Last week in this space I mentioned the controversy in a Southeast Portland neighborhood over a homeless dining service operated by a local Catholic parish. The neighbors have once again become fed up with the crime that lingers at the church-owned park next door to the dining hall long after the food service workers have cleaned up the plates and gone home. So bad has the atmosphere become that the city has declared the soup kitchen a chronic nuisance property under an ordinance designed to make it easier for the police to shut down crack houses.
I noted that the pastor of a nearby church had written some thoughtful comments in his own parish bulletin about the dispute. He noted that the real problem was the lack of an adequate government response to homelessness, although I mused that he had no real answer for the neighbors' legitimate concerns.
Tonight I heard him speak on the subject, and I must say his words were stunning. Of course, he reminded us all, consistent with the gospel of the day, that the commandment to love one's neighbors is not limited to those neighbors who are easy to love. What sort of commandment would that be?
But then came a remarkable addendum. He acknowledged that the City of Portland was pushing high-impact social problems and social services into Southeast Portland. No homeless dining operation, he said, is going to open in the West Hills or elsewhere on the west side, nor even in Northeast Portland, where the city is building its precious Convention Center expansion and looking to lure tourist dollars (see below). In addition to feeding the poor, the pastor said, the commandment to love one's neighbor should lead residents of Southeast Portland to point out the injustice in the districting of social problems and biased siting of social services by the city.
This was only part of a talk whose overall message was clearly to tolerate. But the true, true words and call to action were there.
Best homily I've heard in decades.
The Portland Tribune has some great stuff in it today about that slight odor arising from the North Macadam development project in Southwest Portland. They're finally asking the right questions about the ridiculous aerial tram feature that's supposedly the key to the plans. Who will pay to build the tram? Of course, readers of this weblog have already been pondering this question for more than three months, after it was asked here on July 8.
Hey, Trib reporter Todd Murphy, nice going. But don't forget the follow-up question: Who will pay to operate the tram? There isn't a mass transit project in the country that turns a profit. So who will bear the loss on this one? Not OHSU or Homer Williams, that's for sure.
Another interesting tidbit in the Trib was apparent evidence that our mayor regarded the tram as a foregone conclusion more than a year and a half before she voted for it.
City Commissioner and electric-exec-wannabe Erik Sten provided an interesting attempt to change the subject:
City Commissioner Erik Sten suggested the focus on responsibility for paying for the tram may miss a more important point: how the city, OHSU and North Macadam landowners and developers divide the estimated $70 million in infrastructure costs.Do we need any more reason to vote for outsider Randy Leonard for City Council?“I think for the public to get a square deal on this thing, you have to analyze how much does the public put in the entire infrastructure down there,” Sten said. “If we pay more for the tram, we should pay less for other things.”
The Saturday papers: Back in my days as a daily newspaper reporter, the old-timers around the newsroom always said that nobody reads the paper on Saturday. Well, I always do. The paper's skinnier, and so you can polish the whole thing off over lunch.
Today's offerings are particularly good. From The Oregonian comes a nice piece on yesterday's City Club debate between City Council candidates Serena Cruz and Randy Leonard. I voted for Cruz in the primary, but after reading this article, it's becoming clear to me that Leonard is the real agent of change, whereas Cruz is more of the same. Readers of this 'blog know that I agree with Leonard that the City Council has become dysfunctional, and so it looks like he will get my vote in a few weeks. Cranky middle-aged white guys, unite!
On to the national and world scenes in the Saturday New York Times (painless registration required to read online): Two law professors take some well-aimed shots at the medieval public access rules at the United States Supreme Court. A local critic raises some pointed questions about some of the more pie-in-the-sky plans for downtown Manhattan. And Bill Keller, who's been there, explains why the Russian people are rolling their eyes at George W., and at us, his constituents. "Why do they hate us so much?" Read this.
Yep, Saturday's a great day to read the papers.