Monday Mailing
Year 26 • Issue 21 03 February 2020 1. Crafting a Disaster Recovery Guide With Planners in Mind 2. Bigleaf Maple Syrup Flows As Profits Drip From Once-Maligned Northwest Tree 3. A 1st-Of-Its-Kind Affordable Housing Community For Native Americans Opens In Portland 4. Clean-Energy Initiatives Pressure Oregon Legislature To Act On Carbon Reduction (Michael Hoch) 5. Oregon Lawmakers Increasingly Legislate By Region. Will The Tactic Bring Urban And Rural Together — Or Deepen The Divide? 6. Sticker Shock: The Grid Is At Capacity For Solar Power In Parts Of Oregon (Michael Hoch) 7. Cyberattack Takes Down County Computers 8. America’s Love Affair With The Single-Family House Is Cooling, But It Won’t Be A Quick Breakup 9. Oregon Lawmakers Take On Phasing Out A Controversial Pesticide, Again (Katie McFall) 10. WEBINAR - American Highways Are Being Removed: What’s Next?
1. Crafting a Disaster Recovery Guide With Planners in Mind
Quote of the Week:
"There is no way to understand the real options involved in the future unless you become involved in creating them.” - Robert Theobald
Oregon Fast Fact #4
Crater Lake is the deepest lake in the United States and is formed in the remains of an ancient volcano.
The threat of worsening disasters from climate change has been unwavering in its influence on today’s planners. The necessity of integrating hazard mitigation has firmly embedded itself in their day-to-day work.
Because of this, planners have become increasingly aware of the importance of adapting the built environment to hazards and, more than ever, are integrating at least one aspect of hazard mitigation in their community plans. However, even the most prepared communities will still have to face the unique, time-sensitive challenges of a post-disaster environment, easily overwhelming planning departments and their staff. In an effort to better support planners facing disaster recovery, APA and the Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center at Texas A&M University partnered for a two-year research project, funded through the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Cooperating Technical Partners program, that will result in a “Disaster Recovery Guide for Planning Practitioners.” To access the full story, click here. 2. Bigleaf Maple Syrup Flows As Profits Drip From Once-
Maligned Northwest Tree
There’s probably more written on how to kill a bigleaf maple tree than how to grow one, according to Neil McLeod of Neil’s Bigleaf Page 1 of 6
Maple Syrup, a farm in the tiny northwestern Washington burg of Acme. “It’s hard to kill,” McLeod said with a wry smile. “A great tree. Perfect weed. It makes good syrup.” In his humid, densely-scented sugar barn puffy steam pours out of an evaporator through several big stacks and into the cold winter air. The damp perfume permeates his T-shirt and clouds his glasses as he leans over the vats, inspecting them for any out-of-control foaming. McLeod has become intensely interested in how to better grow the West Coast’s native bigleaf maple tree — because he’s started tapping them by the hundreds for his boutique syrup business. McLeod started cooking in the woods on his property in 2011 using a 10-gallon pot over a propane ring. Now, he uses a $15,000 commercial evaporator and $10,000 reverse osmosis machine. In his pantry McLeod keeps select bottles of his older vintages. Some are lighter colored, others are dark with the sap’s mineral sediment settled to the bottom. In 2018, the family business made about 140 gallons of syrup. This year, he expects to pour on the sap and produce about 500 to 700 gallons. To make just one gallon of finished syrup, he has to cook down 60 to 100 gallons of tree sap. That’s why Neil’s Bigleaf Maple Syrup is selling its product to restaurants for about $2 an ounce wholesale and why he dreams of big growth. To access the full story, click here.
3. A 1st-Of-Its-Kind Affordable Housing Community For Native Americans Opens In Portland
If you drive down Northeast 42nd Street in Portland’s Cully Neighborhood you may come across a sight that has become very familiar: a shiny new apartment building in a changing neighborhood. But this building is special. It’s a 59-unit affordable housing complex developed to address the disproportionate rate of homelessness among Native Americans in Portland.
“We have a lot of tribal members that live here in Portland, that have lived here for generations and we are able to provide housing for some of them,” Delores Pigsley, chair of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians said during a ribbon-cutting ceremony. The name of the community is Nesika Illahee, which translates to “Our Place” in the Chinook language. The 53,000 square foot building includes a mix of units featuring studio, one, two- and three-bedroom apartments. There are laundry facilities on each floor and spaces for residents to gather and host events. Throughout, walls are adorned with murals and artwork by Native artists.
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Nesika Illahee is the first housing complex to receive the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Indian Housing Block Grant to build housing in an urban environment. Typically the funds are used to build on reservations. To access the full story, click here.
4. Clean-Energy Initiatives Pressure Oregon Legislature To Act On Carbon Reduction
When Oregon lawmakers acted in 2016 to gradually increase minimum wage across the state, they did so with the threat of a significant initiative petition drive gathering signatures with an eye toward the November ballot.
Passing their compromise bill — which more slowly raised the minimum wage in a geographically designated manner — undercut support for the $15 minimum wage ballot measure and led to its withdrawal. "That would have been a cudgel when we needed a scalpel," said Senate Democratic Leader Ginny Burdick, D-Portland. The measure signed into law wasn't the minimum-wage petitioners' preference, but supporters acknowledged it was a significant step. This year, Oregon lawmakers are preparing to consider a controversial greenhouse gas emissions cap-and-trade bill while clean-energy advocates propel two initiatives toward the November ballot. These initiatives would require Oregon to produce all of its electricity through renewable and carbon-free sources by Jan. 1, 2045, up from about half today. One initiative would additionally require utilities to more aggressively invest in electrification programs that reduce greenhouse gas emissions over time. To access the full story, click here.
5. Oregon Lawmakers Increasingly Legislate By Region. Will The Tactic Bring Urban And Rural Together — Or Deepen The Divide? Population growth and changing politics in the Portland metro area have given Oregon Democrats a nearly complete hold on political power, from the governor’s office to supermajorities in both chambers of the Legislature.
Still, that made little difference last year when Republicans, who largely hail from rural districts and haven’t controlled the Legislature outright since 2002, twice brought Senate business to a standstill by walking out of that chamber to kill gun control, vaccine and climate change bills. Now, Democrats and their environmentalist allies are poised to revive the greenhouse gas capand-trade bill in the 35-day session that begins in a week. And in a bid to appease rural opposition, they are proposing a cap-and-trade bill that would phase in carbon fees on gas and diesel on a geographic basis, giving Republican-dominated rural areas a multi-year or even permanent reprieve. Page 3 of 6
It’s the latest example of Oregon legislators customizing state law for different regions of the state, either to satisfy key opponents of a top-priority bill or to respond to the circumstances and views of rural Oregonians. To access the full story, click here.
6. Sticker Shock: The Grid Is At Capacity For Solar Power In Parts Of Oregon
Scott Zollinger was well on his way to building a new barn on his property in Marion County and putting enough solar panels on top of it to offset the cost of electricity for his family’s home.
The design plans were drafted. The first payment was made on the solar panels. Zollinger had even applied and been approved for about $30,000 in state and federal tax credits on the $59,000 solar project. Then he got a report from his utility, Portland General Electric, on the impact his project would have on the electric grid. The report was filled with technical terms, but it ultimately concluded that he couldn’t connect his 24.8 kilowatts of solar power to PGE’s system until significant upgrades had been made to the grid. The report included a bill for the estimated cost of the upgrades: $539,038. “My first reaction was: I’m not sure how this is my problem,” Zollinger said. “How is this our problem? … We can’t just pay $500,000.” To access the full story, click here.
7. Cyberattack Takes Down County Computers
County officials contracted a forensic computer firm, Arete Incident Response, to help after a malware attack infected Tillamook County government’s computers. Systems used by 250 county employees were expected to be down for 24-72 hours, possibly longer.
After meeting in a closed-door session Wednesday, Jan. 22, county officials confirmed a cyberattack took place. The county’s server and internal computer systems were down, and phone systems and email networks were affected. The Tillamook County website, which hosts numerous departments, was also down. County computer network connections were disabled to contain the spread of malware. Tillamook County Commissioner Mary Faith Bell said Wednesday the attack was apparently ransomware in nature, though no demands had been issued yet. The attack was first suspected to be a storage system technical issue, but it was quickly realized that something sinister was in play. Bell said it was not clear if the malware was still spreading internally, but everything with connectivity was shut down. “We hope that we contained it, and that it’s not spreading outside our system, but it’s possible that it’s still moving around inside our system,” Bell said. Page 4 of 6
Bell added that cyberattacks are essentially an industry now, a growing concern for governments and companies as well as private citizens. She emphasized that there was no indication that any data was compromised in the attack. To access the full story, click here.
8. America’s Love Affair With The Single-Family House Is Cooling, But It Won’t Be A Quick Breakup
For decades land use regulation across the U.S. has emphasized single-family houses on large lots. This approach has priced many people out of the quintessential American dream: homeownership. It also has promoted suburban sprawl – a pattern of low-density, cardependent development that has dominated growth at the edges of urban areas since the end of World War II.
Now, however, Americans may be starting to question the desirability of a private house. In the past year, the Minneapolis City Council and the state of Oregon have voted to allow duplexes and other types of multi-unit housing in neighborhoods where currently only single-family homes currently are allowed. Democratic lawmakers in Virginia, who recently won control of their state’s legislature, are seeking to enact similar legislation. And several Democratic presidential candidates have included changes to zoning laws in their housing policies. Headlines have predicted a housing revolution. But based on our research, we believe that while attitudes about suburban life may be evolving, the transition away from single-family zoning will be slow and difficult. To access the full story, click here.
9. Oregon Lawmakers Take On Phasing Out A Controversial Pesticide, Again
The Oregon Legislature plans to take another run at phasing out the use of a controversial pesticide called chlorpyrifos after falling short last year. News of the recently-filed bill circulated during Thursday’s Chlorpyrifos Work Group meeting, an Oregon Department of Agriculture advisory committee charged with looking into the possibility of limiting the pesticide’s use. Chlorpyrifos is a pesticide mainly used on Christmas trees, leafy greens and alfalfa. Its use has been linked to harmful effects on the human body. “It’s no secret that we’ve been working on this issue for a very long time,” Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste’s Martha Sonato said. “At the national level, we were part of the lawsuit with our partners, Earthjustice, regarding EPA’s decision to not take action on chlorpyrifos.”
The proposed bill – House Bill 4109 – focuses on four main prongs to successfully phase out chlorpyrifos in the next two years. First, it would prohibit aerial use of any product containing chlorpyrifos and prohibit applying the pesticide within 300 feet of a school. To access the full story, click here. Page 5 of 6
10. WEBINAR - American Highways Are Being Removed: What’s Next? (Tuesday, February 4th 10 AM PST)
Since 1987, more than 20 urban highway segments have been removed from downtowns, neighborhoods and waterfronts, mostly in North America. The pace of removals has picked up significantly since 2008, the year the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) launched its Highways to Boulevards program, and an additional 10 highways are now planned for removal in the U.S. Join the Maryland Department of Planning, Smart Growth Network and CNU at 1 p.m. Tuesday, February 4, for the second part in a series on urban highway removal. This session will examine what happens after a community agrees that a highway will be removed, focusing on Rochester, New York, which is planning new affordable housing, services, retail and transportation options in the wake of removing the Inner Loop. Panelists include Erik Frisch, Manager of Special Projects, and Anne DaSilva Tella, Assistant Commissioner of the Department of Neighborhood & Business Development for the City of Rochester, NY; and Benjamin Crowther, Congress for the New Urbanism. To register for the webinar, click here.
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