Hope Meadows - The Distant Illinois Parent 10/21/06

From: ellmyer@macsolve.com
Subject: Portland Hope Meadows
Date: October 21, 2006 11:10:31 PM PDT
To: contact@generationsofhope.org, b-eheart@uiuc.edu
Cc: tfliao@uiuc.edu, ccomer@uic.edu, tford@uic.edu, sjones@uic.edu, rrich@law.uiuc.edu, PresidentWhite@uillinois.edu

Dear Brenda Krause-Eheart:
On Wednesday October 25 Portland city commissioner Dan Saltzman will try to shut off debate on the disposition and development of public property located at the John Ball school site before any competing proposals are allowed and before any serious analysis of the merits of his proposal are considered by the neighborhoods involved, the Portland Planning Commission, the press and the general public. 

Congress has a 16% approval rating partly because political tactics supersede the democratic process which involves well documented public debate on issues before a vote is cast. Saltzman has chosen to follow the congressional model by trying to jam through the Portland Hope Meadows program before there are competing plans and without a full public discussion with all the data and arguments laid out on the public table. If all of you do not act to STOP this reprehensible behavior, Brenda Krause-Eheart, Generations For Hope and the University of Illinois will be brought into the national spotlight.

Not only is commissioner Saltzman trying to subvert the democratic process but he is proposing this project in a neighborhood that has the second highest concentration of public housing clients within Multnomah county's 117 neighborhoods. 

For many months my partners, Reworks Inc. and I, in a private development plan for the John Ball school site called the Portsmouth Green Homes Community Project, have committed to building a state of the art green, owner occupied in perpetuity, residential community with a public library. We privately proposed this project to every member of the Portland city council many weeks ago and then made a public announcement on October 3, 2006. This market rate private housing will strive for architectural innovation and excellence which could and should become a destination showcase useful for the Portland Development Commission's marketing efforts to brand Portland and Oregon as a world class center of environmentally conscious homeowners, citizens and governments.

We are more than willing to compete fairly with any other public or private development proposal. But we can't do that if neither our proposal nor anyone else's gets a chance to be heard.

I do not speak to the merits or demerits of your program. My argument is against your now knowledgable complicit involvement with political trickery and anti-democratic methods to achieve your ends. My argument is against your now knowledgable complicit involvement in OVERLOADING the Portsmouth neighborhood, my neighborhood, with more public housing, rental housing and an additional strain on social services and schools in a neighborhood that has already reached its limits.

For more than thirty years I have been a political activist. For more than 5 1/2 years I have written to a readership of more than 13,000 voters who are interested in my thoughts on public housing policy in Multnomah county. I have proposed legislation, 3-6-9 Resolution, to quantify public housing policy in Multnomah county. The ideas and goals of my plan were included in the Analysis of Impediments To Fair Housing Report which was sent to HUD and adopted by the city of Portland's Housing and Community Development Commission. 

I strongly urge you to contact Portland city commissioner Dan Saltzman ( 503 823-4151 dsaltzman@ci.portland.or.us ) and Portland mayor Tom Potter ( 503-823-4120 tpotter@ci.portland.or.us ) IMMEDIATELY and tell them that Brenda Krause Eheart, Generations of Hope and all institutes, departments and faculty of the University of Illinois oppose the political process advanced by commissioner Saltzmen to unfairly preclude public discussion and debate about the disposition and development of the John Ball school site property in order to secure the land for Generations of Hope and its offshoot, Portland Hope Meadows. In addition, Brenda Krause Eheart, Generations of Hope and all institutes, departments and faculty of the University of Illinois will oppose placing Portland Hope Meadows in the Portsmouth neighborhood.

Thank you.


Richard Ellmyer
3-6-9 Resolution author and project champion
Writer/Publisher - HAP Watcher commentary - Published on the Internet and distributed to 13,000 readers interested in public housing policy in Multnomah County.
http://www.goodgrowthnw.org
President, MacSolutions Inc. - A Macintosh computer consulting business providing web hosting for artists and very small businesses. Located in Portsmouth, the neighborhood with the second highest concentration of public housing clients, 17% and rising, within HAP's Multnomah county jurisdiction of 117 neighborhoods.

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