Category: Commentary

  • Crisis in PDX Parks Not on Commissioner’s Agenda

    The most striking thing about Commissioner Fritz’s upcoming Town Hall is that the crisis in Portland’s parks  didn’t even make her agenda. Our Commissioner of Parks refuses to acknowledge that city parks have been overrun by traveling gangs with no interest in emergency housing. At the Sept 1 “North Park Blocks Task Force” meeting at City Hall Fritz made…

  • Mayor Admits Downtown is Overrun by Traveling Gangs

    In an impassioned email the mayor said that as I walked through downtown on Thursday, “I don’t think I saw one homeless person as I know them to be. I think I counted 27 travelers, many of them with dogs, sprawled on the corners throughout the center of town.” I’m not judging people by their looks or lifestyle,…

  • Portland …. Wake Up and Take Back Your City

    Note: This first came to us as a comment by lowestcommondenominator. It deserves to be a post Having traveled both nationally and internationally in some pretty rough areas…and now settled in the Pearl for about 2 years, can this be compared to anything I’ve seen ….anywhere?    Nope! Only in the Pearl. Only in Portland. And it’s getting…

  • NW Examiner: Civility Collapses on North Park Blocks

    The September 2015 issue of the NW Examiner details this summer’s dramatic decline of the North Park Blocks. Click here for PDF of article Our lovely park has become home to vagrants who openly do drugs, have sex, fights and regularly urinate and defecate in public. … This is affecting my business and more importantly, Portland’s prosperity in the long run.”…

  • Parks ARE For Everyone – But Lack Safety And Order

    A North Park Block neighbor sent the following email to Parks Commissioner Amanda Fritz: Thank you for the work you do for the city. I write because I heard about the Sept 1st task force meeting called by Mayor Hales regarding  the conditions in the North Park Blocks. You stayed for only 20 minutes, but before you departed early you…