July 2014
FEATURES
The Southwest Portland Post • 7
Potholes and other miserable road maintenance issues, Part III
By Lee Braymen-Cleary
The Southwest Portland Post
If you’ve read the last few issues
of The Post you know I’ve gone fish-
ing, angling for answers to explain
which Southwest Portland residents
can and cannot expect their streets to
receive street maintenance services
from Portland’s Bureau of Trans-
portation. Chasing local annexation
rules, I have cast a wide net, a nar-
row net, and even a net with a few
unexpected holes in search of the
answer.
I’ve trawled unproductive enough
waters by contacting the Multnomah
County Archives, Portland Bureau
of Transportation’s veteran employ-
ees, and some of its maintenance
staff, not to mention its current me-
dia relation director, Diane Dulken.
Savvy neighborhood reader Larry
Sloan once responded to my query
by telling me that roads already
paved and maintained would re-
ceive services. Yet he also believes
some roads in lackluster condition
are “grandfathered in” (my term).
There’s a question: What substanti-
ates a “grandfathered in” byway, if
there is such a thing. How does one
fish for the answer?
Dulken, tied up by her reasonably
short history at the transportation
bureau and not interested in my
speaking to longtime maintenance
workers, managed to point me in a
different, useful direction. “So why
don’t you go through the City of
Portland Archives?” she asked, sup-
plying me with their phone number.
I took her advice. And what a
fishing expedition it was! Located
on the fifth floor of Portland State
University’s Academic and Student
Recreation Center, the Portland Ar-
chives & Records Center guards the
old bones of Portland. For starters,
the archives’ glass front doors are
locked until a librarian lets you in.
Once I’d turned in my driver’s
license for collateral and planted
myself at a clean table flooded with
sunlight, I leafed first through a
six-inch tome cross referencing mul-
titudes of city ordinances. “This sys-
tem works well,” said my librarian.
“You just need to understand it.”
I did not let her see me roll or
cross my eyes. She was like a fishing
guide taking me out beyond the bar
in a foreign country. It was a matter
of personal courage to keep reading
and then start in on microfiche.
Just about the time my dry, tired
peepers were spent, Madame Li-
brarian presented me with a thin,
1961 document spelling out services
provided to annexed Southwest
Portland as of 1960. Aha! and eureka!
What a huge nibble on my fish-
ing line. Fish on! Fish on! I thought.
Page 12 of the document, probably
typed originally on an IBM Selectric
typewriter predating computer pub-
lications, listed “Street & Sidewalk
Design and Maintenance.”
But did the booklet mean that all
Southwest Portland areas annexed
before 1961 received these services,
or was there an unnamed start day,
say 1950, 1940 or…? We might even
ask when Southwest annexations
actually began.
Although I’ve never fished at
a dinner party, for anything but
the odd compliment,
perhaps, I did last
Sunday. I’ve known
Ken Martin, father,
husband, grandfather,
and gourmet for 17
years. There this for-
mer Multnomah Vil-
lage resident stood,
swirling a glass of
2011 Teutonic Silvaner
and giving it his nose,
when I asked, “Before
you retired, Ken, what
did you do?”
His deep set and
kind blue eyes game
me a cool glance. “I
worked for the Port-
land Boundary Com-
mission.”
“You what?” I asked.
“How did I never
know that? You’re just
the person I need.”
“Because why?” he A rutted view of Southwest 42nd Avenue in Multnomah
asked.
Village. (Post photo by Lee Braymen-Cleary)
“Because you must
know which Southwest Portland
“That’s it?” I asked. “Do you sup-
annexed areas are supposed to re-
pose you’d email me a paragraph
ceive street maintenance and which
tomorrow that explains that?” I
aren’t,” I choked. “I’ve been trying
begged.
to find out for over two months.”
“Nope,” he said, “I’m going fish-
“Difficult getting through the city
ing.”
system, huh?”
May Ken Martin land the catch of
“Don’t even ask me,” I breathed.
a lifetime. But when he gets home
“It’s pretty simple, really,” Martin
I’ve got another question for him
explained. “City by city there’s a
since resident Larry Sloan says there
rule of thumb: Streets and roads al-
were some exceptions to the mainte-
ready maintained before annexation
nance rule. “Ken, tell me the which
continue to receive maintenance.
roads got the maintenance even if
The others don’t but they can pony
they weren’t in good shape,” I’ll say.
up their own funds to have a road
If he tells me, I’ll buy him a new
paved.”
fishing pole.
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