Foster-Powell Neighborhood Association

November 2002

Nov 20, 2002

New Meeting Night
Please remember that Foster-Powell has a new meeting night, -- the second Monday of the month. Our next meeting is December 9.

Hazardous Waste Presentation
We had a presentation on hazardous household waste in November. Some very, very good information was shared to our group. In particular, the use of pesticides and herbicides was discussed. Most householders who use pesticides on their lawns (more than 70%) use them improperly, and in excess. Our children (and we) are being bombarded with these poisons. There is also a website with information about the connection between chemicals and brain cancer. To quote Lisa Heigh from Metro, "2,4-D (found in most weed n' feed type fertilizer /herbicide mixes) is one of the most common pesticides used (I think its about 3rd in sales/use) and is a phenoxy herbicide. Although there are more damaging herbicides out there (there's always something worse!), the phenoxy herbicides have been linked to non-hodgkins lymphoma and are hormone disrupters." For more information, please look at the following two websites: http://www.childenvironment.org/, and more specifically concerning brain cancer, http://www.childenvironment.org/brain-cancer.htm.

Good News Tavern
Connections among the parties were not made in November, so the review of the Good News Tavern good neighbor agreement will take place in the December meeting.

Getting More People Involved
In December, a member of the Buckman Neighborhood Association will come to our meeting to talk about their neighborhood association's efforts to involve more people. Unfortunately, most people don't come to meetings unless there is a problem to be solved. In the best possible world, we would go to meetings to improve and enhance our neighborhood and meet our neighbors, and perhaps PREVENT problems.

The Future
We are planning several events over the next few months. One of them will be just such a gathering to meet your neighbors and get to know one another. We will be doing more notification and trying to get the word out to help make this happen. If you are interested in distributing newsletters, or even meeting and agenda notices, please give me a call or e-mail me at the address below. If we had one person per block to distribute notices on doorsteps, we could go far in keeping the neighborhood informed about upcoming events.

Meetings are now on the SECOND MONDAY of each month from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m., at the St. Anthony Parish Hall, 3618 SE 79th (green and white building at south end of the complex-please use the south door). Call Cindy Peek at 775-3006 for more information, e-mail me at clpeek@aol.com, or check the website at www.neighborhoodlink.com/portland/foster.