Sign of the Times

Another national story about Portland’s problems appears—on Page 1 of The New York Times.

BY SOPHIE PEEL speel@wweek.com

Over the past decade, tree-filled plazas and modern apartment buildings have risen in the once-industrial Slabtown neighborhood of Northwest Portland, the result of a blueprint crafted by developers and the city aimed at transforming 18 acres into housing, greenspace and shops.

That development plan is in its last stages as one more massive apartment building goes up along Northwest 21st Avenue, with the daily scene featuring cranes, workers in hardhats and the throaty sounds of construction machinery.

But as the final units go up, a city park promised to the Slabtown neighborhood by developers appears to be in jeopardy.

WHAT WAS THE PROMISE?

Con-way Freight, the company that owned much of the Slabtown neighborhood, agreed to a large-scale development plan with the city in 2012. It would sell off parcels of the company’s land to developers in piecemeal fashion.

One of those parcels, purchased by Guardian Real Estate Services in 2015, would be called Slabtown Square. It would feature 200 apartments, commercial ground floor space, and a massive public plaza. (Slabtown Square suffered delays due to a series of objections by the Northwest District Association to the design of the building and its central plaza. It’s set to open in 2024.)

Another critical piece of the approved de-

One Will Be Provided For You

That’s unclear. But a few things could complicate the transfer.

First, the city never signed a legally binding agreement with Guardian Real Estate Services (or the block’s former owner, Con-way parent company XPO) for the handoff. And the Con-way Master Plan, which regulates the sweeping development, expires at the beginning of 2024.

Moreover, it’s unclear who has the authority to transfer the land to the city: Guardian or XPO. It’s also unclear what the asking price will be for the land—if there’s an asking price at all.

And then there’s the issue of who is responsible for environmental cleanup of the site before it’s transferred. The parks bureau says the city has been trying to get the land transferred since 2016, and one sticking point is “unresolved issues about which party is responsible for the environmental cleanup” of the block. (The 1-acre block is currently a construction staging area lined by gravel and filled with porta-potties, trucks, tractors and sheet metal.)

Now, the city’s Bureau of Development Service says, “Nothing in the Master Plan requires that the site become a city-owned and operated park.”

“The Master Plan contemplates that it may be conveyed to Portland Parks & Recreation,” bureau spokesman Ken Ray says, “but it does not require the parks bureau to take responsibility.”

The city is “actively working to obtain the property,” Ray adds, but if the handover isn’t completed by January 2024, “the city will

Trending

Oregon lawmakers boost spending on public defenders by more than $100 million.

As lawmakers passed a flurry of spending bills last month, they earmarked an additional $100 million for the Office of Public Defense Services, which funds legal services for defendants across Oregon who cannot afford attorneys.

That system has been in crisis in recent years as overworked public defenders have refused to take on additional cases, citing their rising caseloads. As a result, criminal defendants are now languishing in jail without a lawyer, a constitutional violation. (As of Aug. 1, there were 36 people awaiting a lawyer in Multnomah County jails and more than 250 statewide. Thousands more are out of jail but without a lawyer as they await trial.)

Fixing that problem won’t come cheap, explains Sen. Floyd Prozanski (D-Eugene). Much of the money is earmarked for programs lawmakers hope will attract new attorneys, like retention bonuses and increased hourly fees. But the upshot: “We’re going to have a system that is actually fair.”

Along with the additional money, legislators made sweeping changes to how the state will manage its public defenders going forward.

The office is moving to the

WHAT DOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD SAY?

The Northwest District Association has strong feelings about the possible loss of a promised park.

Emails between a board member of the NWDA and city staffers over the past three years, obtained by WW, offer a look into the confusion surrounding the transfer of the park—but little clarity as to what the holdup actually is.

City staff and NWDA board member Steve Pinger went back and forth about the intricacies of the handshake deal. Documents show Pinger worried that the Master Plan’s expiration in 2024 would mean that the zoning— which stipulated the area could be developed only as a park—would revert, meaning there would be no such obligation.

In early July of this year, the parks bureau told Pinger that the ongoing negotiations among Guardian, XPO and the city were confidential. That’s left the neighborhood in the dark.

The association’s same concerns persist today.

“That the promise of Slabtown Park may now evaporate is an outrage,” says current NWDA president Todd Zarnitz.

“The city says they want the park. Guardian says they want the park. However, there is no park, and there is a very real danger that there will not be a park,” Zarnitz adds. “The negotiations between the city and Guardian are confidential, so we do not know what went wrong nor what continues to go wrong.”

Last month, WW examined 10 stories by national news outlets that parachuted into Portland for some disaster tourism. This week, The New York Times added to the clip pile with a frontpage feature. (On Aug. 1, the Times followed this story with another: a photo essay of downtown Portland fentanyl use and overdoses.) Here’s a synopsis:

“Fighting for Anthony: The Struggle to Save Portland, Oregon”

The New York Times, July 29, 2023

HOW DOES IT INTRODUCE PORTLAND?

“Come to Portland, his sister said. It’s green and beautiful, people are friendly and there are plenty of jobs.” Those are the opening lines of the Times’ 3,400-word consideration of Portland’s twinned housing and drug crises. Such a kickoff foreshadows an unhappy ending. Indeed, the man who moves to Portland, Anthony Saldana, is soon lost in opioid and meth addiction, and living in a tent under a tree.

WHO WAS INTERVIEWED?

Saldana’s sister, Kaythryn Richardson, and a good Samaritan neighbor, Jakob Hollenbeck, form one narrative, following Saldana’s downward spiral. Reporter Michael Corkery also traces Portland’s larger decline by interviewing Josh Alpert, onetime chief of staff to former Mayor Charlie Hales; Portland Police Sgt. Jerry Cioeta, who decries Measure 110; and Society Hotel co-owner Jesse Burke, who gives the Times her trademark quote about how Portland needs fewer carrots and more sticks.

MOST MEMORABLE QUOTE:

“[Portland] is definitely not what I expected,” says Irida Wren, a transgender Tennessean who moved to Portland seeking homeless services but was stabbed six times in the torso and hands when a man attacked her tent. She and her partner are going back to Memphis.

MOST PERCEPTIVE OBSERVATION:

SOURCE: OFFICE OF PUBLIC DEFENSE SERVICES executive branch and out of the purview of the state’s chief justice, who unilaterally dissolved its governing board last year after a dispute with its former director. And it will begin hiring its own trial lawyers, rather than relying solely on contractors, as it moves toward eliminating the “consortia” subcontractor model favored by private attorneys.

The goal, Prozanski says, is to hold providers accountable while shielding the board from partisan politics.

“I am cautiously optimistic,” says Rep. Paul Evans (D-Monmouth), who, along with Prozanski, serves as co-chair of a workgroup dedicated to addressing the crisis. “We didn’t get into this situation overnight—and it’s not going to be fixed overnight.”

LUCAS MANFIELD.

While it offers no decisive evidence in the eternal debate over whether Portland’s unhoused are locals or newcomers, the story astutely perceives that the city’s allure to young people, some of them troubled, is a recipe for homelessness when combined with high housing costs.

WHAT’S THE DIAGNOSIS?

Portland has more fentanyl than apartments. Those cheap and potent opioids make every problem worse.

WHAT’S THE SOLUTION?

The Times gives more ink to mutual aid efforts than stories of this kind usually do, but doesn’t leave the reader with much optimism that a fix is imminent. AARON MESH.