still working hard on
the issue. The neighbours in the area are very upset that such a large
building will overwhelm the residential feel of the neighbourhood and
create a lot of noise. The SNA went to City Council and asked the city to
force the developers to create something smaller and more in keeping with
the surrounding architecture. Things are still up in the air as to the
design and function of the property.

St. Francis Update- Anne Hughes reported that she saw fires being set on
St. Francis property. She walked over and saw a guy known as “Lee”
squirting lighter fluid and setting it on fire. Lily Witham stated that
she witnessed a man (also know as Lee, apparently the same man) throw a
bicycle frame down on the SF property on south side of the parish house. A
woman standing nearby asked where he got the bike and the man replied that
he had stolen it. Lily asked a security guard to deal wit the situation,
but he seemed unwillingly to do so. She then asked Ann Bowling to come down and deal with it. When Ann stepped outside the parish house, Lee grabbed the bike frame and ran around behind the parish house and dumped the bike frame. Lily noticed that the man had a large knife strapped to his bike and pointed it out to Ann Bowling. Lily then called the police, and while she was on the phone, Lee grabbed his bike, ran across the
street to the Pierre’s Bakery building, grabbed some blankets, and rode
around the block. He rode around the corner and dumped his knife and
bedding. Lily stated that she does not feel safe in the area anymore.
Elzbieta Osiak, an art conservator whose studio is also located in the Troy Laundry Bldg. At SE 11th & Pine spoke and said that several weeks ago she left the studio about 10pm, got into her car and started driving down SE 11th. A group of men came running out into the street from St. Francis Park, and attempted to get her to stop her car. Instead she sped up and they jumped out of the way.

Don MacGillvray had talked with Cece Noel at SEUL about grant monies
available to St. Francis and asked for a letter of support from the board.
There is a grant available that could be used to “fix-up” St. Francis Park. Anne Hughes, M’Lou Christ and Lily Witham all spoke up and stated that they are against using the money that way, as it will not solve any of the problems over there because “the park is not the problem, it’s the management at St. Francis”. Since no motion was made the subject was dropped.

WAMO Master Plan- there will be a meeting of the Project Advisory
Committee on Wednesday Oct. 15th at 6:30pm, at WAMO in the cafeteria of
the Child Services Center. Among the topics to be discussed is size and
proportion of the community center and housing. Community input is badly
needed for this project. The community will also be involved in the
developer selection process later. Portland Public Schools want Susan
Lindsay to chair the Selection Committee. The design team will be SERRA
Architects, Kittleson, Portland Parks, the PPS Real Estate Trust, Carlton
Hart Architecture. Carlton Hart will be project manager, with Sumner
Sharpe as facilitator.

Central Catholic High School Update- Aron Homberg (Vice principle at CCHS)
reported on a recent meeting between CCHS staff and immediate neighbours.
There have been no complaints recently. CCHS has begun hiring 2 sheriffs
for every large event they have at the CCHS site. The sheriffs stay outside in the beginning and help facilitate parking, and then come inside to help out when event begins.

Fire Station Restaurant Development- The recent request for proposals yielded only one bidder, the owners of McCall’s, which is located at Tom McCall Park, on the west side of the river.. Portland Parks and the Fire department are going to resubmit the request for Proposals, hoping to attract a high-end tenant.

To the River-Eastbank Access with EE’s, This presentation was made by Peter Fry, who along with four other people got together and discussed ways to make the I-5 freeway along the Willamette rivers east bank more functional, visible and environmental friendly. Alter the presentation there was open discussion about people’s impressions of the plan. Lily Witham expressed her concerns that changing the I-5 freeway to an urban
grid and lights system will cause traffic to back up on the West Side,
slow traffic down, bring it down to pedestrian level and therefore create
even more pollution (both air and noise) for the East Side environs.

Motion: BCA Minutes Approved. Vice-chair Jack Maynard made a motion to approve the minutes from 9/11/03 and 10/02/03. Joshua Bickle seconded the motion, and the vote was unanimous.

An announcement was made by Lily Witham that Dr. Gary Oxman, Head of
Multnomah County’s Health Department will discuss the county’s plans to
combat West Nile Virus on Tuesday Oct.14th at SEUL, 6:30pm.

Damaged Sidewalk Inventory- Neighbour Virginia Davis spoke to the board
again about the possibility of doing an inventory of damaged and dangerous
sidewalks in Buckman. Don MacGillvray offered to supply Virginia with a
survey he did in 1995. Jack Maynard suggested that the Buckman Foot Patrol
keep a log of these sidewalks and Lily Witham said she would send out an
email to the members of the foot patrol asking them to do, so that Virginia can make a presentation to the city in order to get funds to assist lower-income home owners in repairing their sidewalks. Everyone agreed that there will need to be some sort of standard rating system that will be the same or similar to what the City uses to denote priority
levels for repairs. Jim Everden said that he believes that more than a
1/2” toe-kick is considered dangerous. Donna Milrany suggested that Virginia get hold of a copy of the Sidewalk Repair Manual from the city. Lily Witham offered to provide Virginia with the contact info on Issa Simpson who works for the DEQ and recently presented a program which aims at matching up school-age children with senior citizens for walks to school. Issa’s presentation included a Neighbourhood Walkability Survey sheet. Anne Hughes suggested that we get a plat map of our neighbourhood
and divide it up amongst board members and interested neighbours each walk
a section of their neighbourhood and make the inventory.

Don MacGillvray urged everyone to attend the upcoming Neighbourhood Summit, which is planned for Saturday, November 15th, from 8am to 3pm.

Submitted by Lily Witham