Climate Crisis in the Age of COVID-19
By Midge Pierce Before the world ground to a corona virus-induced halt, climate seemed the Earth’s most pressing problem. Yet, long after this virus c…
Local Headlines
Affordable Housing, Part Two
By Gabe Frayne The City of Portland continues to make measured progress in its mission to provide affordable housing to low and moderate income reside…
CANCELLATION NOTICE
Many events are being cancelled and we are updating this site as we are notified of cancellations. We encourage you to check with individual venues bef…
Police Bureau Pledges Ongoing Reforms
By Midge Pierce A spike in gun violence has added steam to Portland residents who talk of leaving the City and its problems behind. New Police Ch…
Hawthorne Pave and Paint Project
By David Krogh The Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) is undertaking a project which will impact SE Hawthorne Blvd. from SE 24th Ave to SE 50t…
Pilot Program to Address Non-Emergency Police Calls
By Nancy Tannler At the Lents Neighborhood Livability Association meeting (LNLA), a presentation was given that explains Commissioner Jo Ann Hardest…
Courts Create Confusion on Homeless Camping Bans
By David Krogh As previously reported in The Southeast Examiner, the City of Salem recently instituted a ban on camping on public property aimed at …
Burnside Bridge: Retrofit or Rebuild?
By Midge Pierce Despite living in an earthquake zone, few Portland residents think about the danger of crossing the Willamette River on our aging br…
Richmond Considers Parking Permits
By Midge Pierce Few issues rile up Portlanders quite so much as parking. On the eastside, it is dividing those who seek it from those who seek to re…
Fixing Our Streets
By Don MacGillivray The congestion and poor condition of Portland streets is a frequent public complaint. The first effort at “Fixing Our Streets” w…
Portland’s Struggle with Affordable Housing
By Gabe Frayne Jeanne Favini looks back with a mixture of bitterness and embarrassment at the moment she realized she faced an imminent choice betwe…
SE Uplift Names New Executive Director
SE Uplift announced that Leroy Eadie has been hired to fill the Executive Director role that was vacated when Molly Mayo left. He comes to the organiza…
OCCL Seeks 3.96 Resolution
By Midge Pierce Code Change 3.96 would reform Portland’s public engagement system, and is intended to give marginalized communities more voice. …
Campaign Fund Complaints Hit Council Candidates
By David Krogh Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, his election opponent Ozzie Gonzalez and City Council candidate Jack Kerfoot were hit with campaign finan…
Police Strive to Turn Tide of Crime and Negativity
By Midge Pierce A perfect storm of conditions: an unprecedented police shortage, anti-police sentiment and diminishing crime prevention activity may…
Commissioner Nick Fish Passes Away
By David Krogh Portland City Commissioner Nick Fish lost his battle with stomach cancer Thursday, January 2 and passed away at his home with fam…
RIP Gains Traction Amid Calls for More Density
By Midge Pierce Like it or not, quadplexes and possibly six or eight plexes are likely coming soon to Portland’s single family neighborhoods. Th…
Painting the Streets Red
By David Krogh During the last week in October, City crews painted two of the bus only lanes in downtown Portland’s transit mall a bright shade of r…
Council Wrestles Over Contentious Code and Infill Proposals
By Midge Pierce As old Portland and new spar over the City’s future, Commissioners are in the hotseat hearing issues that split the City and blame c…
Treating Portland’s Water: Filtration vs. UV and Ozone
By Nancy Tannler On December 4, 2019 City Council Commissioners Amanda Fritz, Nick Fish and Mayor Ted Wheeler voted to proceed with Portland Water B…
Oregon’s Primary Coming Up in May
By David Krogh May 19, 2020 is the date for Oregon’s primary election. Regarding the Portland City Commission, there are three positions up for grab…
PCC Reaches Agreements with Faculty and Academics
By Jack Rubinger Portland Community College (PCC) reached tentative agreements with the Federation of Classified Employees and the Federation of Fac…
City Takes Trees and Climate Seriously
By Midge Pierce As Fire Drill Friday climate protests swept the globe imploring action to save the planet, Portland took steps to curtail carbon emi…
OLCC Bans CBD + Alcohol
In late December, the Oregon Liquor Control Commission (OLCC) adopted a rules amendment to ban the inclusion of CBD in manufactured products. They will…
New Seasons’ New Owners
By Midge Pierce Since New Seasons announced its sale under Good Food Holdings to South Korean E-mart, reactions at both the Hawthorne and Sellwood s…
Oregon’s Distracted Driving Fines Are Highest in the Nation
By David Krogh Oregon’s distracted driving fines are the highest in the US. Rosenblum Law, a New Jersey law firm, conducted a survey and determined …
Walkabout Kicks Off Alliance
By Midge Pierce A coalition called Inner Powell Alliance (IPA) has formed with Creston-Kenilworth, Richmond, Hosford Abernethy and Brooklyn Neighbor…
Neighborhood Associations Live Another Day
By Midge Pierce Score a success for neighbors seeking to retain a pipeline to City Hall. Postponement of a code change vote that could have upended …
Preschool Education Addressed, Funding Increased
By Don MacGillivray Housing costs, transportation, homelessness and poverty were the highest concerns from Oregonians surveyed in a recent poll cond…
Helping Oregon’s Veterans
By Nancy Tannler After twenty-two years in the military watching over the lives and well being of her fellow soldiers, Sergeant Tina Kennedy returne…
DOZA: Changing the City’s Design Review Process
By David Krogh By the year 2035, the City is expected to grow by 123,000 households. Since Portland’s leaders have determined Portland will grow…
Congestion Pricing
By Don MacGillivray Road congestion has almost reached the breaking point. Rush hour traffic is terrible on many freeways and arterials. Unless a ma…
The District Office
By Jack Rubinger The District Office, at the corner of Stark and MLK, is one of Portland’s first cross-laminated timber buildings; a new and excitin…
Solve Volunteers Clean Up
By Larissa Gordon From Astoria to Brookings, Baker City to Medford, over 5,500 dedicated volunteers came out in full swing, Saturday, September 21, …
A Day of Climate Action
By Midge Pierce Greta Thunberg should take heart. The planet’s children have issued a spectacular message that climate is a ticking timebomb. As …
Cracks in Code Change Surface
By Midge Pierce The fate of the city’s Neighborhood Associations continues to shift following Commissioner Chloe Eudaly’s threats to Council colleag…
What do Neighborhood Associations do?
By David Krogh Every part of the City of Portland is included within a neighborhood, and all of these have Neighborhood Associations (NAs) which res…
RIP Eyes Anti-displacement
By Midge Pierce Just as Portlanders were getting used to the idea of three and four-plexes in their single family neighborhoods, a proposal surfaced…
Congestion Pricing and Congestion
By David Krogh Portland area interstate highways, feeder streets, and even City streets have become more and more congested in recent years. That…
NAs Vow to Keep Portland Neighborly
By Midge Pierce If you value public input on landuse, transportation, infrastructure and livability, thank Neighborhood Association pushback for pos…
Officer Calls for Patience
By Midge Pierce In the face of protests, car thefts, Next Door burglary reports, public drug use, “sharps” (preferred word for needles) on streets a…
History of Neighborhood Associations
By Don MacGillivray Controversy, criticism, and change challenge neighborhood associations today. It is not just city problems troubling the neighbo…
Summertime and the Livin’ is Easy
By Midge Pierce A silver lining of the attack on Neighborhood Associations is the growing outreach to under-represented groups. It’s not always e…
A Solution to Climate Change
By Meera Ramachandran A scary book can help some folk nestle into the mood of the Halloween season. With the fall around the corner, it’s good to kn…
More and More Scooters Coming
By David Krogh Note: The Southeast Examiner discussed the Portland Bureau of Transportation’s (PBOT’s) implementation of a new one-year pilot projec…
Homelessness in SE Portland
By Jack Rubinger One of the dangers of getting used to the homeless problem in Portland is that you start feeling numb, then angry, then sad, then y…
Paint the Town Green
By Allen Field Approximately two hundred and fifty volunteers, young and old, fanned out from locations near 82nd Ave. and the Central Christian Churc…
Phoenix Reborn
By David Krogh An old boarded up triangular brick building on Foster Rd. is about to be reborn. Located at SE 67th St., it originally got its start as…
Code Challenges Neighborhood Clout
By Midge Pierce A City Bureau under Commissioner Chloe Eudaly is rushing a code change to Council that, under the guise of equity and inclusion, wea…
RIP’s search for land: Responsible Growth or Demolition Derby?
By Gabe Frayne On a quiet street off of NE Glisan, a one-story, century-old cottage fell to the wrecking ball three years ago to make way for a modern…
State Bills Passed in 2019
By David Krogh A stress filled and sometimes chaotic 2019 Oregon State legislative session is now over. Several bills that passed are noteworthy and w…
Overreach Called War on Neighborhoods
By Midge Pierce A riddle making the rounds goes, “What do you get when you co-opt worthy goals of inclusion and diversity behind closed doors? A burea…
SE Updates
By Midge Pierce RIP Gets Red Carpet It’s all over but the shouting. The passage of HB 2001, the nation’s first statewide ban on single family zon…
Associations May Go Dark Under New Code
By Midge Pierce Portland Neighborhood Associations’ fragile tethers to City Hall are growing ever more tenuous. That’s because changes in the Cod…
Commuting by Water Taxi
By Don MacGillivray Farsighted leaders have for many years, dreamed of ferrying commuters and tourists on the rivers around the region. Water-borne …
Prepare for More Oil Trains in PDX
By Don MacGillivray Ever since the creation of the oil fields in the Dakotas and Central Canada, the Pacific Northwest has been concerned that railr…
PBOT in the News
By David Krogh Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) has been receiving substantial publicity lately and much of it is negative. Here is a com…
SE Updates
By Midge Pierce Family Housing Relief Coming Some one hundred and eighty low-income families should get needed affordable housing in a five-story…
What Densification Means to Portland
By Midge Pierce The June walkout of state Senators gave critics of pending legislation like statewide upzoning in HB 2001 time to amp up objections …
Franklin Teacher Awarded
By Jack Rubinger Myron Ryan, a Franklin High School metalworking and manufacturing teacher, has received the Circle of Excellence Award from OnPoint…
Cleveland Robotics Goes to the Worlds
By Jack Rubinger Cleveland High School’s robotics team, The Pigmice (FRC 2733), recently wrapped up one of their most successful competition seasons…
SE Updates
By Midge Pierce The Kids Are Alright Grade school kids are leading the way toward racial understanding and sensitivity at Buckman Elementary. …
Railroad Retracking Becomes Possible Reality
By Midge Pierce Imagine inner Eastside without those infuriating mile-long trains stopping you in your uh, tracks. A pipedream? Not according to …
Stringent Parks Budget
By Don MacGillivray This year’s budget for the City of Portland Parks and Recreation Bureau (PP&R) indicates a major disconnect between PP&R…
Opportunity Zones Provide Capital Gains Tax Break
By Gabriel Frayne Jr. It’s been over half a century since the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development labeled the Buckman neighborhood a “p…
Housing: Is Bigger Better?
By Midge Pierce Despite massive construction and a reported 16,000 empty units, more housing has yet to move the needle significantly on affordabili…
City Budget Cuts Hits PP&R Hard
By Don MacGillivray The City of Portland held a large Town-Hall Meeting April 2 to review and discuss the forthcoming City Budget at the Immigrant a…
SE Updates
By Midge Pierce Demolition Harms Climate Too When it comes to climate change, our ecologically-minded city is steeped in contradictions. The sust…
Litter & Graffiti CleanUp
Metro and KINK Radio holds the second annual “Paint the Town Green” litter and graffiti cleanup events, Saturday June 1, from 9 am-1 pm. Last year’s…
Community News May 2019
Montavilla Farmer’s Market opens Montavilla Farmers Market invites you to join us as we kick off our 13th season on May 5th! We’ll have fresh local …
Climate Action Plan
By Midge Pierce Addressing climate change is ever more urgent as weather gets weirder, polar ice sheets melt and fires get hotter. A glimmer of g…
2019 State Housing Bill Updates that Affect SE Portland
By David Krogh HB2001 was amended by the House Committee on Human Services and Housing and was referred to the Joint Ways and Means Committee on Apr…
Educational Crisis Builds Funding Pressure
By Midge Pierce The expectation that dozens of teaching positions will be eliminated next year despite the Portland Public School (PPS) Superintende…
City Club Initiates Public Meetings for De-Commissioning Discussion
By David Krogh The City Club held a public meeting Wednesday, April 10, in the community room at McMennamin’s Kennedy School to initiate public disc…
Fritz to Retire in 2020
By David Krogh City Commissioner Amanda Fritz announced on April 5 that she would retire after her current term is up in 2020 and not run for re-el…
Laurelhurst Neighborhood Receives National Historic Recognition
It’s official! After years of work by hundreds of community volunteers, the Laurelhurst Neighborhood has been added to the National Register of Histori…
Local Effects of 2018 Tax Act
Jim Houser, owner of Hawthorne Auto Clinic, hosted a Town Hall with Congressman Earl Blumenauer and Senator Ron Wyden last month to speak with local b…
Clarifying PERS Benefits
By Don MacGillivray The Public Employee Retirement System(PERS) began in 1946 and includes many types of public service employees. The employee brea…
SE Updates
Yes, It Could Happen Here The geyser that erupted last month on NE Skidmore was caused by a break in a hundred-years plus, thirty-inch diameter wate…
State Bills Affecting Housing and Planning
By David Krogh Several bills in both the State House and Senate are being considered which will provide major changes to how future planning occurs …
New and Revised Taxation Plans
By Don MacGillivray With the Oregon legislature in search of more funding for public schools, various new or revised tax plans are being advanced. D…
Don’t Blink – More Change Coming
By Midge Pierce Pro-growthers score a big one RIP, the Residential Infill Project’s elimination of Portland’s single family neighborhoods, moved …
RNA Carries On
By Midge Pierce Perplexed Richmond residents filled tables, pushed together in a symbolic gesture of welcome, as the Neighborhood Association held i…
Music Millennium Hits 50
By J. Michael Kearsey Back in 1969, a person known as a Millennial was just a twinkle in every young granny-glassed eye: an adjective that pertained…
What is HB2003
By David Krogh HB2003 is yet another affordable housing bill sponsored by State House Speaker Tina Kotek, but, the bill attempts to strike into the …
SE Updates
By Midge Pierce Watchers Eye OCCL Warily Infighting within neighborhood associations like Richmond comes at a contentious time when city playboo…
Crime Keeps Coming Whether We Listen or Not
By Midge Pierce Portland’s police force has hit a decidedly rough patch. The bureau has a hundred vacancies to fill, internal morale is low and publ…
Imbroglios Threaten Future RNA
By Midge Pierce Turmoil that has roiled the Richmond neighborhood years ago has resurfaced to plague a community frequently hailed as among the nati…
Preservation Wrap up: Grassroots Makes a Comeback
By Midge Pierce In growth-centric Portland, preservation is taxing and grassroots clout is growing to protect architectural and cultural treasures a…
Rethinking Commission Form of Governance
By David Krogh The City Club has thrown a curveball at the Portland City Council. This pitch takes the form of a study and accompanying report wh…
Eastbank Esplanade Improvements: Temporary Closure Ahead
Portland Parks & Recreation (PP&R), in partnership with the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT), Bureau of Environmental Services (BES), a…
New Alignments Push Back Against URM Policies
By Midge Pierce A potentially powerful alignment of diverse interests has coalesced to oppose City requirements that unreinforced masonry (URM) buil…
Major League Baseball in PDX
By Don MacGillivray Is the dream of major league baseball in Portland possible? A growing number of Portland’s notables think so. Craig Cheek, Ni…
SE Updates
By Midge Pierce Record Funding Found to Tackle Homelessness Low income housing relief is coming to SE. The Mayor bills the just-announced Permane…
High Tech to Grass Roots
In response to the Portland housing crisis, JT, a software developer, has tapped the housing design experts at Communitecture and the edible garden and…
Empty Apartments Pale in Comparison to China
By Don MacGillivray Much criticism has been leveled at the City about housing development of recent years. It seems that the city is over building a…
State Housing Bills Reflect City Proposals
By Midge Pierce As goes the City, so goes Salem with bills on the legislative docket for rent control and densification. Mayor Ted Wheeler indicates…
Business Owner Fights TriMet’s Overcrossing Project
By Jonathan Maus, editor and publisher of BikePortland This article originally appeared on BikePortland.org bikeportland.org/2018/12/20/business-o…
URM Year End Update
URM Year End Update by Gabriel Frayne Jr. The battle between URM building owners and the Portland City Council over seismic upgrades ended the ye…
Metro Urban Growth Boundary
By Don Mac Gillivray Predicting how much our region will grow is the job of the Portland Metropolitan Service District (Metro) and it isn’t easy. …