John Fronhmayer, candidate for US Senate, has lead the way by being the first candidate for public office or holder of a public office in Oregon to publicly support the Oregon National Guard's need to own and occupy the decommissioned Sharff Army Reserve Center. Here is Frohnmayer's letter to our governor:

October 12, 2007
 
Governor Ted Kulongoski
160 State Capitol
900 Court Street
Salem, Oregon 97301-4047
 
Re:  Sharff Army Reserve Center
 
Dear Governor Kulongoski: 
 
 I write to urge you as Commander in Chief of the Oregon National Guard, to take all steps necessary to expedite transfer of the Sharff Army Reserve Center in North Portland to the Oregon National Guard. To review facts probably already before you:
 
 1.  The Army is vacating this facility.
 
 2.  It consists of two buildings - a maintenance shop named in honor of Brandon S. Tobler, an Oregonian killed in Iraq in 2003, and a classroom building with state of the art military grade secure communications and weapons storage, a huge kitchen and rifle range, all fresh from a six million dollar renovation and spotlessly clean.
 
 3.  The Oregon National Guard has been called into service in Iraq and Afghanistan (as well as the Gulf Coast) and has served selflessly and courageously. They need adequate training facilities; many they currently use are substandard.
 
 4.  Your military policy advisor, Paul Evans, is on the record as "working with the Oregon Military Department to sustain the Sharff Center and reduce future costs for the Oregon National Guard and its training” and that he "will be recommending to the governor that the Sharff Army Reserve Center continue as a military facility."
 
 5.  The community supports transfer to the Oregon National Guard. If such a transfer were completed, the facility would be available for community use.
 
 6.  The Federal government gave $285,000 to study this issue - an apparent waste since transfer from one military entity to another, particularly when it has just received a six million dollar renovation, certainly makes sense.
 
 7.  The decision maker for the Army I am told, is David M. Reed, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army.
 
 This process has dragged on for many months. Since there seems to be no reason for delay, I urge prompt action on your part to secure this training facility for our National Guard troops.
 
     Sincerely,
 
     John Frohnmayer
 

On October 9th John Frohnmayer (Viet Nam veteran and former chairman of the National Endowment For The Arts) came to North Portland to talk with community leaders about how the issue of equitable distribution of public housing related to the Oregon National Guard's interest in owning and occupying the decommissioned Sharff Army Reserve Center which is located in the Portsmouth neighborhood. It did not take very long for Frohnmayer to understand the situation and come forward with unequivocal support for both a public policy of equitable distribution of public housing and the Oregon National Guard's unassailable arguments in favor of occupancy of the Sharff Army Reserve Center.

We hope that all the other candidates for US Senate as well as all the members of Oregon's congressional delegation, the Portland city council and every Oregonian will now step forward and publicly support the moral and political rightness of a public policy of equitable distribution of public housing and the men and women of the Oregon National Guard who have been put in harms way and deserve the best that we can give them here at home. 


Richard Ellmyer
Community activist leading the campaign to stop all potentially new public housing (means test + government subsidy + rental agreement) in the Portsmouth neighborhood, especially the following:
1. Hacienda CDC public housing project on N. Newell Street
2. The recently decommissioned Sharff Army Reserve Center
3. The former John Ball School site
4. The recently closed Clarendon School site
Standards for Equitable Distribution of Public Housing Resolution author and project champion
Writer/Publisher - HAP Watchers commentary - Published on the Internet (http://www.goodgrowthnw.org) and distributed to thousands of readers interested in public housing policy in Multnomah County. To Subscribe: HAP-Watchers-on@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, 30% and rising, within HAP's Multnomah county jurisdiction of 117 neighborhoods.