1. family and parenting
2. children

INSIDE
NEWS BITES
1989 demolitions remembered · Pg. 10
Readers respond to December
Food Front revelations with 50
website comments, many letters.
Thrifty Pittock broke the bank · Pg. 14
Industrial strength gyms · Pg. 24
DECEMBER 2014 / VOLUME 28, NO. 4 / FREE
Developer Marty Kehoe goes to
Deisign Commission with noparking project despite negative
Landmarks recommendation.
Centennial Mills developer asks
city for $38.5 million, Portland
Development Commission in no
hurry to answer.
***** SERVING PORTLAND’S NORTHWEST NEIGHBORHOODS SINCE 1986
Food Front board member quits in protest
Opposition mounts
to Block 7 project
BY ALLAN CLASSEN
Multnomah Athletic Club’s
controversial gambit to add
member parking to a proposed
Block 7 apartment building has
run into prominent opponents
on the eve of a Dec. 4 City Council hearing on a required zone
change.
Harsch Investment Properties, which leases 112 parking
spaces to MAC at Portland Towers Apartments, is opposing the
zone change.
Steve Roselli, Portland
regional manager for Harsch,
sent a letter to City Council Nov.
12 in which he questioned the
justification for the project.
After five years as a Food Front employee and two more on the co-op's board of directors, Tom Mattox decided the best way to help the
organization was to leave and speak out on the dysfunction he's seen. Photo by Vadim Mahoyed
Former employee and recent board member
Tom Mattox decides he cannot condone co-op’s
desire to circle the wagons and say all is fine.
ALLAN CLASSEN
R
ather than put his name
to a public statement he
believed untrue, Tom
Mattox resigned from the Food
Front Cooperative board of
directors last month.
Reacting to the NW Examiner’s November cover story,
“Co-op Crash,” Food Front
President Brandon Rydell
insisted Mattox and the four
other directors sign a statement
asserting that the board did not
“consider the main sources of
the NW Examiner article … to
be credible.”
“I had to make a choice,”
said Mattox, the co-op’s community outreach and marketing director from 2006-11 and
board member the past two
years.
“I knew I was not going to
be able to sign off on it,” he
said, noting that the story “rang
true to my experience” and the
board’s response amounted to
“circling the wagons and saying
everything is fine.”
Reinforcing his demand
for unanimous censure of the
article, Rydell warned his colleagues of the board’s code of
loyalty prohibiting open opposition to board positions.
That was the last straw.
Mattox concluded that any
positive influence on the board
he may have had was insignificant and speaking out would
be the best thing both for his
conscience and the organization he believes has lost its way.
“This is supposed to be a
democracy,” Mattox mused,
“and public dissent is not
allowed in a democratic organization?”
He announced his decision
in a message to the Examiner.
Roselli also said MAC General Manager Norm Rich ignored
an offer from Harsch about five
years ago to provide a long-term
lease for the parking spaces and
to add guest suites for MAC’s
use, another element of the
project pending before council.
More recently, representatives of MAC and the developer
have claimed the 112 leased
spaces are “not a permanent
solution.”
“Simply not true,” Roselli said
of that claim.
“The description of the work
environment at Food Front in
the November NW Examiner
felt all too familiar,” he wrote.
“The sense of fear and unhappiness in the workplace was
sometimes overwhelming.
“The majority of the events
that are hosted by the MAC
which cause the excessive need
for parking have nothing to do
with athletics or MAC members,” Roselli continued. “The
MAC will continue to support
outside events within the club,
and its appetite for more park-
Continued on page 6
Continued on page 17
Local martial arts team wins
two gold medals in China
In their first world tournament, five students from
U.S. Wushu Center take home medals.
ALLAN CLASSEN
Five martial arts competitors from U.S. Wushu Center on Northwest
17th Avenue won medals at the sixth World Traditional Wushu Championships, held in Chizhou, China, in October.
Ava Yu, 10, daughter of wushu masters Shaowen Yu and Jiamin Gao,
who operate the U.S. Wushu Center, won first place in Girls 12 and
under Traditonal Double Weapons competition. Their son, Alexander
Yu, 13, took second place in Boys 12-17 Other Weapons.
The family lives in Forest Heights.
Steven Alfano, 43, the only adult in the Portland contingent, won first
place in Men’s 40-59 Other Tai Chi Sword Form.
Continued on page 12
Ava Yu, 10, won a gold medal at the World Traditional Wushu Champions held in China in
October. Her parents operate the U.S. Wushu Center on Northwest 17th Avenue.
2
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NORTHWEST EXAMINER, DECEMBER 2014 /  NWEXAMINER.COM
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NEWS
 Readers Reply
Editor’s Turn
Letters can be sent to
allan@nwexaminer.com or 2825 NW Upshur St., Ste. C, Portland, OR 97210.
Letters should be 300 words or fewer; include a name and a street of residence.
Deadline third Saturday of the month.
To Food Front board
At the Northwest Thurman store,
it is posted that the board “does not
consider the main sources of the NW
Examiner article credible” and the
board fully supports General Manager
Holly Jarvis.
As one of the first 30 members of
Food Front and one who has seen
changes through the decades, I have
these questions:
Overall, current staff present a cordial face to customers. Yet talking with
them daily, I know a large majority feel great bitterness toward and
maltreatment by Holly Jarvis. Do you
have confidence that staff would be
forthcoming with you?
Have you read the 36 online comments on the Examiner website? The
vast majority are negative toward Ms.
Jarvis. At least 10 are from former
employees. How many testimonies
would you need to wake from your
sleep?
Food Front cannot compete on
wages or prices. It can only survive
on zeitgeist—on community feeling. You’d better have high employee
retention so at least the store runs
efficiently. It’s never going to happen
when employees feel they live in a
vindictive, hostile duchy and aren’t
compensated for low wages by feeling
they’re part of a respected team.
Did you know Food Front pays
lower taxes on sales to members? I
don’t give my member information
because there’s never a rebate. It also
takes cashiers too long to look it up. At
People’s Co-op, I always give a fourdigit number. It’s done in five seconds.
This is a training problem. Higher
taxes are paid because of management failure.
Index
From the comments of staff and
former board members, it appears
Ms. Jarvis has Supreme Court status
and no one can fire her. I doubt my
beloved Food Front survives her poisonous relations with staff another
year. The only chance is if you, the
board, wake up. Or Ms. Jarvis decides
she’d be happier working where she
didn’t make so many people miserable.
Daniel Berman
Vancouver, Wash.
Food quality consistent
As owners who shop Food Front
first, we have never encountered any
systemic issues with food quality or
safety as implied by one of your sources. As cooks, we value high, consistent-quality ingredients and feel Food
Front is doing a fine job in this critical
area. On the rare occasion we have gotten produce that looked fine on the
outside but was not on the inside,
Food Front has always replaced such
items without question. We appreciate the knowledge of staff and have
noticed an improvement in the consistency of customer service over the
past few years. While we don’t all frequent the new expanded meat counter or deli, we know our neighbors
do and value the diversity of offering
to meet the needs of our changing
neighborhood.
We also want to speak to our experience as owners of Food Front, who
wanted to start an owner-led initiative,
the Cook’s Club. We have had nothing
but support from Food Front’s management, board and staff. We have
been able to use space in and outside
the store and have been provided with
occasional product samples to share. Continued on page 5
OBITUARIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
PEARL SECTION. . . . . . . . . . GOING OUT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . COMMUNITY EVENTS . . . . BUSINESS & REAL ESTATE .. 4
12
18
23
24
VOLUME 28, NO. 4 // DECEMBER, 2014
3
BY ALLAN CLASSEN
EDITOR & PUBLISHER
T
This is a co-op?
he special feeling many have for
Food Front owes largely to its cooperative form of ownership. The grocery store is owned by its customers, at
least the 10,000 or so who have put up
$150 to become members.
In principle, the business is run for
these owner/members. They share in
the profits (if there are any) and elect the
board of directors, which is supposed to
represent their interests.
In practice, members can do virtually nothing to shape or change the
direction of the organization. They can
vote for an uncontested slate of board
candidates issued by the board, a process somewhat akin to voting in the old
Soviet Union—democracy in form only.
The board of directors is self-perpetuating, comprised of people approved
by those already on the inside. If a Food
Front member isn’t satisfied with the
organization’s direction, he or she can
nominate someone … and submit the
name with a petition signed by at least
1,000 members (representing 10 percent of the co-op’s membership).
A member can also request a special
meeting to address a particular topic.
Again, the request must be accompanied by 1,000-plus signatures.
It only takes signatures from 15 members of the Northwest District Association to call a special meeting, and the
Goose Hollow Foothills League recently
held a special meeting because more
than 55 people requested it.
Yet the Food Front board revised its
bylaws in 2011 to muffle the membership’s voice behind unobtainable prerequisites.
The board knows how difficult it
is to get members involved. At three
Food Front public events in the last two
months, only a handful of people other
than staff or directors showed up.
Board members must be paid ($100$250 a month) to recruit sufficient “volunteers,” said General Manager Holly
Jarvis. Still, the board now has only five
members, well short of the nine possible
slots.
Even assembling this slim body
involved shortcuts to defeat democratic
rules.
According to Tom Mattox, who
recently resigned from the board for
reasons of conscience, the board was
elected without a quorum, while plans
were laid to appoint each to one-year
terms if anyone learned of the violation
and complained.
This skeleton board—unable to
inspire even the tiniest remnant of
members to do anything—nevertheless
feels entitled to require other potential
leaders to demonstrate a massive following never remotely approached in
Food Front’s history.
In fear that “one thousand friends of
Food Front” might rise up and demand
accountability, the board added another
provision to keep the rabble from running off with things: The topic of a specially called meeting must be approved
by the board. Even if the masses miraculously mobilize to pursue a new policy,
the board still reserves the right to nix
any discussion it deems inappropriate.
These rules were not written by people who embrace member involvement,
but rather a tiny cadre who fear it.
Because Food Front has devolved into
a co-op in name only, it functions more
and more like a private business. Coke,
though falling miserably short of the coop’s mission to “bridge the gap between
local producers and the people of Portland” by selling “local fresh foods,” is the
top-selling item at the Hillsdale store.
Jarvis admits that Coke is carried only
because it sells and helps the store’s
profitability. Almost every private grocery store in America operates by the
same philosophy.
In another area, hourly pay, Food
Front resembles the most hard-lined
capitalist institution. Jarvis admits she
cannot match the pay of chains like New
Seasons. A biannual employee survey
shows great dissatisfaction with pay levels and policies, yet the co-op is pursuing a priority of driving down labor costs
still further.
“Our labor costs are a huge reason we
are not making money,” Jarvis told her
board.
Food Front is struggling for its financial survival, but it has lost sight of its
cooperative mission and in that sense
may have already given up the ghost.
EDITOR/PUBLISHER ...................................................... ALLAN CLASSEN
GRAPHIC DESIGN ..................................................... VADIM MAKOYED
PHOTOGRAPHY ..................................... THOMAS TEAL, JULIE KEEFE
ADVERTISING ........... JOLEEN JENSEN CLASSEN, LINDSEY FERGUSON
CONTRIBUTORS: JEFF COOK, DONALD NELSON, KC COWAN,
MICHAEL ZUSMAN
AWARD-WINNING PUBLICATION
ANNUAL SPONSOR
Published on the first Saturday of each month.
CLR Publishing, Inc., 2825 NW Upshur St., Ste. C, Portland, OR 97210, 503-241-2353.
CLR Publishing, Inc. ©2014. allan@nwexaminer.com • www.nwexaminer.com
Not until you give me one thousand signatures!!
 NWEXAMINER.COM / NORTHWEST EXAMINER, DECEMBER 2014
3
4
NEWS
 Obituaries
a Northwest Westover Road
resident for 43 years, died Nov.
22 at age 84. Happy Watson
was born June 28, 1930, in San
Francisco and moved to Portland with her parents when she
was 2. She attended Ainsworth
Elementary and Lincoln High
schools, and in 1952 graduated
from Northwestern University
in Evanston, Ill. She moved to
Portland in 1971, where she
served on the boards of Portland Garden Club and Berry
Botanical Garden. She also supported Friends of the Columbia
Gorge, the Classical Chinese
Garden, Hoyt Arboretum and
Friends of Elk Rock. She married Henry Marshall Hieronimus in 1952. She is survived
by her husband; sons, Marshall
and Gordon; daughter, Sue
Bonham; nine grandchildren;
and three great-grandchildren. A son, Dr. Douglas Allen
Hieronimus, predeceased her.
J. Kenneth Brody
Joel Kenneth Brody, a resident of Portland Heights, died
Nov. 19 at age 91. He was born
in Bridgeport, Conn., Jan. 11,
1923. He graduated from Yale
University and served in the
military during World War II.
After graduating from Yale Law
School in 1949, he moved to
Seattle and joined the law firm
of Bogle, Bogle & Gates. He was
vice president and director of
Evans Products from 1963 until
his retirement in 1981. His latest
historic work, “The Crucible of
a Generation: American Goes
to War, 1941,” is scheduled for
publication in 2015. He served
on the boards of the Portland Chamber of Commerce,
Metropolitan Family Service
Foundation, Portland Opera,
Emanuel Medical Center Foundation, Portland State University Friends of History and the
Oregon Human Rights Advisory Committee. He chaired
the Lincoln High School local
advisory committee. He was
a member of the Multnomah
Athletic Club, Arlington Club,
Yale Club of New York City,
Mory’s Association and the
Condon Elks Club. In 2010, he
received the Yale Medal for his
service to the university. He
was the second Oregonian to
be so honored. He is survived
by his wife, Sandy; daughter,
Alison Bingham; brother, Seth;
and one grandchild.
Paul Caputo, a resident of
Portland Heights, died Oct.
30 at age 70. He grew up on
Southwest Broadway Drive and
graduated from Lincoln High
School. He also lived on Southwest Vista Avenue and Davenport Street in Portland Heights.
He was an entrepreneur and is
listed as the secretary of seven
Oregon companies. He was
also a talented artist. An avid fly
fisherman, he loved fishing the
Metolius River. He is survived
by his daughter, Kelsey Marcel; son, Hunter; sisters, Sharon
and Julie; brothers, Ron, Jerry
and Steve; and four grandchildren.
Rhoda Cole
Kirke Johnson
Rhoda (Thyng) Cole, a resident of Cedar Mill since 1946,
died Nov. 8 at age 96. She was
born in Beaverton Aug. 5, 1918.
She graduated from Beaverton
High School and attended secretarial school in Portland. She
had a 69-year career as a legal
secretary. She married Jack
Cole in 1946; he died in 1992.
She was a member of the Oregon Legal Secretaries Association and an officer of its Washington County chapter. She was
instrumental in formation of
the Portland Community College’s legal assistant program
in the 1960s and ’70s. She is
survived by her sons, Joel and
Jeff; and four grandchildren.
Kirke Johnson, a resident
of Cedar Mill, died Nov. 20 in
a bicycle accident at age 70.
He worked in the technology
department at Portland Community College Sylvania Campus for 28 years, retiring at the
end of October. He rode thousands of miles a year on his
recumbent bicycle. He was a
member of the Oregon Human
Powered Vehicle Association
and the leader of PCC Sylvania’s Bike Commute Challenge Team. He is survived by
his wife, Katarina; daughter,
Heather; son, Stephen; and one
grandchild.
Easton Cross
Andrew P. Kerr
Easton Cross, a resident of
the Pearl District, died Nov. 3
at age 85. He was born Sept. 21,
1929, in Rugby, N.D. After high
school in Milwaukie, he joined
the U.S. Navy and later enrolled
at the University of Oregon.
He worked in politics most of
his life, including Mayor Bud
Clark’s campaign and several
Multnomah County races. He
is survived by his son, Martin; daughter, Sally; former
spouse, Joey; former companion, Judith; sister, Marjorie; and
three grandchildren. He was
preceded in death by his son,
Wayne; and companion, Garet
Martin.
Andrew Phillip
Kerr, a resident of
Arlington Heights,
died Nov. 10 at age
70. He was born
May 4, 1944, and
grew up in Portland. He attended Catlin Gabel
School and graduated from the
Thacher School in Ojai, Calif.
He earned his undergraduate
degree from Dartmouth College and graduated from Willamette University College of
Law in 1969. He was a founding
partner of the law firm of Gilbertson, Brownstein, Sweeney,
Kerr and Grim. He was a member of the Multnomah Athletic
Club, Waverly Country Club
and the Racquet Club. He is
survived by his wife, Marjorie;
children, Bob, Allison Bjork,
Jennifer Smesrud and Malcolm
Jamison; eight grandchildren;
brother, Donny; sister, Eleana;
and former wife, Martha Hammond Kerr.
Dr. Floyd Douglas Day
Dr.
Floyd
Douglas Day,
who grew up
in Northwest
Portland, died
Nov. 22 at age
81. He was born
in Portland March 8, 1933. He
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attended Ainsworth Elementary School and Lincoln High
School, graduating in 1951 as
a three-sport all-star athlete.
After graduating from Lewis &
Clark College, he attended the
University of Oregon Medical
School, graduating in 1959. He
was president of the Oregon
Academy of Family Physicians.
He was active in the Al Kader
Shrine, where he served as
potentate, and the Sunnyside
Masonic Lodge. From 1966 to
1972, he served in the Oregon
Army National Guard and the
U.S. Army Reserves. He is survived by his wife, Sherrie; children, Valery, Vance and Sharon; stepchildren Kip and Cassy
Christenson; eight grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
NORTHWEST EXAMINER, DECEMBER 2014 /  NWEXAMINER.COM
Barbara Walker
Barbara Sutherland (Farrow)
Walker, a resident of Portland
Heights, died Oct. 26 at age
78. She was born July 3, 1935
in Burbank, Calif. Her family
moved to Portland shortly after
she was born. She attended
Ainsworth Elementary School
and Catlin-Hillside High
School and graduated from
Smith College in Northampton,
Mass. She worked as a reporter
and columnist for the Oregon
Journal. She married Wendell
Oliver Walker in 1961. For 40
years, she was an advocate
for Portland’s parks, trails and
open spaces. She is survived by
her sons, Angus, Ian and Duncan; and seven grandchildren.
George D. Rives
George Douglas Rives, a resident of Portland
Heights, died
Oct. 23 at age 99.
He was born in
1915 and grew
up in Kentucky. He graduated
from Kentucky Wesleyan College in 1935 and in 1938 earned
his law degree from Yale Law
School, where he specialized in
utility and transportation law.
He served as a naval officer in
the Pacific during World War
II. While at Rives Bonyhadi,
he helped shape Oregon utility law for more than 60 years.
He became a senior partner
at Rives and Rodgers in 1963
and served as the lead regulatory lawyer for Pacific Power
& Light (now PacifiCorp) for
many years. He served as one
of the principal architects of the
1979 merger that created Stole
Rives, Oregon’s largest law firm.
He retired from active practice
in 1984 but continued to serve
low-income clients. He is survived by his daughters, Helen
Pruitt and Nancy McCann; and
six grandchildren. He was predeceased by his wife, Claire;
and son, Douglas.
David A. Rosenberg
David Rosenberg, cantor at
Shaarie Torah,
died Nov. 25 at
age 53. He was
born December
17, 1961. He is
survived by his wife, Kim; and
children, Sammy, Noah and
Estee. Kathryn Scoggin
Kathryn Beatrice Scoggin,
a graduate of St. Helen’s Hall,
died Oct. 26 at age 85. Kathryn Wood was born in Portland
Sept. 14, 1929. She graduated
from Fernwood Elementary
School, St. Helen’s Hall and
Grant High School. She graduated from the University of
Oregon. She was a member of
the Portland Garden Club, the
Portland Town Club and Colonial Dames of America. She is
survived by her husband, Frederick T. Scoggin; daughter, Laurie; sons, Mike and Tom; and
five grandchildren.
Peter M. Sargent
Peter Martin Sargent, owner
of Peter Sargent Interior Design
and Antiques, died Nov. 5 at
age 76. He was born Nov. 6,
1937, and attended Ainsworth
Grade School and Lincoln
High School. He graduated in
1960 from Lewis & Clark College with a degree in history.
He married Judy Abendroth.
He was an interior designer for
over 50 years, operating Peter
Sargent Interior Design and
Antiques on Southwest Vista
Avenue at Spring Street. He was
a member of Trinity Episcopal
Cathedral, the Golden Crane
Society of the Japanese Garden
and the Asian Arts Council. He
volunteered for Lift Urban Portland. He is survived by his son,
John; daughter, Susan; four
grandchildren, and dear friend
Richard Young.
Marcus G. Smucker
Marcus G. Smucker, former
pastor of Portland Mennonite
Church when it was at 2235
NW Savier St., died Oct. 29 at
age 82. He was born in BirdIn-Hand, Penn. He received a
bachelor’s degree from Eastern
Mennonite University, a master’s of divinity from New York
Theological Seminary, a master’s of theology from Union
Theological Seminary and a
Ph.D. from the Union Graduate
School. He began his career as
a pastor at Portland Mennonite
Church, serving from 1963-79
and developing lifelong connections. The congregation
moved to Southeast Portland
in 1969. He was an associate
professor at the Associated
Mennonite Biblical Seminary
from 1982-99, and an adjunct
professor at Eastern Mennonite
University. He is survived by his
wife, Dorothy; daughter, Deb;
son, Greg; brother, John; sisters,
Levina Huber, Sara Ann Landis
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two grandchildren.
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Paul D. Caputo
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NEWS
 Readers Reply
Continued on page 3
We are disappointed that
you would choose to publish
such a biased article, which
read more like an airing of personal grudges than an informative article about the challenges
facing community-owned grocery stores.
member was planning to ask
a single question of management, on a report that showed
persistent lack of compliance
with the board’s own policies
on staff treatment, I am not
aware of it. Our staff deserve
vigorous oversight.
Regina Hauser, Evan O’Neill and
Faye Yoshihara
Cook’s Club co-founders
Fortunately, the board has
another chance. The report will
be on the December agenda.
Workers ignored
The Food Front board has
always insisted that there is a
small group of disgruntled staff
and this is typical in any business. This dehumanizes people, ignores real human suffering, and turns a blind eye to the
detrimental effect staff unhappiness has on our business. The
board has in its hands real data
showing, in my view, alarming
trends in working conditions at
Food Front.
According to a recent survey, staff, overall, feel less safe
than they did two years ago
in bringing their concerns to
management without fear of
retaliation. A management
report submitted to the board
in October showed management out of compliance with
several board policies on staff
treatment. Some of these were
out of compliance in 2012 and
some show conditions are
worse now.
The report was scheduled
to be on the board’s consent
agenda in late October. The
day before the board meeting, I asked for the report to be
pulled from the consent agenda for discussion in December. As far as I know, no other
board member requested this.
In other words, if any board
5
Tom Mattox
Food Front board member 2012-14
GM needs to go
I worked at the co-op for five
years. Holly made no effort to
get to know her employees and
was always considered a horrible manager by everyone who
worked directly for her. I didn’t
even know who she was for
the first year I worked there.
She seemed totally out of touch
about what was happening on
the floor in the store and did
not listen to her employees.
She just stayed up in her office
and made bad decisions while
looking at her spreadsheets.
I always thought it was sad
that a co-op needed a union,
but that’s what was necessary
to create any dialogue between
management and staff.
It was always the staff that
made Food Front great. They
stuck together and worked hard
despite being undercompensated and underappreciated.
Food Front I’ve been a member
of since the beginning of time
in your “Co-op Crash” article?
The one which seems to get
busier and busier every day,
especially on the weekends?
The one whose remodel has
brought many new benefits:
good meat, good fresh fish,
good choices for takeout and
delicious soups?
Seems busy
Are we talking about the
That Food Front has weathered the dramatic changes in
the organic food market since
the early ’90s is in a large part
due to Holly’s steady hand. As
a board member, “policy governance” or no, I weighed in on
the challenges posed by those
changes. A friend just the other day
who was not accustomed to
shopping there said she does
much more now just because
of the meat and seafood. Having this human scale, ethicallybased store within walking distance contributes to our social
and natural environment.
One major challenge was
improving customer service. Many longtime staff
resented the gentrification
of the neighborhood, and let
customers who committed
the crime of being too “yuppie” know it. Holly instituted
long overdue customer service guidelines, and several
employees quit. You could have
written quite the article with
their disgruntled comments,
but today employees are actually helpful and give children
stickers at checkout.
If they are having difficulties,
I do wish them well and hope
they can be solved. I’m not sure
the Examiner article’s intent is
to help them solve things.
Jere Grimm
NW Aspen St.
Don’t blame workers
I had a membership by
working as a volunteer at Food
Front in the early 1980s. The
atmosphere and operations
were distinct from those of
today. To blame workers for the
problems of any organization
is dishonest, disrespectful and
kills morale.
Similar problems arose with
the decision to sell meat. A
basic problem is that while
a significant proportion of
Food Front staff is driven by
ideology, Holly’s main priority is to run a quality grocery
store. Being an effective manager does not always align with
being the warm and fuzzy personage some new hires expect
when they hear the words “natural food
co-op.” I have
date:
DECEMBER,
2014never
known her to be anything but
calm and professional. I can’t afford the high prices
at Food Front so don’t shop
there anyway. I hear New Seasons treats employees well.
Holly needed to go a long,
long time ago. It’s amazing
she’s lasted so long.
Northwest
Steven Del Favero
El Portal, Calif.
for six (1994-2000), I cannot
understand—with all the genuine muck to rake in this town—
why you chose to mount what
I can only call a hatchet job
on Food Front’s longtime manager, Holly Jarvis.
Bobbee Murr
NW
Examiner | 22nd Place
run
Hatchet job
As a working member of
Food Front for almost 20 years
and a member of the board
Food Front’s grocery workers are unionized. Tyra Lynn
earned competitive wages, got
excellent health care benefits
and could not be fired without
due cause. This is not exactly
Wal-Mart.
Whether Food Front’s recent
business decisions will pay off
remains to be seen. My guess is
yes. Dramatic density increases
will support multiple grocery
options. As a community-supported neighborhood store,
Food Front continues to fill a
unique niche. Wendy Gordon
NE 21st Ave.
Editor’s note: The United
Food & Commercial Workers
union was decertified in 2007.
Regime change
Dear Northwest neighbors
and co-op owners: It’s your
store. Vote with your dollars.
Install a new board. It’s time for
a regime change.
The complaints recounted
here don’t even begin to tell
the story of ineptness, misery
and wasted opportunity. Holly
Jarvis isn’t evil. She’s just illsuited for the job and in over
her head. She is afraid of people and that doesn’t make for
good leadership.
My best wishes for all. I’m so
much happier now that I don’t
work there.
Carrie James
SW Evergreen Terrace
Inaccurate view
As an owner and former
board member (2011-14) of
Food Front, your biased article
on the co-op provides a genuine disservice to your readers.
The article creates an inacContinued on page 8
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5
6
NEWS
Food Front board member quits in protest
Continued from page 1
“I loved my work at Food
Front and treasured my colleagues there,” he continued. “When the work atmosphere became too poisonous
for me to bear in late 2010, I
decided to leave.
ance procedures. He said Food
Front ranked among the lowest
co-ops in the country in 2012,
and he believes the most recent
ratings are worse, although he
has not seen them compared to
other co-ops.
slightly better than 2.6 in 2012.
we’ve been doing,” he said.
Discrimination and harassment of workers was observed
by a significant share of Food
Front employees, earning the
co-op another non-compliant
rating.
No matter that similar remedial plans in the past fell short,
the board never pushed Jarvis,
a person by whom they were
“mesmerized,” he said.
“The Food Front board has
always insisted that there is a
small group of disgruntled staff,
and this is typical in any business. This dehumanizes people, ignores real human suffer-
“The board has its hands
on real data showing, in my
view, alarming trends in working conditions at Food Front,”
he said.
A private consultant hired by
Food Front to interpret the survey (see story on facing page)
concluded there is “deep-seated and widespread staff dissatisfaction” requiring “bold and
ing and turns a blind eye to the
detrimental effect staff unhappiness has on our business.
“Since I departed, more than
a dozen talented and dedicated
staff I personally know from
all levels of the co-op have left
Food Front disappointed, disheartened and even distraught.
It was heartbreaking to watch
people who cared deeply about
Food Front’s mission leave one
by one.”
Rydell later referred to the
seven unnamed disgruntled
employees mentioned in the
Examiner story as representing
a small number for a business
with a workforce of 130.
But Mattox said the board
knows it has a critical employee
morale problem on its hands
from a biannual survey of
workers. The survey tabulates
answers on topics ranging from
compensation, fair treatment,
working conditions and griev-
6
Furthermore, workers don’t
“They were afraid to ask
Holly difficult questions. They
were afraid to upset her. The
board never asked for a different result than what we were
getting.”
At some point, real account-
reached perilous levels was evidenced by “emergency loans in
2013 because there was a real
danger that we could have run
out of cash,” he said.
“Our cash reserves are at a
point even today that is out of
compliance with our own policies and below the minimum
recommended by the National
Cooperative Grocers Association.”
Rydell answered Mattox’s
retort by noting that other coops occasionally miss their
financial targets.
Policy vs. practice
“[Board members] were afraid to ask Holly difficult questions. They were afraid to upset her.
The board never asked for a different result than
what we were getting.”
Rydell and Jarvis answer
charges that the board is weak
by underscoring Food Front’s
commitment to policy governance. At its core, this approach
hands operational authority to
the general manager while limiting the board to oversight of
policies.
Tom Mattox
But Mattox found even written rules and policies were circumvented at will.
feel
can
p l
to
they
coma i n
their
superiors.
“I do believe that the system
is broken,” he said of grievance
procedures.
The average score (on a scale
of one to five) to the statement:
“I feel safe bringing my ideas,
problems or criticisms to management with no fear of retaliation,” was 3.02.
The minimum for compliance with Food Front’s goal is
3.25. It was also a decline from
the 2012 average of 3.39.
To a related statement, “The
grievance procedure provides
a safe method for airing and
resolving staff grievances,” the
score was 2.96, a dip from 3.03
in the past two years.
Even broader discontent is
revealed in responses to the
statement: “Corrective action
is handled fairly and consistently throughout the co-op.”
The average this year was 2.74,
NORTHWEST EXAMINER, DECEMBER 2014 /  NWEXAMINER.COM
decisive” remedial action.
ability is necessary, he said.
Rather than address the crisis, Rydell put the reports on
the consent agenda to be dispatched without discussion. No
board member objected other
than Mattox, who was gone
before his position mattered.
“It’s not working,” he said,
noting that operating losses
surpass $1 million in the past
six years. “The board’s job is to
see that we not only have a plan
for success but actually have
success.”
“We aim for the floor, and
we consistently miss,” he said
of the co-op’s internal evaluations.
Mattox was flummoxed by
Rydell’s statement in the coop’s newsletter claiming cash
reserves had been restored “to
a level consistent with comparable co-ops.”
Finances awry
While Mattox joined the
board with a stated goal of making Food Front “a great place to
work,” he soon grew troubled
by the organization’s blasé attitude toward financial losses.
While annual reports showing continuing deficits for six
straight years came to their
attention, Mattox said board
members invariably accepted
General Manager Holly Jarvis’
explanations as to what had
gone wrong and her plans for
corrective action.
“Rubber stamping is what
“It's not true,” Mattox said.
“The official audit that was
released just prior to his statement showed that Food Front's
cash had fallen from $806,000
to $381,000 and retained earnings went from a plus $85,000
to negative $355,000. Owner
equity dropped from $882,000
to $503,000.
“In what possible version of
reality is this ‘restoring’? Or was
he comparing Food Front to
other co-ops that were in financial trouble?”
The
fact
that
reserves
“If you are looking to question the legitimacy of the current board,” he said, “the election in 2013 was questionable.
“We didn't meet the quorum for the election by the time
specified by our bylaws, so the
remaining board members
passed a resolution saying they
would accept the late results
and then, if the election were
later called into question, that
the candidates were hereby
appointed for one year.”
Mattox said the Examiner
article prodded him to act.
While trying to be both a
loyal board member and force
for reform, he found it too easy
to take the path of least resistance.
“I saw myself going along
with the way things were going,”
he said. “I didn’t like what I saw
in myself."
NEWS
7
Food Front board denies allegations, unites behind GM
Board rebuffs
attempts by workers
to present complaints
about Holly Jarvis.
ALLAN CLASSEN
Food Front officials publicly
discounted criticisms reported
in the November NW Examiner.
At a public meeting in Hillsdale, board President Brandon
Rydell read a statement concluding that: “The Food Front
board of directors does not
consider the main sources of
the NW Examiner article, ‘Coop Crash’ to be credible.” Rydell would not specify
which of the sources were not
believable, but he later disparaged the seven past and present
Food Front employees quoted
who withheld their names in
fear of dismissal or retaliation.
Rydell said that if there were
seven dissatisfied workers out
of 130 total employees of the
co-op’s two stores, “That’s a
small percentage.”
He did not refer to the three
named sources in the Examiner
story, including the co-op’s former chief financial officer.
Even as he spoke, the number of employees speaking out
had risen. After publication,
the Examiner website received
50 comments on the story.
Included in those postings
were strong denouncements
of working conditions at Food
Front from former employees
Jennifer Farnsworth, Steven
De Favero, Bryn Harding, Car-
rie James, Alison Kavanagh,
Elizabeth Sample and Ashlea
Stinnett.
of employee concerns,” he said.
“To do otherwise would undermine her authority.
Six other workers posted
criticisms anonymously.
“The owners delegated
authority to the board of directors and the board of directors
delegated authority to the general manager. That’s how this
co-op is run,” he said.
In addition, one current
worker called the Examiner
about the need for workers to
organize.
The most courageous of all
the whistleblowers, however,
was probably Zanna Ahern, a
cashier at the Hillsdale store
since it opened in 2008. Zanna
was the only current employee
to express her dissatisfaction
at the forum in Hillsdale last
month.
Zanna refuted Rydell’s claim
that all complaints about General Manager Holly Jarvis were
made anonymously and were
thus untraceable.
Looking at Rydell, she said,
“I made a complaint to you personally and in email.”
Rydell said he didn’t remember the encounter or email.
“You told me you could not
accept anything from the staff,”
she replied. “Where were we
to go?”
Faulty memory or not, Rydell
made it clear at the forum that
complaining to the board about
the general manager was a nonstarter, and even if she were
to resubmit her complaint, he
would merely refer it to Jarvis.
The board functions as a unit
and delegates operations to the
general manager, he said.
“What happens when the
general manager becomes the
problem?” asked Rick Seifert, who published the former
Hillsdale Connection and now
writes the Hillsdale News blog,
“How do you get a fair hearing
on that?
“If you have a problem with
the person you delegate the
authority to, what do you do?
It’s a serious problem.”
“That’s your
replied Rydell.
opinion,”
Dave Richardson, whose
family owns a bakery next to
Food Front in Hillsdale, said
he used to work for IBM, where
every employee had a secure
avenue to raise issues about
managers.
He said employees won’t go
to the general manager for fear
of losing their jobs.
“You can’t just pass it on,”
said Richardson. “If I complain
about the general manager, and
if you pass it on with my name
to the general manager, you’ve
doomed me.”
Rydell opened the meeting
by challenging the assertion
that the Food Front board is
“The board
of directors is
not an avenue
for resolution
“The board is so powerful that despite
this horrible biased article, we are
going to stand by our general manger.”
Brandon Rydell
Food Front president
weak.
“The board is so powerful
that despite this horrible biased
article, we are going to stand by
our general manger,” he said.
“I’m not going to undermine
the general manager on the
basis of this article.”
He said he wanted the
general manager to get rid of
employees who aren’t living up
to the organization’s standards.
Jarvis said she is in an
“impossible situation” in
responding to accusations by
dismissed workers.
“People make assertions that
I cannot respond to” for reasons of employee confidentiality, she said. “I can’t talk about
their personal agendas. I can’t
explain anything about the situation.”
The bottom line:
“We don’t terminate people
without cause,” she said.
Consultant warns of worker ire
A consultant hired by Food Front to evaluate its 2014 survey of worker opinions concluded that there is “deep-seated
and widespread staff dissatisfaction” and that the number
with favorable attitudes “are far from a critical mass.”
“We don’t terminate people
without cause.”
Carolee Colter of CDS Consulting Group has 30 years experience consulting for co-ops and small businesses. She did a
similar report for Food Front in 2012.
Holly Jarvis
Food Front general manager
Colter advised Food Front management to start by
acknowledging that workers are discouraged and do not feel
understood.
“Whatever actions you take in response to this survey, they
need to be bold and decisive,” she said.
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8
NEWS
Continued from page 5
curate picture of Food Front’s
current financial situation and
how it is governed.
This letter cannot address all
of the article’s flaws, but as a
former board governance chair,
I criticize the article’s fundamental misconceptions surrounding policy governance.
The Food Front board, not the
general manager, adopted policy governance in the 1990s, a
popular model of board leadership widely used by a large
number of cooperatives around
the nation.
The board’s use of policy
governance effectively enables
it to provide strategic leadership while ensuring board
accountability to its owners.
Policy governance distinguishes roles between management
and board, which allows the
board accountability without
infringing unnecessarily on
the responsibilities of management.
The board is not involved in
the store’s day-to-day operations, but the board holds management accountable by rigorous monitoring, as outlined in
the board’s policy register. The
policy register is updated and
revised by the board to reflect
current trends of cooperative
management.
The board takes its fiduciary
responsibilities seriously. Over
the past four years, the board
has worked with a consultant
who is an expert in the areas
of policy governance. In 2011,
the board overhauled its internal policies and procedures,
including a complete revision
of its bylaws and ends (strategic
goals), along with the implementation of comprehensive
code of conduct and conflict of
interest policies.
Annually, the board conducts an independent audit
of the cooperative’s financial
condition, the results of which
are reflected in the board president’s annual report to owners. Through the effective use
of policy governance, the Food
Front board has strong procedures in place to empower it
to fulfill its fiduciary responsibilities of accountability to its
owners.
Evan O’Neill
NW 29th Ave.
Dropping membership
Although I live in Northeast, I have been shopping at
Food Front for a long time. I
used to live in Northwest, back
when the co-op was at 27th
and Thurman, and I chose to
join Food Front, as well as the
Alberta Co-op. I frequently go
to Forest Park, so Food Front
was an easy stop for me, and I
wanted to support them.
I was happy to receive the
holiday letter from the board,
which reminded me of the
Examiner article. The Examiner article, however, reminded
me that it was time for me to
pull my money out of supporting what sounds like a hellhole. I just asked to dissolve
my co-op membership there.
Good thing there are two other
co-ops in this town.
I was wondering why I saw
so few good people that used to
work there. Seems like the logical thing to do is to fire General
Manager Holly Jarvis and get
a new board that is concerned
about the place.
Vanessa Renwick
NE 11th Ave.
Can’t go on meeting
After reading your latest
opinion piece on me [“Want me
to be nice? Pay me,” November
2014], I feel somewhat flattered
that a man of your stature in the
community is so obsessed by
my activities.
Unfortunately you tend to
shade the truth and add your
own color to the actual events.
Twenty people never “begged”
me to not develop the Hermanson property. Perhaps I think
a little more of the Northwest
District Association and its residents than you do. They are
too intelligent and proud to
“beg” anyone.
A small group of residents
discussed the potential of buying the property. According to
you, I instantly became rich by
doing so. What you don’t write,
because you don’t seem to
have a burning need for integrity or accuracy, is that I stood
to make more than four times
that by building out the project
and selling the proposed units.
Yes, I made money. I am a
real estate developer; that’s
what I do. I could have made
substantially more by demolishing the house and building
the townhouses, but I thought
what I did was the right thing
on several levels. Apparently
it is in your best interest to
demonize developers in order
to sell newspapers.
Perhaps you should tell your
readers that this “hard-nosed”
developer was never required
to appear in front of the NWDA
for either the Hermanson property or the apartment project.
I appeared voluntarily, and it
actually worked out pretty well
because it ended up with an
accommodation that saved the
Hermanson house.
Also, my meeting with the
NWDA led to some minor
changes to my proposed apartment building based on helpful
suggestions by Don Genasci. I
feel very strongly that discussions are very worthwhile in
the development process.
However, your unwarranted
criticisms are very discouraging. Since you are almost certain to continue your tradition
of inaccurate and irresponsible
journalism, perhaps it is in the
best interest of developers to
cease appearing voluntarily to
seek NWDA or citizen input.
Matt Condron
NW Johnson St.
Nest moves north
I am responding to Allan
Classen’s recent article on
the I-405 crime nest. I work at
Northwest 19th and Vaughn,
and it appears as if the “nest”
has just moved to the sidewalks
surrounding the Graphic Arts
Center parking lot at Northwest
20th and Vaughn.
Marty Kehoe
MK Development
Editor’s note: Kehoe’s appearance at these neighborhood
meetings was required by
Portland Zoning Code Section
33.700.025—headed Required
Neighborhood Contact.
People are visibly doing/
selling drugs as well as chopping up bikes in broad daylight.
It feels like something from a
Mad Max movie.
Buck passing
It’s about time the NW Examiner paid some mind to this
ugly, growing problem! [“City
cleans out I-405 crime nest,”
November 2014.] The trouble
with this thin coverage though
is that it doesn’t even touch
on the most basic of issues:
whose property this is and the
responsibility that goes along
with “owning” it (speaking specifically about the sidewalks
under the I-405 on Northwest
Johnson).
Who can we as business
operators contact to get rid of
this unsanitary blight?
The police have told me they
cannot do anything about it
even though this camp is now
completely blocking sections of
the sidewalk and is now spilling
into Vaughn Street. Unless this
gets cleaned up, there are quite
a few businesses considering
moving out of the area.
I’ve been a homeowner on
Johnson for nearly 10 years
and have watched this horrible situation escalate to the
embarrassment it has become.
I’ve been on the phone with
the police who tell me it’s not
their domain. I’ve been on the
phone with the Oregon Department of Transportation, who
tells me to call the Portland
Bureau of Transportation. I’ve
Billy Burch
N. Borthwick Ave.
Camping problem
Thanks for writing this article. Finally someone addresses
this horrible problem. I personally have wanted to call
Channel 6 news. I own a small
business that overlooks a park
on Northwest 17th and Quimby and I have lost custom-
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Picnic, garden, and play in your own
personal escape that’s convenient
to town. Includes separate 600 sq ft
studio with lodge pole pine detail.
Close in, with easy access to I-5 and
Babur Blvd, this lot includes mountain
and valley views. Can fit up to 7 units.
Near OHSU, Lewis & Clark College, and
transit, this is a location that is going
to boom with the Light Rail coming
to Barbur.
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One of three brand new homes being
built on the edge of Forest Park. This
home is energy-efficient modernity
at it’s finest. The materials and colors
provide a playful aesthetic and include a barrel shaped roof, & exposed
beams in the double height great
room. Completion in June 2015.
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8
been on the phone with PBOT,
who then tells me to call ODOT.
No one wants to deal with this
seemingly simple issue. Take
ownership of your property,
maintain it regularly and keep
it safe for those who use this
important corridor and who
also take pride in the neighborhood. It’s pathetic how soft this
town is on homelessness.
NORTHWEST EXAMINER, DECEMBER 2014 /  NWEXAMINER.COM
www.gordongreenliving.com
9
ers because of this issue. I personally have called the police,
emailed our city commissioners and every email address I
can get my hands on, sent pictures and made phone calls.
No one will do anything
about this, and it is absolutely
going to destroy our city. Please
keep doing what you’re doing.
I would hate to see the worstcase scenario happen because
of the city of Portland’s refusal
to manage this problem.
Stacy Askew
Savvy Hair Studio
Trash returns
I was delighted to see that
Northwest Johnson under I-405
was cleaned up and free of loiterers for a short while. As of
yesterday, the trash, personal
belongings and people are
starting to gather again.
The NW Examiner showed
a photo of a man using drugs.
With the wonderful community garden and REI nearby,
we would love to see the area
patrolled on a regular basis to
find a long-range solution to
this problem and keep it from
being a recurrent and constant
nuisance for those of use who
live and work in the area.
Displacement?
Jo Grishman
NW 22nd Ave.
Regarding “City cleans out
I-405 crime nest,” I want to
share some information that
may be connected to this story.
I work in an office located on
Northwest 22nd Avenue north
of Vaughn Street. Over the last
three or four weeks, there has
been a marked increase in
crime, specifically auto breakins, outside of our building. At
least three vehicles have had
their rear windows smashed
and items taken from inside:
Last month, in the middle of
a workday afternoon, a laptop
computer was taken from a car.
Yesterday afternoon, Nov. 10,
two inexpensive jackets were
stolen from another car.
This morning, employees
arrived at the office and found a
vehicle (not belonging to one of
our employees) parked across
the street from our door, also
with a smashed rear window.
Our employees and neighbors are concerned with this
recent rash of crime and
believe that it may be a result of
the displacement of the camps
previously located under the
I-405 bridge.
We have spoken to the
Central Police Precinct and
requested increased patrols of
our neighborhood and have
alerted our neighborhood
response team officer. We hope
to draw attention to this issue to
preserve a safe neighborhood
and living/working environment.
Tara Toler
Single Mind Consulting
Goodbye, 21st Avenue
We used to enjoy a weekly
drive down to Northwest 21st
Avenue to dine, shop and be
entertained at the film theater.
Since the new parking plan
went into effect, the frustrations of sorting out the rules,
not knowing where we can
park or whether permits are
required combined with fewer
metered spaces and even finding a place to park within three
or four blocks of the business
district, and so forth, became
so frustrating the Northwest
Parking Plan sent us in search
of alternatives.
We found them and now
enjoy the short hop to the St.
Johns neighborhood with
friendly local shopkeepers, a
variety of fine dining, wonderful films at the local venues,
and best of all, easy parking not
requiring meters, always within
a brief stroll to our destination.
Thank you, Northwest Portland, for helping us find our
way to support our local neighborhood businesses and avoid
the frustrations of visiting and
shopping on 21st.
Kerrigan and Kyrian Gray
Linnton
Attic Gallery
And Custom Frame Shop
Book banning not OK
Thank you for outing the
Multnomah Athletic Club’s bookstore ban [“MAC angers neighbors,” November 2014] of Tracy
Prince’s work, “Portland’s Goose
Hollow,” the definitive history
of our area featuring stunning
archival photos. On the heels of
Oregon’s passage of the Equal
Rights Amendment, one can flip
through lovely cookbooks at the
club’s bookstore but not a historic work by Prince, author and
scholar in residence at Portland
State University.
A book ban in the land of
literary arts? It’s like watching
“Father Knows Best” with commercial breaks from the McCarthy hearings.
Prince is a professor, historian, author and longtime popular
member of the club. She also
opposes the Texas-headquartered Mill Creek project, which
requires re-zoning Block 7 to
build exclusive MAC parking in
the middle of residential Goose
Hollow. Many MAC members
living in Goose Hollow agree
with her.
The Oregonian recently published Prince’s well-articulated
op-ed piece opposing this application. At the Bureau of Development Services hearing of May
21, 2014, Prince, joined a large
body of other Goose Hollow
neighbors and spoke eloquently
opposing the project. The MAC is a private club
with a thorny public issue. A
book is a voice. Her book is our
voice and, yes, the ban galvanized Goose Hollow to oppose
re-zoning to the hilt. Does the MAC expect civicminded members to check their
First Amendment rights at the
door? Should any member of any
organization have a book pulled
for advocating for healthier
neighborhoods? Was the MAC’s
move a shot across the bow at
Goose Hollow neighbors standing shoulder to shoulder with
her? Ask the MAC. Tell them to
restore her book and rename the
“Men’s Bar” while they’re at it. MAC bullying
Connie Kirk
SW 19th Ave.
I was pleased to read Tracy
Prince’s letter concerning the
bullying behavior of Multnomah
Athletic Club General Manager
Norm Rich. His personal treatment of Tracy and the Goose
Hollow neighborhood is shameful, but nothing new. MAC members come from near and far to
Goose Hollow to enjoy themselves. How Mr. Rich conducts
business with the neighborhood
and his petty vendettas should
concern all MAC members. R.A. Williamson
SW Howards Way
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10
NEWS
Panel reflects on lessons of 1989 demolitions
Current demolition crisis
has roots in city's failure to
address lessons of OvertonPettygrove debacle.
BY ALLAN CLASSEN
The 25th anniversary of Portland’s
most memorable housing demolition
saga was retold last month by five of the
people who were on the frontlines.
A panel discussion sponsored by History of Social Justice Organizing and
convened by Sandy Polishuk was held
at the Architectural Heritage Center last
month.
“Save the Good Old Houses” was the
slogan in 1989 when Lake Oswego developer Phil Morford bought seven vintage
houses on the 2300 block of Northwest
Overton and Pettygrove streets in order
to replace them with row houses.
The day before a Portland Historical Landmarks Commission hearing to
decide whether the houses should be
declared historic landmarks, a demolition crew began to level the houses.
Soon after the bulldozer roared into
action, stunned neighbors occupied a
porch, daring police officers to arrest
them.
Before nightfall, 23 people were
arrested and a movement was born.
Hundreds jammed the landmarks hearing, at which the entire assemblage
of seven houses was declared a land-
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mark site in large part due to “what was
engendered by events which took place
yesterday,” in the words of Landmarks
Commission member Dick Ritz.
at the request of the affected neighborhood association. Though passed in
1990, Michaelson said the city does not
enforce it.
In the following months, two of the
threatened houses were saved and
moved to an adjacent block, and a third
was saved in place. Historic markers
now remind passersby by of the “events
which took place.”
Earlier this year, Michaelson, Roth
and about 20 other neighbors, many
with connections to the Save the Good
Old Houses campaign, pooled resources to save the 1898 Goldsmith House
at Northwest 24th and Quimby. That
effort was made more difficult by the
city’s insistence that the developer could
override the delay periods at will.
The panel include two of the protesters dragged from the porch in 1989, Ruth
Roth and Nancy Nesewich; two negotiators who hammered out the deal to save
three of the houses, Rick Michaelson
and Frank Dixon; and Joleen JensenClassen, who as staff to Neighbors West/
Northwest worked to hold a tenuous
coalition of “anarchists, socialists, planners, doctors and lawyers” together.
“I told the city you’re ignoring your
own laws,” he said.
Michaelson is prominent in the current United Neighborhoods for Reform
campaign, which hopes to realize some
of the historic preservation protections
supposedly won 25 years ago.
The panel discussion ended with the
playing of “Don’t Tear Them Down,”
written and recorded by Bill Deane, one
of the neighbors who squatted in the
Caswell House on Northwest Overton
Street to prevent its demolition while
arrangements were made to move it to
safe ground.
The program was a reunion for at
least three others who were arrested in
1989, Jennifer Gates, Jackie Magerl and
Greg Capshaw.
A harsh lesson remembered 25 years
later was the indifference of City Hall to
pleas for help from the Northwest neighborhood leaders.
“This was definitely preventable if
the political leadership had the will to
step in,” said Dixon, who begged for city
intervention months before the demolitions.
“The anger came in that we were
ignored,” he said.
A minor reform enacted after the Frank Dixon, right, describes the chaos surrounding efforts to save seven old houses
1989 debacle was a city demolition delay in 1989. Others on the panel are (L-R) Rick Michaelson, Ruth Roth, Joleen JensenClassen and Nancy Nesewich.
ordinance requiring a 35-day waiting
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Armed with a first-hand history of
the ordinance, which was supported by
Charlie Hales during his tenure as a city
commissioner, Michaelson was not eas-
ily rebuffed.
NORTHWEST EXAMINER, DECEMBER 2014 /  NWEXAMINER.COM
NEWS
11
Lincoln Cardinals Fall Focus
Welcome to the NW Examiner’s new Lincoln High
School page. As the school year unfolds, we will be
providing news, photos, schedules and announcements of school activities and sporting events.
To submit information, contact tina.wyszynski@gmail.com or
503-481-6538 or send to allan@nwexaminer.com.
Basketball schedules
Girls
Boys
12-5
Fri
8:15 pm @S. Eugene
12-6
Sat
2:45 pm @S. Eugene
12-9
Tue
6 pm
12-12
Fri
7:30 pm Oregon City
Mount. View
12-16
Tue
7:15 pm @Wilsonville
12-18
Thu
7:15 pm @Southridge
12-5
Fri
8 pm
@Sheldon
12-6Sat TBD@Sheldon
12-12
Fri
7:15 pm @Sunset
12-16
Tue
7 pm
12-19
Fri
7:30 pm Aloha
12-27
Sat
TBD
Central
@Forest Gr.
12-28Sun TBD @Bend
12-29Mon TBD @Bend
Eleven Lincoln High School personal finance students are earning college credits at
Portland State University’s School of Business.
Hawii Boriyo, a senior at Lincoln High
School, was the November student of the
month at Pearl Rotary. The daughter of
Ethiopian immigrants, she is an international
baccalaureate student and active in several
student organizations. Her goal is to study
law and/or engineering and to be a “small
voice in our society…to stop prejudice and
racism.”
Student-written play runs through Dec. 6
Lincoln Drama’s 11th Annual New Works Festival presents “Freeze Frame,” by Lincoln student
playwrights Alexandre Crepeaux, Nickey Olson and Caleb Sohigian, Dec. 4-6, 7:30 p.m., in the
Lincoln Auditorium. The work is described as “investigating issues relevant to their generation,”
and comes with a warning of strong language and mature subject matter.
The festival is directed by Portland professional director and writer Matthew B. Zrebski. Proud to be Part of the Lincoln Community
For tickets online, visit lincolnhighschooldrama.com. The box office, which accepts cash or
checks, opens at 6:30 p.m.
GO CARDINALS! Wishing you a safe and healthy school year (but if you get busted up, we can help) Now open at SW 14th and Yamhill
1515 NW 18 th Ave, Suite 400
ph: (503) 228-1306
pettygrovept.com
Go Cardinals!
John Bruce
NW Mortgage Group
Eye Exams Contacts
Glasses
10260 SW Greenburg Road Suite 900
Portland, OR 97223
Call for an appointment
503 452-0001 / nwmortgagegroup.com
Lincoln High School, Alumni Association,and LHSAA Endowment Fund
We are here to:
Preserve Lincoln History
Promote Alumni Interest
Support Student Achievement
Reach us at - 503.452.2225
Lincoln High School Alumni Association
P.O. Box 80330, Portland, OR 97280
LHSAA Endowment Fund
P.O. Box 23756, Portland, OR 97281
www.lincolnalum.org lincolnalum@hotmail.com
503-227-0573
Dr. Annie Bacon
www.eyedepartment.com
 NWEXAMINER.COM / NORTHWEST EXAMINER, DECEMBER 2014
11
12
The Pearl
Wushu
team wins
five medals
in China
The youngest member of the U.S.
Wushu Center team, Ava Yu, 10,
won a gold in Girls 12 and under
Traditional Double Weapons.
Photos by Cindy Jones and Regan Look
The other two who placed were
Andrew Look, 14, third in Boys
12-17 Traditional Double Weapons; and Kylie Ai Guo Jones, second in Girls 12 and under Other
Weapons.
said they soon learned that masters
Yu and Gao are “a lot more famous
than we thought.”
The Yu children and Look attend
Catlin Gabel School. Jones goes to
Gilkey, the middle school associated with the French American
International School.
“It was almost like going to
Washington, D.C., with Michael
Jordan,” said Jones.
All but Alfano live in Northwest
Portland.
Former world champions Yu and
Gao no longer compete, but they
remain well known in the world
of wushu, which is usually called
kung fu in the United States.
Rick Jones, who made the trip
with his wife Cindy and daughter,
whom they adopted from China,
Gao, a 32-time tai chi champion
was “immediately swamped” by
fans when spotted in public.
Regan Look also made the trip
with his son. He and Cindy Jones
took the photos used for this story.
The discipline is called the traditional wushu to distinguish from
a contemporary style developed in
the last 50 or so years and popularized by Bruce Lee movies. It places
greater emphasis on jumps, spins
and kicks.
More than 2,200 contestants
from about 50 countries partici-
pated. The five from Portland were
part of an 80-member team representing the United States. About
20 teams came from China and
Russia.
It was the first time U.S. Wushu
Center has sent contestants to the
world championships.
Yu called the results “wonderful,” but not altogether surprising.
After 40 years of coaching, he knew
they stacked up well to the best in
the world.
U.S. Wushu Center has 300 students and claims to be Oregon’s
largest martial arts school. It was
founded in 1993 by Shaowen Yu.
After three prior Northwest Portland locations, it moved to Northwest 17th and Pettygrove next to
PlayDatePDX in 2006. A Clackamas
location was added a year ago.
ContestantAge
Place
Age GroupEvent
Ava Yu 10
1st Girls 12 and under Double Weapons
Steven Alfano 43
1st
Men 40-59 Other Tai Chi Sword Form
Kylie Ai Guo Jones 11
2nd
Girls 12 and under Other Weapons
Alexander Yu 13
2nd
Boys 12-17 Other Weapons
Andrew Look 14
3rd
Boys 12-17 Double Weapons
Steven Alfano won the 40-59 age category by a large
margin.
Albina Community Bank
"You work hard to support your
local community – I believe a
bank should do the same."
Mary Edmeades
Vice President / Market Manager
(503) 445-2155
What does your bank believe in?
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12
NORTHWEST EXAMINER, DECEMBER 2014 /  NWEXAMINER.COM
Member FDIC
Equal Opportunity Lender
Equal Housing Lender
THE PEARL
13
The Portland contingent at the world championships included four family
members in addition to the five performers. Front row (L-R): Cindy Jones,
Kylie Jones, Ava Yu, Gao Jiamin and Steven Alfano. Second row: Rick
Jones, Andrew Look, Alexander Yu and Regan Look.
Alexander Yu (above and below), though at the lower end of
his 12-17-year-old-classification, was “skillful and technical”
to outscore older, stronger opponents.
Andrew Look employed “several groups of beautiful
movements and a complete portfolio of skills” to win a
bronze medal in Boys 12-17 Tradtional Double Weapons.
WANT TO IMPROVE YOUR BALANCE WITH EASE?
Kylie Jones, who missed a gold medal by
.03 points, was described by a Chinese
newspaper as performing “a clean, neatly
finished three-sectional staff routine which is
difficult to master.”
MEET PEGGY, 78 YEARS YOUNG
“I didn’t want to accept age as a limiting factor, so I decided to something about
it! Getting around wasn’t easy and I would have to use the wall when getting
dressed to keep up on my feet. Now I pay attention to little things like posture and
taking care of myself at Aleda every week.” -- Peggy L, 78.
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 NWEXAMINER.COM / NORTHWEST EXAMINER, DECEMBER 2014
13
 Going Back
14
PEARLANDIA
History
Thrifty Pittock
spared no cost
building mansion
Pittock Mansion today is staffed and maintained by Portland Parks & Recreation.
Aging newspaper
publisher was determined to exceed sonin-law’s house.
DONALD R. NELSON
A century ago, Henry and
Georgiana Pittock moved into
their new French Renaissancestyle residence, now known as
the Pittock Mansion. From initial plans to finish, it took five
years to complete.
It was surprising that Pittock,
known for thrift, would begin
planning such a massive residence when he was about 74
years old.
A 1959 news article gave a
possible reason for the extravagance. As told by Oregonian
photographer Frank Sterrett,
“Pittock used to sit in the living
room of his house in front of
the bay window under a single
light bulb reading The Oregonian every night. There was
a piece of wallpaper hanging
from the wall above his head,
but this never bothered the old
man.”
Fred Bolt of the Daily News
went after him with a front page
editorial suggesting that “we
should all pass the hat to help
out Mr. Pittock so he could have
the wallpaper pasted up.”
This angered Pittock, who
was sensitive to criticism. He
called in the architects and told
them to build him the finest
house in town atop the highest
hill in Portland. His personal
secretary, O.L. Price, had not
heard the story, but he did not
deny that it may have been true.
“He always said that when
he was able to build the house
he wanted, he would build it up
there,” said Price. “He did.”
In 1959, a marble worker
named Goetz, who worked on
the mansion, recalled hearing
Pittock say loud enough for
everyone to hear, “There is one
thing about this house—money
is no object.”
Another reason for building the mansion came from a
relative. Pittock granddaughter
Betty Leadbetter Cronin Meier
recently said, “He didn’t want
her father (Leadbetter) to have
a better house than he did.”
(Frederick Leadbetter, Pittock’s son-in-law and associate
in several businesses, had an
elegant stone residence.)
Pittock was a pioneer to
Portland in 1853 and found
employment with the Weekly
Oregonian. By 1860, Henry Pittock became its sole proprietor.
He established the Morning
Oregonian in 1861 and continued to own it outright until selling a majority interest in the
paper to Sen. Henry W. Corbett and others. By 1877, Pittock had regained controlling
ownership.
In the early 1860s, Pittock
built a small cottage at Southwest 10th and Washington.
Later, his family occupied a
two-story structure on the West
Park Avenue (Southwest Ninth)
and Washington Street portion
of the same block.
In 1912, the block was leased
to brothers Mortimer and Herbert Fleishhacker and their
associates for 99 years. Their
plans to develop the block
required the Pittocks to relocate to another house before
the mansion was completed.
The Pittocks moved with their
widowed daughter Mrs. Kate
Hertzman to a rental house
on Northwest Overton Street
between 24th and 25th avenues
in 1913. This residence had previously been the home of Dr.
Jefferson D. Fenton. Along with
Henry and Georgiana came
their daughter Helen Louise
(Lucy) with her husband, J.
Edward Gatenbein, and their
family.
Edward T. Foulkes was a
successful architect and had
many projects in San Francisco
and Fresno before coming to
Portland. He opened an office
in Portland in The Oregonian Building in 1912. Foulkes
included such innovative features in the Pittock Mansion as
a central vacuum system and
indirect lighting in the library.
His architectural partner, Chester J. Hogue, joined him in 1913
and assisted him with the Pittock Mansion. They designed
several structures in Portland.
The Pittock family moved
to their mansion in 1914. The
Gantenbeins moved in with
their two daughters. Their son
Peter was born at the mansion shortly after they moved
in. Kate married Lockwood
Hebard at her parents’ new
home in 1914.
Two of Mrs. Pittock’s
orphaned nieces also lived
with them for awhile. Georgiana passed away in 1918. Henry
died in 1919. The Hebards and
While the Pittocks lived on
Northwest Overton, Georgiana suffered a paralytic stroke.
Because of her poor health, an
elevator was installed in their
mansion in place of one of the
planned fireplaces. (The elevator is still in use today on an
as-needed basis for mansion
visitors.)
The architect of the Pittock
mansion was Edward T. Foulkes, who was raised in Portland and attended Portland
High School. His brother David
worked at the Oregonian and
their father Robert was an
employee of Pittock’s at The
Evening Telegram. Pittock was
the financier of that newspaper,
according George Turnbull’s
“History of Oregon Newspapers.”
Henry Pittock caricature circa 1906.
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HISTORY
Gantenbeins lived at the mansion
for many years. Grandson Peter and
his father, who moved out in the late
’50s, were the last family members
to live at the mansion.
The mansion was opened to the
public by preservationist Eric Ladd
in 1959 as a part of Oregon’s centennial celebration.
An estate sale took place at the
mansion in 1960. The sale included
antiques from the collection of Eric
Ladd, who was then living at the
mansion. Many of the house’s furnishings were sold.
Then the mansion and its 46 acres
were put on the market. The late Lee
Nash told me a few years ago that
Cascade College, of which he was
the dean, looked at the location as a
possible place for expansion. Peter
Gantenbein offered it to a cousin for
$125,000.
The Columbus Day Storm of 1962
caused excessive damage to the
house. Reporter Carl Gohs brought
the plight of the Pittock Mansion to
the public in a 1964 article in the
15
Portland Reporter. Developers were
anxious to develop the property.
With the tireless fundraising of the
Pittock Acres Retention Committee,
aided by a federal grant and public donations, the city of Portland
purchased the property in 1964 for
$225,000.
It was reopened as a museum
in 1965 with furniture donated and
loaned from many prominent families.
The Pittock Mansion is now decorated for the holiday season. In
celebration of its centennial, adornments are inspired by the theme
“Christmas Past, Present and
Future.”
Henry Pittock and his family
lived in this house on Northwest
Overton Street in 1913 and
1914 while the masnion was
built. Photo is from January
1950.
Admission is free for members,
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16
NEWS
New board takes charge in Goose Hollow
Opponents of Block
7 development seize
the association’s
imprimatur in time
for City Council's
decision.
BY ALLAN CLASSEN
The fate of the proposed
Multnomah Athletic Club parking facility on Block 7 awaited
City Council action Dec. 4 after
press time, but one effect of
the project is already known.
Neighbors who mobilized
against the project have gained
control of the Goose Hollow
Foothills League, winning all
seven open board seats at last
month’s annual meeting.
Before the combined apartment building and MAC garage
was proposed in May 2012,
club General Manager Norm
Rich sat on the GHFL board
of directors and few members
attended its meetings.
But since residents began
taking a direct interest in the
potentially changing shape of
their neighborhood and neighborhood association, nothing
has been the same. Last year,
three of the four open board
slots went to critics of the Block
7 proposal. And last month, the
changeover became complete.
The only candidate critical of
the new direction, Stephan
Lewis, finished in last place
with 17 votes, far short of the 55
votes needed.
Lewis was critical of Friends
of Goose Hollow, an organization formed last year in
response to the Block 7 project.
“I’m not on your little piece
of paper because I’m a moderate,” he told members of the
association, referring to a list
of recommended candidates
circulated by Friends of Goose
Hollow, a membership organization formed earlier this year.
Last spring, Lewis voted for a
zone change to allow construction of a seven-to-nine-story
apartment building with 225
underground parking places
dedicated to MAC members.
The board was unable to pass a
motion either way as the issue
smoldered most of the year.
The pent-up interest was evident in the largest turnout at a
GHFL annual meeting in many
years. A total of 81 members
cast ballots.
The seven new board
members, all of whom were
endorsed by Friends of Goose
Hollow, will join four others
CandidateVotes
Andrew Rome
78
Nic Clark
75
Mark Velky
75
Jerry Powell
74
Tracy Prince
72
Susie Younie
64
Roger Leachman
55
Joel Thomas
18
Stephan Lewis
17
who are halfway through their
two-year terms. Only one of
those holdovers supported the
Block 7 development, and he
has switched his stance since
the annual meeting.
The new board immediately
called a special meeting Nov. 25
to register its unanimous disapproval of the development,
affirming a 109-7 vote at a
members’ meeting in October.
boards have sought a 50-50
balance between residents and
those representing institutions
and businesses.
“The GHFL board and the
association as a whole has
undergone a metamorphosis,” said Kal Toth, a Friends of
Goose Hollow member elected to the board last year. “All
11 directors of the GHFL are
now residents. This is bound
to make a huge difference for
Goose Hollow.
“I believe we will attract
many more folks to our meetings because we will be more
transparent and engaging
than in the past. I am looking
forward to being part of this
renewal process.”
While at odds with the
board’s new direction, even
Lewis, who said he was at first
pleased with large turnouts at
meetings but then grew disheartened by dysfunctional
board meetings lasting up to
three hours, might agree that
some type of renewal was
needed.
“This Block 7 thing has taken
a lot of our time,” said Lewis.
City Council was scheduled to hear the Block 7 zonechange request Dec. 4 after the
December NW Examiner went
to press.
While some former board
members labeled the Block
7 opposition as NIMBYism,
dominated by residents of The
Legends condominiums across
the street from Block 7, the
insurgency has a broader base.
Friends of Goose Hollow President Harvey Black said that
none of the seven new board
members live in The Legends.
The new board also represents a swing toward the residential perspective. Recent
Scott Schaffer and Casey Milne perform as a well-oiled machine as
they count ballots for the Goose Hollow Foothills League annual
meeting in the Multnomah Athletic Club Men's Bar.
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NEWS
Block 7
Northwest Library News
Stewart Holbrook: Colorful Northwest
Portland Author
by Nicholas Raethke, Library Assistant
Stewart Holbrook (1893-1964) was that quintessential Northwest figure: an autodidact lumberjack who became a world-renowned journalist and low-brow historian. He was the de facto
ambassador of the “Far Corner,” his designation
for the Pacific Northwest. He wrote for The Oregonian for 30 years and authored dozens of books.
His writing is bold, hilarious, controversial and
always vividly descriptive. His eyes sparkled with
mischief. A great storyteller, some have questioned Holbrook’s reliability, but I imagine that
would make him chuckle.
absent from the state’s official roster of notable
Oregonians.
Luckily for us, the Multnomah County Library
has maintained a sizeable collection of Holbrook’s
work. Among his most well-known works is the
title, “Wildmen, Wobblies & Whistle Punks.” To
see much of it, you’ll need to visit the John Wilson
Special Collections at the Central Library. Or, stop
by the Northwest Library this month, where we
will have a robust selection of his work on display.
Continued from page 1
ing will never dwindle.”
Mike Lindberg, who served on the Portland City
Council 1979-97, reviewed transcripts of a 1981 hearing at which MAC representatives promised never to
seek a zone change to build anything other than housing on Block 7.
“That’s the way I recall it,” he told the Examiner. “It
was a promise. It seemed very clear to me that that was
the case.”
1727 NW Hoyt demolition
case at City Council Dec. 10
Developers who want to demolish a 1918 office
building at 1727 NW Hoyt St. struck out before the Portland Historical Landmarks Commission last month,
but they hope for a more sympathetic ear at City Council.
The six landmarks members were unanimous in recommending denial, concurring with a city staff report
that found no justification for removing a structure
deemed to contribute to the Alphabet Historic District.
Though he had a vagabond spirit that led him
far and wide over track and trail, he settled at the
west end of Lovejoy Street. Here in Northwest
Portland, he felt equally at home in seedy skid row
establishments or when hosting cultural luminaries in his hillside residence.
The council will hear the demolition application
Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2 p.m. Owners Tim Ramis and
Mark O’Donnell are working with developer Gerding
Edlen on a proposal to replace the vacant building with
a six-story, 82-unit apartment complex on the western
half of the block.
After years of writing, Holbrook took up painting in the 1950s and founded the Primitive Moderne School of Art under the pseudonym “Mr.
Otis.” His aim was to skewer politics and contemporary art of the time. He also established the
fictitious James G. Blaine Society to keep people
from migrating to Oregon by way of humorous
horror stories of ceaseless rain, gloom, and toil.
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 Going Out
Familiar
faces return
to Northwest
Portland
18
Dining & Entertainment
Founders of Coffee People and others are
back in the ’hood at new businesses.
Jim and Patty Roberts have an updated look since their first coffee shop in Northwest Portland, but they're still about
serving quality coffee without pretention. Their newest store is called the Immediate Care Center, just like one they
used to have two blocks south at Northwest 23rd and Johnson. Photo by Thomas Teal
BY JOLEEN JENSEN-CLASSEN
E
verything old is new again.
Vestiges of former Northwest
Portland restaurants are resurfacing, and venerated figures from
the past are returning in the flesh.
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Jim and Patty Roberts, who
founded Coffee People near
Uptown Shopping Center in 1976
(when it was called Coffee Man),
taught Portlanders that there
was something better than Folgers coffee. Coffee People eventually grew to three shops, including
one at Northwest 23rd and Johnson known as the Immediate Care
Center, named for its small footprint and service to many Good
Samaritan Hospital employees.
The Roberts eventually hired
a CEO and in 1998 tried a public stock offering, but that went
nowhere. In the process, they lost
touch with their down-to-earth
and personal way of doing business. So in 2002 they started all
over with Jim and Patty’s Coffee
at Northeast 50th and Fremont.
They added a store in Beaverton
last year.
Now they’re back in Northwest
Portland with a third store, which
is again known as the Immediate
Care Center.
“It’s pretty sweet,” said Patty.
NORTHWEST EXAMINER, DECEMBER 2014 /  NWEXAMINER.COM
“People stop in the store and ask,
‘Do you remember me?’”
In most cases she can honestly
say she does.
Parents bring their children to
show them how coffee was served
in the days before barista was an
everyday word.
The Roberts are also bringing
their three children into the business, and they hope someday their
grandchildren will carry on the
family tradition.
“We are getting pretty old,” she
said with a smile.
It took some outside energy to
persuade them to open a third
location. That came from Paul
Ceserani, an MBA from Carnegie
Mellon with 20 years of experience
in business operations, finance
and software consulting.
A Coffee People customer in
the mid-1990s, Ceserani and his
wife returned to Portland in 2008.
They became investors in Jim and
Patty’s Beaverton store. Ceserani
retains his “day job” while advising
on growth strategies, accounting,
leasing and financing.
“Jim and Patty are exactly the
type of people that I was hoping to
work with: a great combination of
history and experience, passion,
love for the business, their custom-
ers and their family, and good business sense,” said Ceserani. “They
have many longtime relationships
with great people who have been
in the business for decades, as well
as great respect for some of the
newer players.”
Patty admits that keeping up
with trends in the coffee business
has been a challenge, and they
can’t hope to “match some of the
young baristas.
“Our goal now is to make a really good cup of coffee,” she said,
“but without the hipster attitude,
I guess.”
That falls remarkably close to
their original motto: “Good coffee,
no backtalk.”
Jim and Patty can be found serving coffee at their new Immediate
Care Center at 2246 NW Lovejoy St.
about 20 percent of the time. She
would like to be there more often,
but her primary role is bookkeeping for the company.
Their bakery on Fremont supplies all three stores.
Reflecting on their lives in the
coffee business, beginning with a
booth at the Eugene farmers’ market, “It’s what we’ve done pretty much all our lives,” said Patty.
“What would we do without it?
It’s one of nature’s most wonderful
gifts.”
19
GOING OUT
NOBBY NEWS
Vol. 20, No. 12
“News You Can’t Always Believe”
December, 2014
ADOPTEE GERRY
Adoptee Gerry before and after “adoption.”
Thomas "TJ" Farris is bringing new life to the former Blitz 21 location at Northwest 21st and
Everett streets. He's also re-introducing a well-known chef, Ronnie Vance. Photo by Thomas
Teal
The Nob Hill Bar & Grill’s “Adopt
a Regular” program really does
change lives! Take this year’s winner,
for example: Adoptee Gerry. Usually
a shy patron, Gerry would sit and
enjoy his beer quietly at the bar.
at 305 NW 21st Ave.
When told he was chosen to drink
Lightning Will, named for a Grateful free on the holiday as this year’s
Dead lyric, will have walls of TV moni“adoptee,” he was ecstatic, as these
Sports bar has winning ticket: add Vance
Chef Ronnie Vance, whose many
Portland restaurant associations include
a brief run as owner of Scarlett Begonias,
2108 NW Glisan St., and a term as chef
at Piattino, 1140 NW Everett St., is in
charge of the kitchen at Lightning Will
Bar and Grill, which is replacing Blitz 21
tors for sports fans and a wide range of
Vance-created dishes, from Yankee pot
roast to hare pie and pho’ck, a Vietnamese roasted duck soup.
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19
20
GOING OUT
Thai Bloom chef Sayan Promwongsa (L-R) with manager Sam Saisiri and General
Manager Walter Bowers (owner) at Thai Bloom, the latest restaurant in what has been
a high turnover location at Northwest 23rd and Flanders. Photo by Thomas Teal
Winds of change reflected on 23rd
Nunda “Noot” Sybim, who worked at
Typhoon Restaurants from 1996-2011,
is the head chef at the new Thai Bloom,
a traditional Thai restaurant at 333 NW
23rd Ave.
“I used to eat at Typhoon all the time
when my office was upstairs, so I am
delighted to have their former staff,” said
General Manager Walter Bowers.
(See story on Page 27)
Briefly
Portland Monthly reported that Cathy Whims, owner and chef of Oven & Shaker,
1134 NW Everett St., plans to open a restaurant and cocktail bar around the corner in
the former Jinx Kitchen & Lounge at 232 NW 12th Ave. The menu will feature hams
from around the world and hand-sliced in front of diners. It will be open evenings
only beginning in March.
Mayura Indian Grill and Bar at 1323 NW 23rd Ave. has a new owner, Roop Singh
Bath, and a new name, Siri Indian Cuisine.
The Red Onion at 1123 NW 23rd Ave. has a new owner, Surin Ruttanapaibooncharoe.
210NW21stAve.Portland,Oregon.
Chakam Thai Kitchen at 323 NW Park Ave. has a new owner, Warniee Panyachursakunuk, and a new name, Noon in the Pearl.
Glaser Estate Winery is opening a tasting room at 1230 NW Hoyt St. in the former
Fratelli space. The winery is in Roseburg.
Throne Traditional Barbershop, 917 NW 13th Ave., has applied for a license to sell
beer, wine and liquor. A $28 haircut will include a drink. "We're trying to bring back
the whole male-bonding thing," co-owner Robert O'Dell told Willamette Week.
Sam and Nesrin Alkhal opened Urban Green, 927 NW 14th Ave., last month, a vegetarian deli with a Mediterranean approach he calls “vegeterranean.” The Alkhal’s
bought Urban Grind coffee shop directly to the south a year ago, and when a patron
asked for more than one kind of vegetarian sandwich at the coffee shop, Sam had a
eureka
moment and
decided to open anAd
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Examiner
Run Date:
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NORTHWEST EXAMINER, DECEMBER 2014 /  NWEXAMINER.COM
GOING OUT
21
On the road
Restaurant reviewer takes month off to rediscover joys of world travel.
MICHAEL C. ZUSMAN
The travel bug bit me hard when I was 16. I devoured
a copy of James Michener’s “The Drifters” and was
launched into a hippy-era saga of fun and frolic on the
road. I wanted what those kids had.
Within a year or two, with the help of my folks—who
were as excited to see less of their surly teenager as
I was anxious to escape the yoke of parental oppression—I made my first trip abroad to Israel with a group
of similarly-minded teens. We were accompanied by
counselors, but they had the good sense to manage us
lightly. We took full advantage of the freedom. Another
group trip followed the next year, across country in the
Jewish Community Center Dodge van with a teepee
strapped on top that we set up every night and broke
down every morning until we hit Boston and New
York City. This was the life I had imagined, even with
occasional hassles and drama, just as “The Drifters”
had foreshadowed.
And it snowballed from there. Study abroad in college, London with side trips to the Continent. Gap
year between graduation and law school, again in
and around the United Kingdom on up to the Orkney
Islands. For over 40 years now, I’ve traveled as often as
time and resources have permitted, having conquered
each of the continents save Africa and Antarctica with
well over a million miles on the road.
Above all, here’s the thing I’ve learned: the travel
bug never goes away. It only gets more intense, like
when you scratch a mosquito bite. You visit a place
and love it and want to go back, but then there are all
the other cultures and countries and cities and sights
that demand attention. Complicating the picture are
evolving real-life needs at home. Job, family and adult
responsibility have a way of limiting good times on the
road.
There is nothing more enriching in life than travel,
especially if you happen to write about food. Travel
(along with eating and reading) is one of the keys to
opining authoritatively on different cuisines. In fact,
I’m not sure how a writer can offer a credible opinion
on that dim sum restaurant down the street or the
tapas place across town without having spent time in
their native environs.
Travel provides critical context enabling a real
understanding of what’s on your plate in your hometown. Without it, you might as well be just another
yammering Yelper.
ing this month off from writing my regular column.
Instead, I’m spending a big chunk of November on the
road. There were a few days in Buenos Aires and, as I
file this, I’m in the midst of a 10-day run to Dubai and
Barcelona.
So far, I’ve visited two classic Buenos Aires parrillas,
Don Julio and La Cabrera; a memorable Dubai Indian
restaurant called Asha; and three outposts of the Adria
brothers’ Barcelona empire in over just 36 hours:
Bodega 1900, for traditional tapas elevated; Tickets
Bar, featuring modernist tapas served in a carnival-like
atmosphere; and Niño Viejo, a fairly traditional Mexican taco joint in upscale digs.
I’m having a great time and feeding my travel jones
to boot. I’ll be back home in December and look forward to sharing next month’s column with you.
Michael C. Zusman
Photo by Dina Avila
All this is a roundabout way of saying that I’m tak-
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22
BUSINESS
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Shop local this holiday season and patronize businesses that support your neighborhood ... and your neighborhood newspaper.
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NEWS
23
 Community Events
Carols at Cathedral
Illuminations returns
St. Mary’s Cathedral, 1716 NW Davis
St., will host an evening of caroling in
the Cathedral Courtyard Saturday, Dec.
13, 6:30 p.m., rain or shine. Refreshments will be served. All are welcome.
In 2002-03, filmmaker Rose Bond
produced Illuminations #1, evoking
the Old Town Chinatown neighborhood’s 120-year history through animated images in the second story windows of the vacant Portland Seamen’s
Bethel Building. The concept proved so
appealing that Bond applied it in cities
around the world. The scenes create
a dialogue on the street as passersby
stop to take in the phenomena. Bond
is bringing Illuminations back to the
Bethel Building at Northwest Third and
Davis for Ten Magical Nights in December, beginning Dec. 4.
Rotary programs
Portland Pearl Rotary Club meets
every Tuesday at 7:25 a.m. in the Ecotrust Building, 721 NW Ninth Ave., second floor. The public is invited. A $10
charge includes breakfast. For information, contact Randy Vogt, vogt4me1@
icloud.com or 503-228-9858. This
month’s programs are:
Dec. 9: Pearl Rotary Annual Wine
Exchange.
Dec. 16: “What do ants, zebras, the
Internet, innovation teams and improvisers have in common?” Julie Huffaker,
Deeper Funner Change Project.
Dec. 23: No program due to Christmas.
Dec. 30: No program due to New
Year's.
Kids’ ceramic painting
Northwest Library at Northwest 23rd
and Thurman hosts a free ceramics
painting workshop for kids Saturday,
Dec. 13, 2:30-4 p.m. The ceramic pieces,
paint, brushes, smocks, water tubs and
mats are provided. Lead-free acrylic
paint will be used, and the pieces will
be ready to take home in minutes.
Anime Marathon
Teen Anime Club Marathon, providing an extended time to view, snack and
talk about animation, will be held Tuesday, Dec. 30, 3-7 p.m., in the Northwest
Library, 1700 NW 23rd Ave. There is no
fee.
Ave. Model steam engine trains, decorated for the holidays, will run along
custom-built tracks and over trestles,
bridges and switches. Enjoy the company of neighbors, sip a warm beverage,
win a prize drawing and drink in the
holiday spirit. Dress warmly; the space
is unheated. Admission is free and all
donations will go to Friendly House.
‘Christmas with Bing Crosby’
“Christmas with Bing Crosby,” presented by Gordon Neal Herman, will
be held Wednesday, Dec. 10, 1-2 p.m.
at Friendly House, 1737 NW 26th Ave.
Admission is $7 for Friendly House
members and $9 for others.
Holiday Party
Friendly House, 1737 NW 26th
Ave., hosts a free Community Holiday Party for all ages Wednesday, Dec. 10, 6-8:30 p.m. There will
be caroling and a visit from Santa.
MLC fundraiser
The Metropolitan Learning Center
Education Foundation will hold an
Alumni and Parent Celebration Fundraiser Friday, Dec. 12, 6:30-8:30 p.m., at
2033 NW Glisan St. There will be light
refreshments, entertainment and good
company. Sliding-scale donations will
be collected at the door. For information, visit mlcef.org or call Karen Rodriguez, 503-807-3900.
Pittock Mansion
In celebration of Pittock Mansion’s
centennial, the mansion will be decorated around the theme “Christmas
Past, Present and Future” through Jan.
2. More than 70 volunteers and interior
designers continue the tradition of decorating the mansion’s rooms that began
over 40 years ago. Admission is free for
members, $10.50 for adults, $9.50 for
seniors, $7.50 for youth (ages 6-18), and
free for children 5 and younger.
Holiday Steam Up
Staver Locomotive presents its annual Holiday Steam Up to benefit Friendly
House Sunday, Dec. 7, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.,
at Staver Locomotive, 2537 NW 29th
Descendants of internment victims return to the family farmland near White Salmon.
Internment exhibit at Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center
“Before Memories Fade,” an exhibit detailing a Japanese family’s internment
during World War II, will be featured at the Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center, 121 NW
Second Ave., Dec. 13-Feb. 22. Kenjiro and Kay Kida, along with their son George,
were farming on a ranch near White Salmon, Wash., when they were deemed
“enemy aliens” after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and ordered to pack only what
they could carry and report to the Portland Assembly Center. Museum hours are
from Tuesday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-3 p.m., and Sunday, noon-3 p.m. Admission is $5
and free to members. For information, visit oregonnikkei.org.
Pirouette R PowerRise R
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 NWEXAMINER.COM / NORTHWEST EXAMINER, DECEMBER 2014
23
24
NEWS
 Business
Finance & Real Estate
Industrial
workouts
Old warehouses become home to a
new breed of gyms, freed from high
rents and parking shortages.
True to the name, Industrial Strength co-founder and coach Mira Kwon holds seven Oregon records in weightlifting
and has competed in the Olympics.
BY KC COWAN
Northwest Portland’s industrial district has always seen
a lot of “heavy lifting,” with
businesses such as foundries,
printing, metal fabrication and
manufacturing. But in the past
few years, another type of heavy
lifting has been going on in the
industrial zone—at workout
gyms.
down his dream. In addition,
his clients had to pay for parking in the Pearl.
“Our gym membership fees
were competitive,” he said, “but
when you factor in $60 to $80 a
month for parking, that was a
hidden cost that our members
grumbled about.”
The spaces are not fancy
and have few luxury amenities. What they do have is room
galore, plenty of free parking
and low, low rents. And that’s
what’s pulling business to the
industrial zone.
So in 2012, he began looking
in the industrial area for a new
site. He found a warehouse at
2636 NW 26th Ave. that was
being used to store construction
debris. It had enormous piles
of trash inside, but Skogg saw
beyond that. With four months
of sweat equity, he reopened
his gym in a place that gave him
so much increased space he
was able to add more services.
Plus, his monthly rent was now
only $1,500.
In 2009, Michael Skogg
opened Skogg Gym in the heart
of the Pearl in the Buddha
Building on Northwest 10th
Avenue. But the $4,000 monthly
rent was threatening to close
“It’s really funny,” Skogg said.
“A business makes a move and
you just don’t anticipate being
in the black immediately, but
we were. We went from feeling
the strain of our finances to
Muscles are being built
alongside manufacturing operations.
making a profit almost the next
day.”
Skogg is not the only one
to strike gold amid the industrial grime. Industrial Strength
gym opened last year in a 1970s
warehouse at 2034 NW 26th
Ave. Owner Tony Gracia said
when they took over the building, it was barely standing.
“The plumbing didn’t work,”
he said. “The heater was rotted
out and didn’t work. The tenant
before us had a car auto detail
business in there, and a former
employee took a joy ride with
a Mercedes through the building so the sheet metal wall was
literally ripped off.”
But it had features Gracia
wanted. Affordable rent, 6,000
square feet of space, easy freeway access and a level floor.
And while employees at nearby
Montgomery Park take up a
lot of the daytime street parking, the peak hours for Industrial Strength comes before and
after regular office hours.
Led by a
passion
for people,
Portland,
real estate.
“It’s been outstanding for
us,” Gracia said. “Really, really
good. All the street parking is
easy; nobody has to park more
than a block away.”
Nearby, a fence topped with
barbed wire surrounds Crossfit X-Factor gym on Northwest
Roosevelt Street. It’s a relic from
the former storage warehouse
and car rental business that
owner Chris McDonald turned
into a strength training, kettlebell and powerlifting center in
2010. McDonald moved to the
industrial area from Northeast
Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. Again, money was a factor.
a better spot for his kind of gym
than the Pearl.
"We weren’t really accepted
in the retail side of things,” he
said. “People weren’t looking
for our type of business to rent
to us. They didn’t want the people in here being loud. And for
us, to be here at 5:30 and there’s
nobody around us, being loud
is OK.”
Gyms tend to build their clientele through word of mouth.
There is little benefit in visibility to potential customers walking by.
“Absolutely,” he said, “compared to Northeast MLK, where
rent was much more—$1.50 a
square foot, whereas here, it’s
$1 a square foot. Big savings.”
“We’re kind of a destination,”
said McDonald. “People aren’t
just going to randomly walk in
and want to do this. They’re
going to have already made the
decision after reading about
it or hearing about it from a
friend.”
McDonald was lucky. Very
little renovation was needed. It even had a back office
space ready to use. McDonald
believes the industrial district is
Indeed, the clients who
patronize these types of gyms
are serious about their workouts. No walking a treadmill
while watching TV or reading
o ve r
isc the difference Directors Mortgage makes
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NORTHWEST EXAMINER, DECEMBER 2014 /  NWEXAMINER.COM
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25
"People weren’t looking for our type of business to rent to us. They
didn’t want the people in here being loud. And for us, to be here
at 5:30 and there’s nobody around us, being loud is OK."
Chris McDonald
Crossfit X-Factor
a book as you pedal a stationary
bike. Nor can one just “drop in”
as you can in places like 24-Hour
Fitness.
Now, he has firmed up so
much, he jokes that his trainer,
Tony Garcia, “owes him a new
wardrobe.”
increase from our prior location, but we chose it because the
space was beautiful and it had
ample free parking.”
Instead, you have to take a
class where you are pushed to
the limit, or work one-on-one
with a personal trainer. You lift
weights, swing kettlebells, toss
heavy balls, do pull-ups, sit-ups
and more. There is a different
routine each class, which gym
owners say keeps people from
getting bored and dropping out.
Recreate Fitness is in the
ground floor of the Fitzgibbon
Glass Building at Northwest 19th
and Vaughn. Owner Tina Jeffers
started the business with a goal
of making exercise fun.
Recreate Fitness started at
Northwest 19th and Overton,
but Jeffers said the business outgrew that space “and parking
was almost impossible to find.”
Does it work? Chris Beeger
joined Industrial Strength six
months ago on the recommendation of his girlfriend. He had
worked out in gyms before but
says, “I had no idea what I was
doing and had all the results to
show for it.”
“We’ve traded in mirrors and
machines for hopscotch and
hurdles,” said Jeffers. “At Recreate Fitness, people run, jump,
swing kettlebells and climb
ropes in a friendly, supportive
environment.
“We moved to our current
location six years ago mainly
because we love the space and
easy access to parking,” she said.
“Our rent was actually a large
An industrial location is not
an automatic ticket to success, however. Control Fitness
sprawled out in a huge, low-rent
warehouse space at 2562 NW
Wilson St. before closing this
year.
Other than being affordable,
however, is a gym a good fit for
an area zoned IG1 (Light Industrial) and even IH (Heavy Industrial).
Peter Stark is a board memContinued on page 26
Crossfit X-Factor owners say the typical client is between 28 and 38
years of age, but all ages can benefit from strength training.
Photo by KC Cowan
 Comment on nwexaminer.com
Continued on page 26
UPS Shipping
Color Copying
Black and White Copying
Freight/Oversized Shipping
Notary
Mailbox Rental
Fax
Parcel Packing
Post Office Shipping
Shipping Supplies
Custom Printing
Document Scanning
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Portland, OR 97209
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 NWEXAMINER.COM / NORTHWEST EXAMINER, DECEMBER 2014
25
26
NEWS
Industrial workouts
Continued from page 25
business.
ber of the Central Eastside Industrial Council
as well as chair of Neighbors West/Northwest,
the coalition of Westside neighborhood associations. Stark is all in favor of property owners
being allowed to do what they want within zoning laws, and revitalizing a building is certainly
better than seeing it sit empty. But he also has
his eye on the long-term effects of turning warehouses into retail space.
“I think the concern, and this is a regional
concern, not just in the Northwest District, is
that we have a limited amount of industrial
land,” he said. “And although a little bit of gentrification and use that is outside industrial isn’t
bad, the more you take away, the less there is for
future light industrial use.”
Stark says zoning allows an industrial business to also have a retail space of up to 3,000
square feet, but the intent was for that retail
area to be attached in support of a light industry
For example, a business that cuts and polishes granite countertops could have a showroom
to display and sell the granite slabs next door
to where they manufacture it. But that intent
was not written into the code, leaving room for
“unattached” retail space, such as the gyms.
Stark worries that if more stand-alone retail
places move in, not only will future entrepreneurs not have a place to operate a manufacturing business, but the city will run the risk of
saturating the area with much the same kinds
of businesses as already exist Downtown or in
the Pearl. Eventually, it might even force light
industry to look elsewhere as things become
more crowded and rents start to rise.
“A vacant building isn’t good for anyone,
and I understand that,” he said. “But when the
types of use you’re bringing in take away parking spaces from legitimate businesses or impact
their ability to do business, that can create gentrification.”
Michael Skogg of Skogg Gym uses a truck tire as exercise
equipment. After moving from the Pearl District, "We went from
feeling the strain of our finances to making a profit almost the next
day.” Photo by KC Cowan
Northwest Neighborhood Veterinary Hospital
Holiday Food Drive
NORTHLAKE
PHYSICAL THERAPY & REHABILITATION
A center for healing, fitness, and injury prevention.
Benefiting low-income families and seniors
served by Friendly House
Accepting:
• Non-perishable human food and unopened
canned and dry cat and dog food.
• Children’s socks and underwear for ages
12 and under.
• Adult socks and new blankets.
For every pound of food, Northwest Veterinary Hospital
will donate an additional pound of pet food.
For every non-food item, Northwest Veterinary Hospital
will donate 5 pounds of pet food.
Physical Therapy
Personal Training/Coaching
Massage Therapy
Providing a mindful approach
towards recovery, strength
and balance.
Serving the athlete and
the family for over 25
years
For an appointment call
DRIVE ENDS JANUARY 1, 2015
503-227-6047
nwneighborhoodvet.com
2680 NW Thurman Street
Scott Shuler, DVM • Carrie Fleming, DVM • Nick Gowing, DVM
Meghan Hook, DVM • Becky Prull, DVM • Kimberly Maun, DVM
26
NORTHWEST EXAMINER, DECEMBER 2014 /  NWEXAMINER.COM
503-222-4640
New Pearl District location
in Raleigh Square
1622 NW 15th Avenue
www.northlakephysicaltheraphy.com
BUSINESS
Jim and Patty’s Coffee
2246 NW Lovejoy St.
503-477-8363
jimandpattys.com
Jim and Patty Roberts, formerly of
Coffee People, have opened the Immediate Care Center across from Good
Samaritan Hospital in the new Franklin
Ide Building. They have brought back
many old favorites, such as the Minesweeper and Depth Charge, while adding biscuits and pastries from their own
bakery. After selling their shares in Coffee People in 1998, they opened a new
store at Northeast 50th and Fremont in
2002, added a Beaverton outlet in 2013
and now are back in Northwest, where
they had their first coffee shop.
 New Businesses
Area 20 years ago, recently opened its
fourth gym and the first one outside of
California. The Pearl facility features
30,000 square feet of climbing, including trademarked designs for roped
climbs up to 55 feet. The walls and overhangs feature cracks that are hydraulically adjustable. There is also an 18-foot
tall boulder and a 30-foot long ramp. A
staff of seven setters regularly adjusts
the climbing routes. The full-block gym
also includes two yoga and fitness studios and a training area with Olympic
weightlifting equipment, cardio equipment, TRX Suspension training and
indoor cycling. It’s open seven days a
week.
Lightning Will Bar & Grill
305 NW 21st Ave., Suite C
503-327-8203
Thomas “TJ” Farris opened Lightning
Will Bar and Grill last month in the former Blitz 21 space. Well-known local
chef Ronnie Vance has created main
dishes such as Yankee pot roast, chicken
and dumplings, hare pie and pho’ck, a
Vietnamese roasted duck soup. Burgers
and sandwiches are also available. The
full bar has 24 beers on tap, along with
Oregon and Washington wines. The
remodeled space has a long bar, high
tables and booths. TV screens tuned
to sporting events cover one wall, and
a 120-inch screen occupies another.
The bar’s name comes from a line in
a Grateful Dead song, “The Wheel”:
“If the thunder don’t get you, then the
lightning will.” For those keeping track,
the song was first performed in Portland
at the Paramount Theater June 3, 1976.
Bessie Day Salon
Planet Granite
2534 NW Thurman St.
1405 NW 14th Ave.
503-432-8332
503-477-5666
bessiedaysalon.com
planetgranite.com
Courtney Hunt launched a one-person salon in October in the former NW
Pilates studio. Hunt, who has 10 years
Planet Granite, founded in the Bay
27
experience in hair styling and
coloring, uses Aveda products.
Hunt grew up in Portland and
returned seven years ago after
completing school in Seattle
and living in the Bay Area for
several years. She’s hosting a
grand opening at the salon Saturday, Dec. 13, 6-8 p.m.
Siri Indian Grill and Bar
1323 NW 23rd Ave.
503-208-2259
Sayan Promwongsa (L-R), Walter Bowers and Sam
Saisiri at Thai Bloom Restaurant.
Mayura Indian Grill is gone,
and another Indian restaurant
has replaced it. Roop Singh Bath, who
also owns Bombay Express in Washington Square and had another Indian restaurant in Seattle, believes “fine dining”
and a full bar will succeed where Mayura struggled. Siri serves lunch and dinner every day, and dinners are priced
$9-$18. He was attracted to the 23rd
Avenue location due to “savvy” customers and lots of foot traffic.
Made Here PDX
40 NW 10th Ave.
503-224-0122
madeherepdx.com
Made Here PDX showcases more
than 50 brands made in the Portland
metropolitan area. Products include
apothecary to leather goods, bikes, surfboards, coffee, chocolate, art, apparel,
furniture and jewelry. “The showroom
works like a test lab to allow crafters to
try out new products,” said John Connor, one of four owners along with Paul
Herring, Bob Davis and Chris Elkins. In
addition to displaying the work of many
craftspeople, the store also offers a
space for suppliers to meet with clients.
Thai Bloom Restaurant
333 NW 23rd Ave.
503-644-8010
thaibloomrestaurant.com
Thai Bloom has replaced the shortlived Korean barbecue restaurant, Mago
23, at Northwest 23rd and Flanders.
Those who miss Typhoon, which closed
nearly three years ago a block to the
south, will be pleased to know that
Nunda “Noot” Sybim, who worked for
Typhoon Restaurants from 1996-2011,
is the head chef at Thai Bloom. “I used
to eat at Typhoon all the time when my
office was upstairs, so I am delighted
to have their former staff,” said General
Manager Walter Bowers. Thai Bloom
features traditional Thai items, such as
pad thai and drunken noodles, with
signature dishes, such as Boat Noodle
Soup, consisting of braised sliced beef,
beef meatballs and vegetables. This is
the second restaurant for Thai Bloom,
which has been operating in Beaverton
since 2012.
Women’s Health Care
PUBLIC
LECTURES
NEWMONTHLY
LOCAL LECTURE
STARTING
SOON
Call our office or
visit our website to find out more
2 2 2 - 2 3 2 2
Women’s Health
Bio Identical Hormones • Acupuncture
Intergrated Herbal & Nutritional Therapies
Breast Cancer Care • Massage
Menopause • Annual Exams
Counseling-Individual & Couples
Tori Hudson, N.D.
Kellie Raydon, N.D., L.Ac.
Tori Hudson, N.D.
Aarin Meager-Benson, N.D.
Kellie Raydon, N.D., L.Ac.
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503-222-2322
2067 NW Lovejoy • Portland
www.awomanstime.com
 NWEXAMINER.COM / NORTHWEST EXAMINER, DECEMBER 2014
27
28
BUSINESS
M
arshall Union Manor
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etireMent iving for
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ease and diversity of urban living. For
residents with cars we have off street
parking, but many of our seniors
prefer to utilize the city bus or the
street car which stops just outside
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vegetable garden, in-house library,
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Office HOurs:
Weekdays 10:00am - 4:00pm
 Business Briefs
Fit Right founder Dave Sobolik has sold the business at 2258 NW Raleigh St.,
which will become a Fleet Feet Sports franchise owned by husband and wife
Alan Rice and Susan Zepernick. The couple recently sold their Fleet Feet franchise in Chico, Calif., to move to the Northwest.
After 37 years in the Uptown Shopping Center, Pat Warren has closed Faces
Unlimited.
Carrie Strickland, co-founder of Works Partnership Architecture, won a
merit award from the Portland chapter of American Institute of Architects
recently for the Bowstring Truss House at Northwest 19th and Overton streets.
Lisa Reitz moved her fashion design studio and retail shop from 2774 NW
Thurman St. to 811 E. Burnside St., Suite 111.
NW Pilates has moved from 2534 NW Thurman St. to 1243 NW 19th Ave.
Martin Ryan Distilling Company is taking over the former Jerry Lamb Interiors building at 2304 NW Savier St.
Glaser Estate Winery is opening a tasting room at 1230 NW Hoyt St. in the
former Fratelli space. The winery is in Roseburg.
Northwest Neighborhood Veterinary Hospital is conducting a holiday campaign to provide pet food for low-income families and seniors.
Restorcap, a company specializing in environmental restoration, is expected
to close a deal soon to acquire the Linnton Plywood Assocation property and
create a resting area for juvenile salmon. Public access to a park along the river
is also contemplated.
A groundbreaking was held Dec. 3 for Makerspace, a Portland Metro Stem
Partnership program in which community members help students create
hands-on projects. The facility will be built at 10837 NW Front Ave. on property
owned by the Linnton Community Center. Mayor Charlie Hales, City Commissioner Nick Fish, state Senator Betsy Johnson and Multnomah County Chair
Deborah Kafoury were scheduled to appear.
-4-2015
Expires 1
Con-way Enterprise Services employees are collecting gifts and donations
through Dec. 14 for distribution to three local charities: Friendly House, Christmas Family Adoption Foundation and Northwest Pilot Project.
The Design Commission was scheduled to hear developer Marty Kehoe’s
application Dec. 4 for two buildings containing 126 apartments on Northwest
Overton and Pettygrove Streets. The Portland Historical Landmarks Commission recommended denial, while Bureau of Development Services staff favors
the project.
28
NORTHWEST EXAMINER, DECEMBER 2014 /  NWEXAMINER.COM
29
September
2010
December
2014
newsletter@nwnw.org
NINA Holiday Food Drive
Support NINA’s holiday food drive benefitting Lift Urban Portland. Lift
UP reduces hunger and betters the lives of Northwest and Downtown
Portland residents with a food pantry, food box deliveries to homebound
residents, and with backpacks of food serving NW Portland students
that rely on school meals for their nutrition. They provided over 1500
backpacks during the last school year, providing food for the weekend so
kids could arrive ready to learn on Monday morning. Most needed pantry
items include cooking oil, peanut butter or other nut butters, tuna fish,
canned beans, tomato products (sauce, canned, diced, etc.), resealable bags
(quart or gallon), and non-latex gloves. Barrels will be in the community
between December 1st and 19th at General Tool, Madden Fabrication,
Southwest Office Supply, the US Bank on Yeon and CoHo Theater. For
more information, contact harold@hhclick.com or 503 227-5694. Save the
date for the NINA Holiday Party on Tuesday, January 13th.
NW Heights Emergency
Prep Workshops
Date: Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Time: 6:30 – 8:00 PM
Place: Forest Creek Apartments Community Room
1940 NW Miller Rd.
Let’s prepare as a community! Come learn about tools,
resources and how to get involved. We are recruiting
Neighborhood Emergency Team (NET) volunteers.
Visit www.portlandoregon.gov/pbem/31667? for more
information about NET. RSVP to office@fhhoa.com.
Package
Theft
Linnton Ivy Pulls
Date: Saturdays, December 13 & 27, 2014
Time: 9:00 AM – Noon
Place: Hoge Creek Project & Ma Olsen’s Garden
Join your neighbors to remove invasive plants and
plant natives at Hoge Creek December 13th and at
Ma Olsen’s Garden December 27th. Remove ivy
and plant shrubs in a lovely glen. Then, at the end
of the month, remove ivy from 100 year old stone
walls. Native plantings. Challenging terrain. Rapid
progress! Wear warm cloths and sturdy shoes! This
can be your gift to the flowers and bees.
NWNW e-news
Garden Space
by Laura Niemi, Community Gardens
Program Coordinator – Request your
community garden space! Portland Parks
& Recreation (PP&R) is working with the
Linnton Neighborhood Association (LNA)
to explore the feasibility of building a
community garden at Kingsley Park. This
underutilized piece of PP&R land lies between Highway 30 and the
railroad tracks just north of the Shell Station. Last year, LNA received
a grant to provide much needed safety and access improvements to
encourage use of the park and set the stage for future improvements.
The soil was tested and found to be safe for food gardening. To provide
comments, learn more, or be added to an interest list for the garden, please
send your name and contact information to Laura Niemi at 503 823-1612
or laura.niemi@portlandoregon.gov.
Sign-up to receive community
relevant stories mid-month through
our electronic newsletter at
www.nwnw.org. Questions? Email
newsletter@nwnw.org.
by Stefanie Adams, ONI
Crime Prevention Program
– Package theft tends to
increase during holiday
months as more goods are shipped to
the doorstep. Packages visible from
the street may also indicate that no one
is home, making the home a possible
target for burglary. Many of these
incidents are crimes of opportunity.
Learn about package theft prevention
at www.nwnw.org/discussion.
Preserve Our Historic District
by Wendy Chung, NWDA Board Member – Unless we act now, the B&W Building (1727 NW Hoyt) will be
demolished. It’s in an enclave of landmarks which would be dwarfed by the proposed 6-story, 82-unit building. It is a
contributing resource in the Historic Alphabet District on the National Register of Historic Places. The destruction of
a property on this register has only happened once to provide food, shelter and services to the homeless. If demolition
of this building for private gain is allowed, the historic district is jeopardy! Please:
•
•
•
Go to City Hall on December 10th at 2:00 p.m. to testify or just show support.
Sign our online petition at Change.org (search: Ballow).
Go to the NWDA website for more information: www.northwestdistrictassociation.org
Hillside
A Reprise of
Illumination #1
Opening: Thursday, December 4, 2014
Time: 6:00 – 8:00 PM
Place: Mariner’s Home Building,
NW 3rd Ave. & Davis St.
Illumination #1, the widely heralded
animated sound and light show revealing the
interior lives of an historic 1881 landmark
in Portland’s Old Town Chinatown, is
being revived just once for ten evenings
in December. Created by Portland’s Rose
Bond (an internationally recognized artist,
animator and educator), Illuminations #1 is a
multi-projection arts event on the building’s
façade exploring 120 years of Portland’s
cultural history in 12 memorable minutes.
Bond’s piece is an exploration of identity
which evokes the past, former British Isles,
Chinese, Japanese, Jewish, and Roma
residents and workers, and the accretions of
memory held and reflected by the building.
The public will be able to view Bond’s
installation from across the street on either
NW Davis Street or NW 3rd Avenue sides
of the building. Opening on First Thursday,
December 4th, the performance will run
nightly December 5 - 7, 12 - 14, and 19 - 21,
closing on the Winter Solstice.
W-NW Collective
Memoir Project
Stories for and from our community!
Help us capture personal stories of our
history – our legacy. We are looking for longterm community advocates, neighbors and
business owners willing to be interviewed
or people that may have access to primary
sources like personal journals, pictures,
old memorabilia, etc. Volunteer to tell us
your story or nominate family members,
friends or neighbors to share their unique
perspective on the local community.
Submit nominations to angela@nwnw.org
or call 503 823-4211. Please include the
nominee’s name, contact information, and
why you are nominating them. Interns will
be helping with interviews, research and
with writing stories for an anthology. Visit
www.nwnw.org/projects/storytelling
for
more information about this program.
Annual Meetings & Elections
Date: Tuesday, January 13, 2014
Time: 7:30 PM
Place: Hillside Community Center
653 NW Culpepper Terr.
Join your neighbors for the Annual Meeting
& Elections of the Hillside Neighborhood
Association. HNA is now meeting quarterly and
we would love to see you there! Worried about
traffic, safety or crime in the neighborhood? Get
involved – together we can improve the livability
of our neighborhood.
NortHwest NeigHborHood Cultural CeNter (NNCC)
Date: Thursday, February 5, 2015 • Time: 7:00 PM
Place: Cultural Center, 1819 NW Everett St., Looking Glass Hall (lower level)
Directors for the term beginning in 2015 will be elected. The current NNCC Board proposes the following candidates:
Don Genasci and Bill Welch. NNCC members may nominate candidates for Director positions by petition until January
26, 2015. Deliver petitions to the Secretary at least ten (10) days prior to the Annual Meeting. The petition must be
signed by at least ten (10) members naming the nominee(s) and stating that each nominee has agreed to serve if elected.
At the Annual Meeting, the Secretary shall state the names and qualifications of those nominated by petition. Deliver
nominating petitions to the NNCC Secretary: NWNeighhorhoodCC@gmail.com or NNCC, P.O. Box 96116, Portland,
OR 97296-6002. The bylaws limit the maximum number of Directors to eleven (11) and four (4) of the eleven (11)
positions need to be filled. See https://sites.google.com/site/nwnccorg for a membership application form and additional
information on NNCC.
Neighborhood columns are the opinions of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Neighbors West-Northwest
 NWEXAMINER.COM / NORTHWEST EXAMINER, DECEMBER 2014
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Arlington Heights
Neighborhood Association
Northwest District
Association
Old Town Chinatown
Community Association
Portland Downtown
Neighborhood Association
www.arlingtonheightspdx.org
northwestdistrictassociation.org
www.oldtownchinatown.org
www.portlanddowntownna.com
BOARD MEETING
Mon., Dec. 8th
5:30 pm
Sylvan Fire Station
1715 SW Skyline Blvd
BOARD MEETING
Mon., Dec. 15th, 6:00 pm
Legacy Good Samaritan (LGS)
Wilcox ACR 102, 1015 NW 22nd Ave
Forest Park
Neighborhood Association
Executive Committee
Weds., Jan. 14th, 8:00 am
NWNW Office, 2257 NW Raleigh
www.forestparkneighbors.org
Air Quality Committee
Mon., Dec. 8th, 7:00 pm
Silver Cloud Inn, Breakfast Rm
NW 24th Place & Vaughn St
BOARD MEETING
Tues., Dec. 16th, 7:00 pm
Willis Community Center
360 NW Greenleaf
Planning Committee
Thurs., Dec. 11th, 18th & Jan. 8th
8:00 am
CoHo Theater, 2257 NW Raleigh
Call to confirm, 503.823.4212
Safety & Livability Committee
Tues., Dec. 9th, 6:00 pm
LGS, Wilcox B, 1015 NW 22nd
Goose Hollow
Foothills League
Transportation Committee
Weds., Jan. 7th, 6:00 pm
LGS, Northrup Building
2282 NW Northrup St
www.goosehollow.org
NEIGHBORHOOD MEETING
Thurs., Dec. 18th, 7:00 pm
Multnomah Athletic Club
1849 SW Salmon St
2nd Saturday Clean-up
Sat., Dec. 13th, 9:00 am
Food Front Co-op
2375 NW Thurman
Planning Committee
Tues., Jan. 6th, 7:00 pm
First United Methodist, Chapel
1838 SW Jefferson
COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION MTG
Weds., Jan. 7th, 11:30 am
Central City Concern
232 NW 6th Ave
GENERAL MEMBERSHIP MTG
Tues., Jan. 27th, 5:30 pm
BOARD MEETING
Weds., Dec. 17th, 11:30 am
University of Oregon, Room 150
70 NW Couch
Meetings held at:
Meals on Wheels Elm Court 1032
SW Main St
Art History and Culture Committee
Weds., Dec. 10th, 11:45 am
Non Profit Center, 221 NW 2nd Ave,
2nd floor front conf room
Business Committee
Thurs., Dec. 18th, 10:00 am
Davis Street Tavern, 500 NW Davis
Marketing & Communications Comm.
Thurs., Jan. 15th, 3:30 pm
One Pacific Square, 11th floor
220 NW 2nd
Land Use & Design Rvw Committee
Tues., Dec. 16th, 11:30 am
University of Oregon, Room 150
70 NW Couch
Hillside
Neighborhood Association
Pearl District
Neighborhood Association
Northwest Heights
Neighborhood Association
www.pearldistrict.org
Contact: Charlie Clark,
503 459-3610
BOARD MEETING
Thurs., Dec. 11th & Jan. 8th
6:00 pm
PREM Group, 351 NW 12th Ave
www.hillsidena.org
BOARD MEETING
Mon., Jan. 5th, 12:30 pm
Forest Heights HOA Office
2033 NW Miller Rd
ANNUAL ELECTIONS
Tues., Jan. 13th, 7:30 pm
Hillside Community Center
653 NW Culpepper Terr
Disaster Preparedness Workshop
Weds., Dec. 10th, 6:30 pm
Forest Creek Apartments Community Room, 1940 NW Miller Rd
Linnton Neighborhood
Association
Northwest Industrial
Neighborhood Association
www.linnton.com
TOWN MEETING
Weds., Jan. 7th, 7:00 pm
Linnton Community
Center, 10614 NW St.
Helens Rd
www.nwindustrial.org
Hoge Creek Project
Sat., Dec. 13th, 9:00 am
NW Hoge Ave at St.
Helens Rd
Ma Olsen’s Garden
Sat., Dec. 27th, 9:00 am
St. Helens Rd at the Lighthouse
NINA Next Meeting
Dec. TBD
Land Use & Transport. Comm.
Mon., Dec. 15th, 5:30 pm
1900 Building, Room 2500 B
1900 SW 4th
Public Safety Action Committee
Weds., Jan. 14th, 12:00 pm
Portland Building, Room B
1120 SW 5th Ave
Sylvan-Highlands
Neighborhood Association
www.sylvanhighlands.org
Livability Committee
Tues., Dec. 16th, 3:30 pm
Oregon College of Oriental
Medicine, 75 NW Couch St
3rd Saturday Clean-up
Sat., Dec. 20th, 9:00 am
Elephants Deli, 115 NW 22nd
Vision Realization Committee
Thurs., Jan. 8th, 7:00 pm
Providence Park Community Room
909 SW 18th
BOARD MEETING
Tues., Jan. 27th, 7:00 pm
Executive Committee
Tues., Jan. 6th, 8:00 am
Urban Grind, 911 NW 14th
Livability & Safety Committee
Weds., Jan. 7th, 5:30 pm
Cupcake Jones, 307 NW 10th
Planning & Transportation Comm.
Tues., Dec. 16th & Jan. 6th, 6:00 pm
PREM Group, 351 NW 12th
Communications Committee
Mon., Dec. 15th, 6:00 pm
Cupcake Jones, 307 NW 10th
GENERAL MEMBERSHIP MTG
Tues., Jan. 13th, 7:00 pm
BOARD MEETING
Tues., Jan. 13th, 7:00 pm
Meetings held at:
Sylvan Fire Station
1715 SW Skyline Blvd
Nob Hill
Business Association
info@nwpdxnobhill.com
GENERAL MEETING
Weds., Jan. 21st, 8:30 am
Holiday Inn Express
2333 NW Vaughn
Neighbors West-Northwest
Coalition
www.nwnw.org
Note: NWNW office will be closed Dec.
24th to Jan. 2nd.
Emergency Prep Committee
Mon., Dec. 8th, 6:00 pm
Ecotrust Bldg, 2nd Floor
907 NW Irving
Cornell Road
Sustainability Coalition
www.cornellroad.org
No scheduled meetings
BOARD MEETING
Weds., Dec. 10th, 5:30 pm
LGS Northrup Building, 1st Floor
Conf Rm, 2282 NW Northrup
NW Portland Parks & Recreation
Technical Advisory Committee
Mon., Jan. 12th, 7:30 am
CoHo Theather, 2257 NW Raleigh
Find calendar updates at: www.nwnw.org/Calendar
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NORTHWEST EXAMINER, DECEMBER 2014 /  NWEXAMINER.COM
 Snapshots
31
BUSINESS
Wreaths made at Portland Parks & Recreation classes are on sale at Hoyt Arboretum,
4000 SW Fairview Blvd., and other locations to fund scholarships to PP&R Summer
Nature Day Camp and Children’s Nature Classes.
Portland Pearl Rotary President Tracy Vicario (L-R) with youth exchange student
Fah from Thailand, auctioneer Brian Bice, Lori Beight and exchange youth Bela
from Brazil at “Puttin’ on the Pearl,” which raised $41,000 last month. The annual
event, held this year at Vestas, netted $22,000 after expenses for Rotary projects “to
make our world better.”
Bicyclist Kirke Johnson of Cedar Mill was killed when he was struck by
a FedEx semi truck at the intersection of Northwest Barnes and Cornell
roads last month. (See obituary Page 4.) A fund for bicycle safety has been
established at the Sunset Science Park Credit Union, 1100 NW Murray Rd.
(sspfcu.com).
A banner on Northwest 21st Avenue near Quimby Street marks the Clean Diesel
Initiative adopted by developers Cairn Pacific, Capstone Partners and the
Northwest District Association. The goal is to minimize diesel emissions during
construction through the use of engines meeting the latest federal standards.
Aaron James Barnett, 39, was arrested last
month after Portland Police detectives linked
him to a series of package thefts from porches in
the Northwest District, several in the 2200 block
of Northwest Johnson Street. Detectives believe
he walked the neighborhood looking for recent
shipments left by delivery companies.
The Bowstring Truss House, at Northwest 19th and Overton streets, gained a merit
award from the Portland chapter of American Institute of Architects for its designer,
Carrie Strickland, co-founder of Works Partnership Architecture.
Scuola Italiana offers free Italian language playgroup sessions at Friendly House’s
Pearl extension (formerly Zimmerman Community Center), 1542 NW 14th Ave.,
Fridays 10-11 a.m. Children ages 18-36 months are welcome. RSVP to info@scuola.us.
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NORTHWEST EXAMINER, DECEMBER 2014 /  NWEXAMINER.COM