Can Park Be Transformed?

MONTHLY MAJESTY — SEE LIFE, B2 PortlandTribuneTHURSDAY, AUGUST 7, 2014 • TWICE CHOSEN THE NATION’S BEST NONDAILY PAPER • PORTLANDTRIBUNE.COM • PUBLISHED TUESDAY AND THURSDAY Smoke ■ Programming worked at Director Park; city Hales clearing banks on similar success at Lloyd area’s Holladay confi dent on pot street fee tax bucks will pass If Measure 91 passes, Mayor says details state could land not important as millions in revenue long as it raises cash By PETER W ONG By JIM REDDEN The Tribune The Tribune H ow much money Oregon M ayor C harlie H ales still will tak e in if voters choose b elieves the C ity C ouncil Nov. 4 to legaliz e marij uana? will approve A panel determined this week his proposed that the official financial esti- street main- mate will be between $17 million tenance and and $40 million annually, once safety fee in start-up costs are taken care of Novemb er, in the fi rst few although he years. is not sure More than 1 what the fi - million voters nal version will see that es- will include. HALES timate, both in TRIBUNE PHOTOS: JAIME VALDEZ Speaking at the state voters pamphlet and Four- year- old Alex Figu runs through the fountain at Holladay Park in Northeast Portland, where every day programming and events a transportation funding fo- online voters guide, when they are expected to turn a little- used public space into a destination. rum Monday morning, Hales consider the fate of Measure 91. said the “third member of the “But this is such a specula- City Council is prepared to tive estimate to begin with,” vote” for the fee being devel- says Michael Jordan, director oped by Commissioner Steve of the Oregon Department of Novick and him. In the past, Administrative Services and a Piano, pingpong, Pilates: Hales has said he expected member of the Commissioner Amanda Fritz panel. will be the third vote, even “W e The panel though she has not yet public- want to combined the ly committed to it. Commis- low-end esti- Can park be transformed? sioners Nick encourage mate offered Fish and Dan people to by the Legisla- Saltzman have “It’s tive Revenue consistently important come into Offi ce with the Big chess (here said they the light of high-end esti- TribSeries played by Chelsea think the fee not to back mate in a re- Baumgartner and — formally down from day and port by the FIRST OF TWO STORIES called the BY PETER KORN Alex Pickard) is generate Portland fi rm part of the Transporta- the revenue millions for ECONorth- programming and tion User Fee question.” west, which n the fi rst night of the latest events that have — should be — Rep. Earl the state.” prepared it for attempt to make Holladay submitted to made downtown Blumenauer — Anthony Measure 91 Park safe and inviting not one Director Park a Portland vot- Johnson, chief advocates. Ochair was stolen. A few had popular family ers for approv- sponsor of Oregon All are been placed on top of the park’s new destination. The al, something based to some pingpong table, as if some middle-of- Hales and Novick so far have Measure 91 city hopes that degree on data the-night visitors wanted to survey rejected. success can be from Colora- their surroundings from higher up, but Fritz tells the Portland Tri- duplicated at do, which began retail sales of no damage was done. bune she is still waiting to see the drug at the start of this The park’s first afternoon fitness Holladay Park. the fi nal version of the fee be- year. Washington, where voters class, held at 5 p.m. on a Tuesday, at- might not get vandalized in time. munity. fore deciding whether to sup- also legalized recreational use tracted a couple dozen people, most For a long while, Holladay Park has Change has been a long time coming port it, however. Three work of marijuana in 2012, began re- staying for a short while before moving been known as a dangerous park, to be to Holladay Park, but it is necessary, ac- groups currently are review- tail sales July 8. on to the Lloyd Center or the nearby avoided by nearly everybody after dark cording to Alex Garvin, professor of ur- ing options for such issues as The panel, led by Secretary of MAX stop. and by women and children during the ban planning and author of “Public discounts for low-income State Kate Brown, had tenta- All of which matters beyond whether day. Fourteen-year-old Shiloh Hampton Parks: The Key to Livable Communi- households and alternatives tively chosen the lowest of the a few more people spend more time in was shot and killed there in 2011. On and ties.” You can’t have bad parks and a for assessing nonresidential estimates, which pegs the fi rst- Holladay Park, and whether the folks off, police have increased their presence healthy city, Garvin says. A park in properties, including busi- year yield at just $9.3 million af- paying for Holladay’s improvements — in the park. A neighborhood volunteer which city residents don’t feel safe or nesses, governments, non- ter start-up and operational mostly the new owners of the Lloyd Cen- group called Connected has walked the invited, in Garvin’s view, defi nes a city profit groups and religious costs are deducted. In the fi rst ter — have to replace a few chairs or ta- park on Friday evenings in an attempt to institutions. full two-year budget cycle in bles or a pingpong table that might or re-establish safety and a sense of com- See HOLLADAY / Page 2 2017-19, it projects $40 million, See HALES / Page 4 and in subsequent years, between $17 million and $26 million annually. Still, says Mazen Malik, se- nior economist for the Legisla- tive Revenue Office who prepared the estimate, “in the long ‘Brownfi elds’ buried in bureaucracy term, you would expect marijuana to bring in a higher since it’s sandwiched between amount of revenue.” City prepares fi rst houses and a site called Emer- Jan Z uckerman State Treasurer Ted Wheeler son Garden, a small community and Amilcar says that estimate, though complete inventory project about four years in the based on sound assumptions, is making. Alvarez of Portland too conservative. of dirty little secrets The soil at the garden itself stand in Emerson “I think it’s a mistake to disre- has been reclaimed and tested Garden near the gard some of the higher esti- By JENNIFER ANDERSON as clean, years after a house fence and warning mates in the ECONorthwest re- The Tribune with lead paint burned down sign that marks a port,” he says. and left lead traces in the soil. large mound of According to that report, it Tuck ed into a yet-to-b e- Organic vegetables grow onsite lead- contaminated projects the fi rst-year amount at gentrifi ed neighb orhood in and schoolchildren use it as an soil, an example of $38.5 million — and $78.7 million Northeast P ortland is a outdoor classroom. the city’s mountain of lead-contaminat- But the hazardous pile in the brownfi eld issue. See MARIJUANA / Page 5 ed soil, waiting to b e pick ed back, locked behind a chain-link Coordinators hope up and hauled away to a haz - fence and covered in ivy, is a a grant will pay to ardous waste site. looming reminder that brown- remove the dirt The soil — about three truck- fi elds like this are more frequent within the next six loads full — is at Northeast Em- than we might think — part of months. erson Court and Ninth Avenue, TRIBUNE PHOTO: well hidden from public view See BROW NFIELDS / Page 11 LACEY JACOBY “Pamplin Media Group’s pledge is to Portland Tribune deliver balanced news that refl ects the VIKINGS, DUCKS, stories of our communities. Thank you BEAVERS TAKE CAMP SNAPS for reading our newspapers.” Inside — SEE SPORTS, PAGE B12 — DR. ROBERT B. PAMPLIN JR. OWNER & NEIGHBOR 485055.080714 A2 NEWS The Portland Tribune Thursday, August 7, 2014 Holladay: N Y C parks ex pert brought in nothing affair. ■ F rom page 1 “You cannot give a park back to the bad guys at nightime,” he in all the wrong ways. says. TRIBUNE FILE PHOTO: L.E. BASKOW “This is, in effect, creating a A permanent Daytime activities should Panhandling and laying about gated community for the antiso- pingpong table lead to evening programming aren’t allowed inside Pioneer cial because it’s keeping out ev- and piano are such as movie nights, and sum- Courthouse Square and Director erybody else,” Garvin says of a the start of mer programming should even- Park, which have special city rules. park that residents avoid. “It programming at tually lead to winter park ac- seems to me the very essence of Holladay Park. tivities. Biederman says it took a public park is it is not only Matthew Jacobs, nine years before Bryant Park available to everybody, but it is proj ect manager hosted winter events, but it is used by everybody.” now heavily used 12 months of Special for the New York Pioneer Courthouse Square City- based the year, and safe 24 hours a and Director Park downtown, consulting fi rm day. and Jamison Square in the Standing in the middle of hired to remake Pearl District, where hundreds Holladay Park, Matthew Ja- parks, Holladay, takes a of children frolic on warm sum- cobs, project manager for mer afternoons and evenings, turn with a park BRVC, is watching Day One of feel that public embrace on a visitor.

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