Portland's small businesses view the future

As part of Portland's visioning project, visionPDX, small neighborhood business associations were surveyed for their views of the future.

A summary document prepared by the Alliance of Portland Neighborhood Business Association (APNBA) describes responses that are part enlightened, part surprising, and part, well, less than surprising.

The three top issues listed in the APNBA’s report are:

• Funding for schools—“A failing education system erodes a civilization,” notes the report, and more funding would “mend the problem of poor educational performance in Portland Public Schools.”

• Solving homelessness—Three reasons were cited: The well being of the people living on the streets is the first concern, the homeless are “a deterrent to operating a business because they annoy customers, and the aggressive panhandling in front of shops, on corners and freeway ramps” discourages tourism.

• Limiting porn—“Respondents said that the city (referred to at one point as “Porn-land”) should find a way to limit porn shops and strip clubs in neighborhoods…” the topic was of particular concern in the city’s outer districts.

In a catch-all section, the business owners offered several sweeping suggestions to make Portland a better place 20 years from now. The following is verbatim from the report:

• Buy locally.
• Every community accept people of all cultures and incomes.
• People support each other’s dreams.
• Teach individual self-sufficiency so people can survive disaster.
• Train citizens to be leaders.
• Teach mediation in high school—and the art of listening.
• “Work to better educate voters who will elect officials (who) represent the values. that we are talking about” (and who) will bring about a “shift in collective consciousness.”

Charter review omits neighborhoods, vision

I can't attend Thursday's Portland City Council deliberations on the Charter Review Commission's recommendations at 2 p.m. at City Hall, so I've sent my comments.

I have serious concerns about both the commission's process and its recommendations. Here's what I've written the City Council...

Commissioners:

I'm writing because I have concerns that the process followed by the Charter Review Commission suffers from serious disconnects.

Specifically, the commission makes no recommendations regarding the role the City wants neighborhoods to play. As the mayor has said many times, the City can't do its job alone. It needs the energy found in the neighborhoods. The neighborhoods should be partners in the business of the city, and yet the Commission's recommendations utterly fail to acknowledge or formalize that partnership.

Moreover, there seems to be an inexplicable disconnect between visionPDX and the Commission's deliberations. As one who has read hundreds of visionPDX responses, I believe ignoring the concerns expressed in the responses is a travesty.

Consider just one area, education. Respondents were nearly unanimous about the need to bring equity to our schools, and yet their concerns were being directed to the City, NOT the School District. There is obvious need to tear down the walls between these two governments, if not actually combine them. The commission is silent on the question of consolidation or structures for improved communications.

I urge you to slow down the Charter Review process so that neighborhoods and visionPDX become part of the commission's deliberations and recommendations.

Sincerely,

Rick Seifert
Hillsdale Neighborhood