Cully Association of Neighbors General Meeting Tuesday September 12, 2017 Grace Presbyterian Church, 6025 NE Prescott.
Board Members Present: Laura Young, Rich Gunderson, Jake Antles, Mac McKinlay, Oscar Moreno Gilson, Alma Velazquez and Julie Granger.
Welcome and Introductions: Members were welcomed and board introduced themselves.
Additional Agenda Items: none
Approval of Agenda: Rich Gunderson moved to approve the agenda, second Oscar Moreno Gilson. Motion carried.
Erwin asked that agenda is kept on schedule as he is presenting toward the end of the meeting and wants to be sure that he has his full allotment of time.
Announcements from the floor: Abdul Majidi, director of PCC Workforce Training Center at 42nd and NE Killingsworth, spoke about the programs and services offered there. 94% of users are in poverty or are low income. They provide skill upgrade as many of the users do not have their GED. They provide resume, interview and life skills and motivation workshops as well as ESL. They work closely with businesses in the community. There is a Naturopathic clinic that offers services for low income members of the community. They are seeking input from the community as to how they can partner even more effective to provide services and meet the needs of the community. There will be a vote in the election this November to extend the current bond measure. This would allow for capital construction at the Workforce site as well as elsewhere, upgrade technology in a number of their programs and do some additional maintenance. For questions or to give input you can contact: Rebecca Ocken at rebecca.ocken@pcc.edu or Kate Chester at kate.chester@pcc.edu.
Broadmoor Golf Course: Informational presentation by Don Mazziotti, a former director of PDC, on a new proposal for potential redevelopment of the Broadmoor Golf Course land. This project proposes to rezone the Broadmoor Golf Course land to industrial and rezone small industrial properties in the city core to residential and create affordable housing (primarily multi-family) for households or individuals at 80% of MFI and below. Non-profit or for-profit companies with a demonstrated commitment and experience with affordable house would develop the properties. Currently the 100 acre Broadmoor Golf Course is valued at 1.4 million and is losing money operating as a golf course. The application for the rezoning of Broadmoor has been submitted. The intent is to hold the land in a trust with a covenant to protect the slough – 15 acres as a protected corridor. They are not proposing to build on Broadmoor and when building is done, 8 to 10 years out, it would need to be an eco industrial park. Some questions from the floor included: How would the project be monitored to ensure that affordable housing is actually built, are there any binding commitments such as zoning covenants or overlays, will large enough housing for families be built, will there be a public process.
Facilitated Table Discussion about the Broadmoor proposal: led by Jake Antles who proposed several questions to start the table discussion: As the city is considering rezoning Broadmoor, what are some things they need to consider? Should Portland ever rezone any of its open space? When might it be ok to rezone open space? How would the rezoning proposal affect residents of Cully? Residents of Portland?
Table Sharing: Questions raised: What is the true industrial need? There are many empty industrial parcels near airport. How does this fit the 2035 comprehensive plan? Wasn’t Broadmoor protected years ago when land was up zoned along Columbia? What about infrastructure – sidewalk, streets, transportation consequences? What would the environmental impact be? How would neighborhood benefit? What is the state of the industrial lands around the city that are going to be rezoned residential? Could those sites be developed without the rezoning of Broadmoor? Cully fought to protect Colwood as open space for the neighborhood and we succeeded and got a great deal.
Representatives from Audubon will be asked to present in October. There will be another table discussion at that time.
Long Range Agenda Planning: Board wanted to ask the membership what presentations they would like at the general meetings. Chart given out. People spent time talking about ideas and filling out form to hand in for board to use in planning and implementation. Membership was asked to include their name and contact information if they would be willing to help. Mac collected input.
Perspectives on flights over Cully by Air National Guard: Laura Young, member of the Citizen Noise Advisory Committee, stated that the committee voted in March 2017 to support a 6 month change of fly overs that would reduce noise from 110% to 65%. Flyovers were increased overall by 50% but reduced in Cully 65%. The net effect in Cully was that we had the same number of flyovers. Over the summer there were so many complaints from Cully residents it crashed their complaint system. It is now the end of the 6 month test period and the meeting for the report out is Thursday September 14th from 6 to 8 pm. Public comment period is at the beginning of the meeting.
Erwin Bergman gave a historical review: He has been a member of the Noise Abatement Advisory Committee and then CNAC since the early 1990s. He has worked tirelessly to keep aircraft noise away from residential areas. He alone researched run up noise and from this work Portland Airport had to build the run up enclosure to abate noise. He has written numerous letters and articles about noise issues and researched regulations which identified that Portland Airport had to follow state regulations and that federal preemption did not apply. He worked on the FAA environmental handbook revision. Erwin passed out a 2008 letter he had written to CNAC stating that CAN had voted unanimously in opposition to the overhead approach. The Air National Guard’s (ANG) 2017 expansion request proposes a significant increase in the continuous descent approach (CDA) which increased the noise levels specifically in Cully. In addition the request also increases activity to 7 days a weeks during all day light hours.
Membership asked Laura to report our concerns at the meeting Thursday Sept 14th. They asked for approaches to happen only during the time frame allowed to construction sites. This summer some of these approaches started at dawn which is as early as 5:30 am.
Kathy Fuerstenau moved that CAN opposes the expansion of the National Guard continuous descent approach as outlined in the expansion proposal. Second by Marilee Dea.
Membership wants to see a Monday – Friday, 9 to 5, timeframe. They also felt we should not have flights from other states coming here – not fair for us.
Motion carried. Oscar abstained. Board vote: motion carried. Oscar abstained.
Laura Young will draft a letter to CNAC stating ORANG is not following what they outlined in their proposal.
Acceptance of Board Meeting Minutes Taken August 29, 2017. Oscar Moreno Gilson moved to approve the minutes, second Mac McKinlay. Motion carried.
Acceptance of Board Meeting Minutes Taken June 27, 2017: Alma Velázquez moved to approve the minutes, second by Oscar Moreno Gilson. Motion carried.
Acceptance of General Meeting Minutes taken June 13, 2017: Bob Granger moved to approve, second by Marilee Dea. It was noted that Senator Merkley’s name was misspelled. Motion carried.
Treasurer’s Report: Year to date income: $1620. Year to date expenses: $690. Bank Balance as of 8/31/2017 $30,805.30 Denny Karas moved to accept the treasurer’s report, second by Bob Granger. Motion carried.
Board Reports: copies of letters Board approved at the August 29th meeting were passed out. They have also been posted on the CAN website.
CNN report: Marilee stated that CNN’s small grants applications are due Nov 13. Water Bureau presented at the last meeting and reported about the 500 million dollar filtration system that they have been required to install. Residential rates will go up by $3/bill now and will rise to $45/bill by 2033. at last meeting water bureau was present 500 m into water system for filtration so rates will go up. $3 /bill now; $45 in 2033.
Cully Tree Team: Bruce Nelson announced that there here will be a Cully Tree Walk this Saturday, Sept 15 from 1 – 3 pm starting at Fernhill Park.
Schools: Noelle stated that Rigler needs volunteers and she has applications or one can contact the school. Most teachers retained this year which is very good for the school community.
Fall Newsletter will be published and available soon.
Parks: Rich reported that the August 23rd movie in park was very successful. There was a large diverse audience and he looks forward to having a concert/movie again next year.
Cully Air Action Team: Greg Sotir reported: There are three monitors up and running in Cully managed by PSU and Neighbors for Clean Air. Results should be in by October or November. There is another monitor up by OHA, Oregon Health Authority at Cully Park as well. DEQ will be installing a monitor as well, to test for everything, including VOC’s those acrid smelling chemical like paint thinner. SAPA, an aluminum fabricator and finisher on Cornfoot, has agreed to do smokestack testing at their facility to address hexavalent chromium and VOC releases. DEQ is overseeing this. Owens-Illinois is still releasing ambient, airborne, lead into our air shed. Porter Yett has their new BlueSmoke filter up and running, and it seems to be working. Thanks to Steven Yett for responding to the community and for going beyond what his company needed to do to meet community needs. CAAT is working with DEQ to redesign permits so they are accessible and easily understandable. Portland Clean Air will join CAAT in this redesign. Cleaner Air Oregon, the omnibus statewide legislative package for improving air quality, is in the writing stage. CAAT weighed in on issues with written and verbal comments regarding severely limiting issuing of special loophole permits for polluters (Conditional Use Permits), eliminating a rule allowing an increase in the amount of cancer deaths from industrial polluters, advocating for an area cap of pollutants in Cully, and resisting attempts by corporate lobbyists to water down and sabotage Cleaner Air Oregon. Next January, there may be a need to organize Cully residents and local legislators to prioritize Cleaner Air Oregon for the 2018 Salem legislative session.
Please take time and fill out the TriMet bus survey.
Old Business: None
New Business: None
Next CAN General Member Meeting, October 10, 2017 Next CAN Board Meeting Tuesday, September 26, 2017
Adjournment: Carol Emens moved to adjourn the meeting, second by Erwin Bergman. Motion carried. Meeting adjourned 9:06 pm
Respectfully submitted by Julie Granger