SERVING
INSIDE:
Burlingame • Capitol Hill
• Garden Home
• Glen Cullen • Hillsdale
• Multnomah Village
• Raleigh Hills • South Portland
• Vermont Hills
• West Portland
Fulton Park
Community Center
may be spared from
proposed budget cuts
– Page 3
Southwest Portland’s Independent Neighborhood Newspaper
Volume No. 20, Issue No. 5
www.swportlandpost.com
Portland, Oregon
Complimentary
March 2012
Greenway Plan for South Waterfront ruffles feathers
By Lee Perlman
The Southwest Portland Post
For two hours last month the Port-
land Design Commission took public
testimony on the Bureau of Parks’ pro-
posed $9.5 million Greenway Master
Plan for the South Waterfront. The vast
majority of those who spoke said they
loved the plan except for one detail – the
relocation of an osprey nest.
The Greenway Plan, nine years in for-
mation, calls for a stretch of Willamette
River waterfront 1.2 miles long and 100
feet wide to be made over for human
recreation and natural habitat.
The greenway will have separated
bike and pedestrian trails and both
grass and “hardscape” facilities for
people, as well as extensive tree plant-
ing and other improvements to create
habitat for birds and fish.
In the case of habitat for fish, Portland
Parks and Recreation planner Allison
Rouse said the bank of the former in-
dustrial area would be altered to create
a gradual slope more typical of the area
before human activity.
Instead of a fly in the ointment, there
was a flying object: an osprey that, for
several years, has made a nest in the
construction zone area, and consistently
returns to it after migrating to Central
America in the winter.
Park Bureau staff has proposed mov-
ing the nest to a “dolphin” (upright
piling) down river. It should serve, they
said, because it is within sight of the
old nest. Local residents felt differently.
Mirabella resident Paul Johnson said,
“We should honor the osprey’s choice
of nesting site.” Its annual migration is
“a miracle of nature,” he said, and “the
osprey has been very clear about where
it wants to nest.”
Another resident, Charlotte Beeman,
gave a brief history of the nest. It has
come to the same area for five con-
secutive years, she said. At one point
it chose to nest on a Zidell Company
barge; for three days Zidell workers
threw the nest away, and each time the
bird rebuilt it.
Finally, in 2009, Zidell built a special
pole, 40 feet tall and weighing eight
tons, that the osprey accepted as a site.
In 2010 a Canada goose beat the osprey
to the nest, setting off an avian fight that
the osprey won.
In 2011, with the help of the South
Waterfront Dog Club, the pole was dis-
Osprey family enjoys mealtime in their nest on the west bank of the Willamette
River at South Waterfront. (Photo courtesy of Paul Johnson)
mantled and moved; the osprey moved
with it, undeterred by construction
activity going on around it.
Ralph Larson, declaring that he was
“acting as the voice of the osprey,” said
that the Dog Club was willing to move
the pole to the property of a willing
landowner out of the construction zone.
“It’s ironic that the Park Bureau wants
to spend $6.75 million on wildlife resto-
ration, and is beginning by displacing a
migratory bird,” he said.
Commission member David Wark
(Continued on Page 7)
Neighborhood House seeks food
for the hungry
NEIGHBORHOOD NEWS
By Lee Perlman
The Southwest Portland Post
Angela Coefield, Dante Dainton-Piacente, Vivian Allard-McNeely, Fletcher
Calcagno, and Max Calcagno get ready for SW HOPE at St. Barnabas Church’s
“Souper Bowl Sunday” event on February 5. (Photo courtesy of Mari Yerger,
Neighborhood House)
Don’t forget to renew your subscription. Form on Page 2.
The Southwest Portland Post
4207 SE Woodstock Blvd #509
Portland, OR 97206
Neighborhood House’s “South-
west Hope – Feed the Hungry” cam-
paign for 2012 is under way and runs
through April 1.
During this time there will be do-
nation barrels to receive non-perish-
able food throughout Hillsdale and
Multnomah, including such locations
as the Multnomah Arts Center, Garden
Home Recreation Center, Mittleman
Jewish Community Center, and Food
Front grocery store in Hillsdale.
All non-perishable items are use-
ful, but peanut butter, tuna fish and
cooking oil are especially welcome, N
Neighborhood House executive direc-
tor Rick Nitti told The Post. Contribu-
tions will be distributed to needy fami-
lies through Neighborhood House’s
Emergency Food Box.
The program started six years ago,
in cooperation with area churches, as
a “faith” response to “growing food
insecurity in the area,” Nitti told the
Southwest Neighborhoods, Inc. board
in February.
“Southwest is a fairly affluent area,
but there are large pockets of poverty,”
Nitti said. For instance, 53 percent of
students at Markham School qualify
for free or reduced lunch, and so do
one in five students in the Wilson High
School cluster of schools.
Patti Campbell of St. Andrews Pres-
byterian Church, one of the partners
in the drive, said part of the purpose
is to make people more aware of the
problem.
Some area restaurants are holding
benefits and donating part of a day’s
proceeds to the drive. Individuals can
also contribute cash donations directly
to Neighborhood House.
Proceeds will be used to purchase
food from the Oregon Food Bank at
the rate of $1 for five pounds of food.
Neighborhood House headquarters
is located at 7780 SW Capitol Hwy.
The charity can be reached at (503)
246-1663.
Terwilliger Parkway’s
100 th anniversary planning
includes gateway markers
The 100 th anniversary of Terwilliger
Parkway is coming up in July, and
there are at least two ventures in the
works to mark the occasion.
Last month the Portland Bureau of
Parks presented the Portland Design
Commission its prototype for gateway
markers for the parkway.
The bureau hopes to have two gate-
ways, one at each end, but for budget-
ary reasons is beginning with one at
the north end. The location will be op-
posite upper Duniway Park, designer
Kurt Lango told the Commission.
An alternative location opposite
Southwest Sheridan Street was deemed
(Continued on Page 7)