Portland Plan Phase 2 Starts tonight (reprint from Mayor Adams)
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Dear Friends:
Phase Two of the Portland Plan workshops starts tonight, Monday, April 26th, and I encourage you to attend a neighborhood workshop. All workshops will follow a similar format to the first round, but this time you’ll have a chance to discuss a specific topic in greater depth. Participants will also discuss how we can plan in all areas for the benefit of all Portlanders. You can read more about the topics, also called Action Areas, here.
As Mayor, I am committed to addressing the significant challenges we face as a community – only 61% of our high school students graduate on time, 10.7% of Portlanders are unemployed, nearly 70% of our electricity is produced by burning fossil fuels – and the Portland Plan sets a framework for how this city will overcome these and other challenges over the next 25 years.
Your knowledge of issues and experience in Portland is an invaluable asset when it comes to making decisions about this city’s future. I hope that you will consider contributing to the conversation and helping us refine the collective goals that we are developing to realize a thriving and sustainable city for all Portlanders. Please see the workshop schedule below.
Oh, and just for fun…
We will be welcoming the community with live music, refreshments and door prizes, including donations from local businesses like Grand Central Baking, Pastini Pastaria, New Seasons Market and Meat Cheese Bread. In fact, you can enter to win in our social media contest by RSVPing to the events on Facebook and Twitter.
Portland Plan on Facebook.
Portland Plan on Twitter
Portland Plan Press Release – Phase 2 kicks off!
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Eden Dabbs
Bureau of Planning & Sustainability
503-823-9908
eden.dabbs@portlandoregon.gov
- Residents can learn about and discuss the issues that affect our everyday lives – like safe neighborhoods, living-wage jobs, good schools, comfortable homes, healthy families, access to amenities and transit, and equity and fairness for all Portlanders.
- Door prizes from local businesses include gift certificates for New Seasons, Pastini Pasteria, Pizzicato, Grand Central Baking Co., Meat Cheese Bread, Bunk Sandwiches, and Artemis Café. All participants will be eligible to win one of these as well as other door prizes such as t-shirts, Chinook Books and tickets to local venues and other gift certificates.
- Enter to win a special social media door prize by RSVPing to the Monday event on Twitter and Facebook: @PDXPlan and Facebook/pdxplan. More details at pdxplan.com
6:30 – 9:00 p.m.
2401 SE Stark Street
Portland, OR 97214
The Portland Plan will be the city’s roadmap for the next 25 years, guiding our direction as the city grows and changes. The plan will help define our priorities, guide investment of public dollars and set the course for Portland for the next quarter of a century. 1980 was the last time the City developed a plan like this and since then, 50 percent of Portlanders are new to the city.
The Portland River Plan: North Reach from Sam Adams
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My vision for Portland is a city that is economically prosperous and environmentally and socially sustainable. Striving for success on both the economic and environmental fronts is the true innovation of the proposed Portland River Plan, a plan for the Willamette River from the Fremont Bridge to Kelley Point Park.
The river plan acknowledges the tremendous success we’ve seen in our working harbor and seeks to ensure that it continues to prosper through key investments in industry-supporting infrastructure.
The plan identifies key “pearl” sites for focused environmental restoration, and it seeks to connect these sites through a string of natural resource areas to be protected — or developed — up and down the North Reach.
The existing Willamette Greenway Plan in effect for the North Reach, created in 1987, is sorely out of date. The current regulations require projects to meet vague approval criteria, often while they’re subject to meeting federal and state criteria in a separate process. That’s an onerous process for businesses to navigate. Eleven percent of Portland’s job base is in the manufacturing sector, much of it concentrated in the North Reach. Advanced manufacturing is one of the four industries targeted in our Economic Development Strategy, our blueprint for creating 10,000 jobs over the next five years.
While we focus on building a robust local economy, we must also work on preserving and restoring the natural environment. Not only is the North Reach a Superfund site, but also it has more than 100 environmental cleanup sites identified by the state Department of Environmental Quality. Forty percent of the North Reach is impervious surface, and 52 percent of the river banks are hardened. We have much work to do to restore the health of the North Reach’s natural resources.
The cost to retain or restore these natural resources will be fair. Businesses that seek to develop along the river will be encouraged to do so, and in some areas will be asked to avoid or minimize impacts to existing natural resources. If they cannot avoid impacts or mitigate for them on site, then scientifically based fees will be determined to cover what it costs the city to do the mitigation work elsewhere.
The cost of inaction in the North Reach would be greater. The city needs to do its part, through careful review of projects and restoration work in the pearl sites, to prevent future federal fish listings by the Environmental Protection Agency. Each listing means added annual costs to doing business in the region.
This is the first plan the City Council has considered that will have a city-appointed oversight body. The plan’s implementation will be transparent and will be overseen by a diverse North Reach Advisory Committee, or NoRAC. I expect NoRAC to carefully track permits and to report to the council if immediate changes are needed to ensure the process is streamlined, fair and on track to meet the river plan’s multiple objectives.
We all share the goal of ensuring that money is spent on environmental restoration, not red tape. But we must also ensure that existing resources are protected through careful review so the North Reach doesn’t further deteriorate.
This is a comprehensive plan for a complex area, and its success requires strong partnerships among stakeholders and the city. The Portland River Plan takes the necessary steps toward enhancing the working harbor, supporting industrial jobs, increasing access to the river and improving environmental conditions. With it as our guide, we can improve all aspects of the North Reach.
Portland’s renowned quality of life can and must translate into a quality economy, and success in the North Reach will help us get there.
Sam Adams is mayor of Portland.
April is National Earthquake Preparedness Month – Courtesy of Mayor Adams
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Dear Colleagues,
April is National Earthquake Preparedness Month, and in Portland, earthquakes are a constant and significant concern. The City of Portland, in close collaboration with partners in the region, state and federally, is always looking to be better prepared for such an event. Individuals, families, offices and places of business need to be prepared and know about the tools available to them in case of an earthquake or other emergency.
This morning, Portland’s Office of Emergency Management (PoEM) unveiled a new feature of the city’s coordinated information website, www.publicalerts.org, designed to rapidly get information out to residents in times of emergency.
You can now go to publicalerts.org, click on the Sign Up button, and register to get voicemail, email and text messages sent directly to your mobile phone in times of emergency. The information you provide is protected and confidential. It takes only a minute to sign up, so please register yourself, and tell your friends, neighbors and coworkers about it.
I especially encourage City of Portland employees to sign up so as to stay up-to-the-minute on what we’re communicating out to the general public. We will also look to this new tool as a way to communicate with city employees in times of emergency. In the coming months, we will continue to add features and abilities to the site, publicalerts.org.
In the meantime, please take a moment to go online, visit www.publicalerts.org, and sign yourself up. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Sam Adams
Mayor, City of Portland
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