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INSIDE:
Southwest Portland’s Independent Neighborhood Newspaper
Volume No. 17, Issue No. 5
www.multnomahpost.com
Portland, Oregon
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Complimentary
March 2009
Southwest residents voice their
opinions at community budget forum
By Allison Rupp
The Southwest Portland Post
In the third of three citywide commu-
nity budget forums, nearly 100 residents
of Multnomah County, mostly from
Southwest Portland, gathered at the
Multnomah Center on Tuesday night to
discuss the programs they felt should or
should not be trimmed from the 2009-2010
city budget.
“This is a very difficult budget for us,”
Mayor Sam Adams told the crowd. “We
need to cut five percent from the budget
for next year…But we take your input
very, very seriously.”
Organizers instructed those who at-
tended the forum, which was open to the
public, to choose one area of interest from
the city’s general purpose funds, such as
Arts and Culture, Parks and Recreation,
Housing, or Police.
Each area of interest offered its own
table where guests could discuss and rank
the programs offered by that service. A
“table leader” representing that service
facilitated the discussions and answered
questions.
Some tables, like the Parks and Rec-
reation or the Housing table, filled up
quickly. Others, like the Public Utilities or
the Fire and Rescue table, attracted only
one or two supporters.
At the Arts and Culture table, Jeff Haw-
thorne, the deputy director of Portland’s
Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC)
explained that the City of Portland pro-
vides the vast majority of funds for the
non-profit organization.
In three to five years, Hawthorne and
Mayor Adams, who supports RACC,
are actually hoping to increase funding
from four millions dollars to 20 million
dollars.
“We need more city funding than what
comes to us through the general purpose
funds,” Hawthorne said, which last year
was 3.7 million dollars.
Meanwhile, at the Housing table,
Housing Program Manager Stephen
Fulton from the Bureau of Housing was
explaining the City’s ten-year plan to end
homelessness, which began in 2005.
When a guest at the table asked how
it was going, Fulton tilted his hand to
indicate so-so.
“It doesn’t really have the funding to
get there,” Fulton said.
The general fund money given by the
city comes as both ongoing funds and
one-time use funds, he explained. Much
Jeff Hawthorne (center with nametag), deputy director of Portland's Regional Arts &
Culture Council, answers questions at the Arts and Culture table during the community
budget forum, held Feb. 24 at the Multnomah Center. (Post photo by Allison Rupp)
of the homeless initiatives are funded by
the one-time use funds, which he hopes
to convert into ongoing funds.
At many of the tables conversations
veered toward increasing funding for the
programs discussed rather than cutting
back. Many guests pointed to a handout
outlining the current distribution of the
budget and wondered why nearly 75
percent of general purpose dollars go to
Fire and Police services.
Out of a representative $1,000 shared
among 13 services, fire services were
shown to use $277 and police services
$459. During the budget adjusting exer-
cise, many people deducted funds from
these services first.
Organizers concluded the forum with
an electronic vote that displayed results
immediately on a screen. Out of 62 people
who voted, a majority of 27 percent called
housing their primary concern in their
neighborhood, while a majority of 42 per-
cent called economic development their
primary concern for the city of Portland.
Laurel Butman, the principle manage-
ment analyst for the Office of Manage-
(Continued on Page 5)
Southwest activists call for reforming legal protection for trees
By Lee Perlman
The Southwest Portland Post
Planners and community activists, in-
cluding several southwesters, are calling
for reform of the city’s laws on the plant-
ing, cutting and maintenance of trees. The
Citywide Tree Project is trying to increase
the city’s total tree canopy, planner Ro-
berta Jortner told the Portland Planning
Commission last month.
Currently tree canopies cover 26 percent
of the city’s land area, which compared to
other cities is “better than some, notably
Seattle (18 percent), but not as good as
others” such as Baltimore, which has 34
percent coverage, said Jortner.
More specifically, they have specific
targets such as public right of way, where
the goal is to increase coverage from the
current 17 percent to 35, and in industrial
areas, going from seven percent to 15. To
do this, the city needs to make its regula-
tions “transparent, consistent, equitable
and efficient,” she said.
Currently, laws on this subject are di-
vided among six city bureaus. Morgan
Tracey, chair of a citizen stakeholders
group that studied the issue, said that the
“Multitude of laws make it difficult to see
how they work together.”
In fact, Tracey said, they are sometimes
contradictory. They are also “inconsis-
tently applied. One owner may be exempt
from regulation while his next-door
neighbor must undergo review to cut a
single tree. The laws don’t distinguish
between majestic and nuisance trees.”
According to Tracey, when trees are
cut for new development, “replacement
requirements aren’t clear.” When laws are
disobeyed or ignored enforcement is un-
certain and inconsistent, in part because
“inspectors are not trained arborists and
may not recognize what is a big deal.”
The project is proposing to “bring the
codes and processes together to the extent
possible,” and to codify them into a single
tree manual, Tracey said. There should be
a “single point of entry” for anyone seek-
ing information about the city’s laws on
trees, he said.
Owners should be encouraged to prune
and thin trees rather than removing
them. Since “It is hard if not impossible
to preserve a damaged tree, the emphasis
should be on preventing damage in the
first place,” Tracey said. During develop-
ment review tree preservation planning
should occur early in the process, “not
what’s left over after everything else is
planned for.”
Jortner suggested that community
groups be encouraged to create neigh-
borhood tree plans to “brand” their
communities. She commented, “People
care about trees as a living amenity, and
when they’re gone they’re gone, at least
for awhile.”
Among the other stakeholders who
testified was Margot Barnett, who played
a key role in the creation of Holly Farm
Park. “I really enjoyed serving on the
stakeholder working group,” she said.
“We didn’t always see eye to eye, but
we saw how each other stood on this,”
Barnett continued. “Privately and pub-
licly-owned trees are an important part
of our green infrastructure, an important
part of our livability. A single point of
contact is important. Decisions should
be made by people with knowledge of
trees.”
Regarding another recommendation
– making design regulations and codes
flexible enough to accommodate tree pres-
ervation – Barnett was more ambivalent,
saying, “I don’t want them so flexible that
they hurt neighborhoods.
City Forester David McAlister was criti-
cal of the proposals. “Fix what’s broken,
not what’s working,” he told the Com-
mission, and leave laws regarding trees
in parks and parking strips alone.
“Emphasize education and incentives
over regulation,” McAlister said. “If we
(Continued on Page 7)
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The Southwest Portland Post
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Portland, OR 97219
Tree Canopy along 45th Avenue near Woods Park. (Post photo by Leslie Baird)