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About The Southwest Portland Post. (Portland, Oregon) 2007-current | View Entire Issue (June 1, 2011)
SERVING Burlingame • Capitol Hill • Garden Home • Glen Cullen • Hillsdale • South Portland • Multnomah Village • Raleigh Hills • Vermont Hills • West Portland INSIDE: City Council authorizes use of Sears Armory for emergency operations Southwest Portland’s Independent Neighborhood Newspaper Volume No. 19, Issue No. 8 www.swportlandpost.com Portland, Oregon Complimentary – Page 2 June 2011 Citizenship ceremony draws 47 new Americans from 26 Countries By Polina Olsen The Southwest Portland Post When Carmel Breathnach took her oath of citizenship, children from the kindergarten class she teaches cheered. Part of the 27 th Annual Cinco de Mayo Fiesta in Waterfront Park, the May 6 United States Citizenship and Immigra- tion Service ceremony brought together family, friends and 47 new Americans from 26 countries. Each year, the Portland Guadalajara Sister City Association sponsors a natu- ralization ceremony as part of the fiesta. Established in 1984, the non-profit PGSCA promotes Latin culture, arts, education, economic and intercultural programs between Portland, Oregon and Guadalajara, Mexico. The orga- nization’s primary source of funding comes from the annual Cinco de Mayo celebration. The naturalization ceremony took place in the fiesta’s main tent. Onlook- ers grabbed treats from the vendors lining the large enclosed area and crowded into tables and chairs set out for the occasion. The new citizens held their natu- ralization packets and listened with attention. Qureish Ahmed Adde came from Mogadishu, So- malia, and has been in the United States for six years. Bindya Narayan came to the United States from Mumbai (Bombay), India nine years ago. She and her husband are high technology workers at Intel Corporation in Hillsboro. “It feels good to be a citizen,” she said. Breathnach, who teaches at the Joyful Noise Child Devel- opment Center, im- migrated to the Unit- ed States from Gal- way, Ireland, more Children from the kindergarten class and their parents joined Carmel Breathnach at the citizenship than 10 years ago. ceremony, May 6. Shown from left to right are Steve Mooney, Rys Kleier, Zachary Slater, Carmel She and the others Breathnach, Delaney McFarland, and Kelea Lachman. (Post photo by Polina Olsen) stood as they called out each country of origin … Albania, Mexico, Moldova, Peru, Romania, legiance and offering congratulations, Australia, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Canada, Somalia, South Africa, Syria, Taiwan, the Immigration and Naturalization China, Cuba, the Czech Republic, Fiji, the United Kingdom, Uzbekistan and Service director introduced the keynote India, Iraq, Ireland, the Democratic Vietnam. speaker, Nawzad Othman, the chief ex- (Continued on Page 7) Republic of Georgia, Greece, Kenya, After administering the Oath of Al- Multnomah residents consider Safeway traffic impacts By Lee Perlman The Southwest Portland Post Ryan Hashagen, owner of PortlandPedals.com, gives a pedicab ride to Kelly and Dash Hartman of Linnton at the Hillsdale Farmers Market, May 1. (Post photo by Don Snedecor) Don’t forget to renew your subscription. Form on Page 2. The Southwest Portland Post 4207 SE Woodstock Blvd #509 Portland, OR 97206 Representatives of the Safeway Corporation presented their plans for a new store at Southwest Barbur Bou- levard and Capitol Highway, replacing an existing store on the site, at a public meeting organized by the Multnomah Neighborhood Association last month. The 30 people who came expressed pleasure at seeing the new store come in, but their questions were directed almost entirely at its potential trans- portation impacts, and they expressed concerns. “We’ve had the store since 1968, and for the last 15 years we’ve tried to figure out how to upgrade it,” Safeway Real Estate Manager Diana Phillips said. “The site is an odd configuration that’s hard to deal with. Then last year we purchased two adjacent parcels, one vacant, the other with a small rental house on it.” Safeway is currently seeking a Com- prehensive Plan Amendment to change the lot’s R1 multi-family zoning to a commercial designation. The process requires Safeway to replace the po- tential housing that could legally be built on the residential site by rezoning another property somewhere in the city for residential use or greater density. According to spokesperson Dan Floyd, the company will attempt to do this with a property in southeast Portland. They have already submit- ted a formal application for the project, Floyd told The Post. Assuming they can do so, they intend to put in a “podium” store, architect Wendell Mueller said, with parking at grade and a store built over it. Once parked, customers will proceed by “various modes of transportation” to the sales floor, which will be open on all four sides, he said. The entrances will be off Southwest Capitol Hill Road and Multnomah Boulevard. Chris Brehmer of Kittelson and As- sociates said that the store will have an 11-foot-wide sidewalk on Multnomah and a 12-foot-wide sidewalk on Capitol Hill Road and Barbur Boulevard. To accommodate left turns from northbound traffic, he said the inter- section will have a dedicated left turn lane and a signal with a yellow left turn arrow, allowing traffic to turn without unduly impeding through traffic flow. To accommodate pedestrians, there will be an exclusive “walk” phase, he said. Those present were not completely reassured. “That crossing is really dangerous,” Hillsdale activist Don Baack said. “There’s a lot of traffic com- ing at high speeds. There are a lot of near-misses.” Others said that Capitol Hill Road contains a blind curve that obscures views of crossing traffic. Asked about the traffic the new store is expected to generate, Brehmer said, “It will nearly double in size, so we’re expecting a substantial increase.” Asked about future development of Barbur as a “transit corridor,” he said, “We don’t have any parameters to de- sign around.”