SW Trails PDX
Monthly General Membership Meeting Minutes
March 27, 2014
The Watershed Building in Hillsdale
6388 SW Capitol Hwy
Portland OR 97239
DRAFT
Attendance: Don Baack, Barbara Bowers, Sharon Fekety, Lee Buhler, Chris Mays, Dianne Mays, Dave Manville, Vicki Satterfield, Hans Stauch, Michael Harrison, Doug Rogers, Glenn Bridger, Julie Rall, Marypat Hensel
The meeting was called to order at 7:01 pm
Don said Commissioner Amanda Fritz said Parks will allocate $550,000 to trails in SW Portland including the Red Electric Trail. He said that amount could grow to $1,000,000 in future years. There was a big round of applause.
After introductions the agenda was approved.
The February Minutes were approved.
Don introduced Vivian Satterfield. He said she has done a lot of volunteer work with OPAL (Organizing People Activating Leaders). He said they work on on issues important to SW Trails.
Vivian talked about OPAL an environmental justice organization. Vivian said environmental justice is a law signed by Bill Clinton to make sure that humans are responsible to the environment. They focus on transit justice, housing and air toxics.
Vivian talked about the transit justice program. She said it is legal to discriminate based on a persons means of transportation. The call it the bus rider’s unit. They want to improve bus stops in east Portland, find a way for all high schools students to get subsidized bus passes and help people more time to travel on a bus ticket. She said the fare hikes in the last few years have cut into service and longer bus transfer times would help. She said TriMet has not always had good public outreach. They did not always allow public testimony at TriMet board meetings.
She said they have been fighting to stop fare hikes. She said they have been carefully looking at the TriMet budget. She said it is important to involve the people that would be impacted by TriMet decisions. She said they are slowly restoring some service that was cut. She said we are fortunate to have a lot of public input in Portland.
Glenn said in the 70s and 80s they realized that negative things were being sited in lower income and minority communities. He said public input was designed for upper income people.
Vivian said TriMet meetings are at 9:00am on Wednesday when many working people can not make it.
Vivian said people are very willing to talk about their experience on buses. Doug asked what percentage of budget comes from fares and Vivian said about 25%.
Dave asked if they have benchmarked TriMet against other cities. Vivian said TriMet has not been good at keeping up with plans they made. She said a lot of development went to light rail at the expense of additional buses. She said there is a class implication of rail over buses.
Marypat asked if they are doing programs for middle school students to help them to be comfortable with riding the bus. Vivian said the Safe Routes to School program does not include bus transit and subsidized bus passes are only for high schools students. She said they are working to change that. Marypat said some students need to travel across town and school buses are not available to them.
Don said there is a large Somali community in southwest and it would be good to involve them.
Don asked how SW Trails could work with OPAL. Vivian handed out information and a sign-up sheet. She talked about the activities are involved with.
Vivian said they filed a title 6 complaint to increase transfer times. She said the board will not take a vote on it. She said the TriMet board is appointed by the governor and they represent districts. It is a volunteer board. Vivian said extending travel times would cost $2 million or .2 percent of the budget in the first year only.
Don said PBOT scheduled a meeting at the same time as the Trails meeting in April. Dave made a motion to move our meeting to April 22.
Lee talked about the South Portland Health and Safety Fair. Katurah made a motion to have SW Trails participate in the fair and have a table. Barbara seconded the motion and the motion passed unanimously.
Don talked about the Safe Route to School project on SW 25th at Bertha. He said this serves the students that live at Stephens Creek among many others. Don asked if we are agreeable to push for this project. Glenn said it is important to get this on the radar screen and push for it again and again. Marypat suggested photographs of the area. Roger said it was important to get the principal of Robert Gray involved.
Walks: Sharon said Lee will lead a walk on April 12th through Tryon Creek State Park. Sharon said Virginia will lead in May. She said Friends of Terwilliger asked us to lead a hike and it was postponed. We will lead the hike at some point. They are waiting for slope stabilization.
Treasurer’s Report: Chris said the balance in the SW Trails account is $15,808.24. Don said Trudi said it was OK to use $1000 of the Stephen’s Creek money to the general fund.
Membership: Barbara said there are two new members and two new donations from the Crestwood neighborhood.
Don called to order the resumption of the annual SW Trails PDX meeting to consider the budget. Chris handed out the draft SW Trails Operating Budget for 2014. It detailed income and expenditures. Glenn went over each item. Glenn said it was important to keep working to get donations. Don pointed out that we could remove $1,000 from the SW Trails budget as that would come from the Stephen’c Creek fund. Dave said there is not a category for trail maintenance. Don suggested $500 for trail maintenance and increase the same amount taken from the SW Trail fund. Dave asked if it was important to trademark the 4T Logo and it was agreed that is was. Marypat pointed out that the City website does not have good information on the 4T.
Glenn moved approval of the budget as amended and Lee seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously.
Barbara made a motion to amend the bylaws as follows:
Item 2.4.1 members hip dues shall be a set amount
Marypat seconded the motion and the motion passed unanimously.
Don said all contributions for items in the budget must go to the SW Trails account and then a separate check for reimbursement will be written. Chris said it is hard to keep track of transactions that do not go through the SW Trails account. He said it was important to be as transparent as possible.
We decided to publish the 990 tax reform
The annual meeting was adjourned.
Doug talked about traffic diversion of Oleson Road. He said Washington County is building a new bridge and they will have to close Oleson Road. He said they are concerned that many people are worried about increased traffic on Shadduck Road where there are no sidewalks. He said PBOT cannot do anything about it as it is a Washington County Road. He said they are trying to to get traffic diverted to Scholls. He said it is important to recognize that this will be a problem. Marypat asked if Hayhurst NA is communication with Washington County and Doug said they are and trying to get them to talk to PBOT. Dianne said it will start in June. Glenn said we should put out a notice to our membership warning people about walking on Shaduck and suggest it be avoided for the nine months.
Doug talked about the Red Electric Trail. He said we have a right-of-way which is ready for a trail. It is in the middle of the route. Doug will contact Alpenrose to talk about acquiring a right-of-way through their property. Doug said it was important to get segments done so people can understand the importance of the trail.
Julie talked about the Coronado Trail. She said people have been walking the trail and it is working. Doug said there was a fence on the right-of-way. Don said we wrote a letter asking that the fence be removed. Hans said there was a letter about it that came today. Hans said the permit for the fence was denied but the fence has not been removed. Dave suggested talking to Friends of Tryon creek and Julie said they are reluctant. Julie said if there are enough people walking on the trail the neighbors will see it is no trouble.
Don said the SW Trails build out list is on the web.
Don said we have 1130 people on the email list. Barbara asked if we clean up the email list. Dianne said it automatically cleans the list of rejects. Barbara said she would send out a membership appeal to the list. Glenn said we should attach the membership form.
Don said PBOT issued the RFP for the Red Electric bridge. They hope to get the contractor by the end of April for the bridge design. It could be a $2 million project. Don said there will be a trail on 21st. It will give people access up the hill.
Don said BES is looking for extra money to build a bridge on SW Boones Ferry rather than a culvert. They may look at used bridges in Portland. Don said there should be lighting. He said they made several suggestions to reduce the cost of the bridge. Marypat asked about timing and Don said it should be in 2015.
Don said there is not money for a crossing of Natio at Whitaker.
We will participate at the Wilson clean-up again.
We will schedule work parties in May or June in Himes Park.
Don said he has been talking to BES about the pedestrian right-of-way at SW Texas from 25th to 26th.
Don said PBOT is working on diverting water on SW Tunnelwood.
Glenn said he went to the ODOT open house on the reconstruction of the Barbur bridges. They said they can compress the construction period to four months. They will narrow traffic to one lane each way. He said it is important to look if traffic goes elsewhere to avoid the area. He said it is a good test of what would happen with a road diet. He suggested using biking and walking on Terwilliger. He said the project will start in April or May. He said there should not be problems during non-rush hour times.
Virginia said she rode on the Barbur bridges and activated the flashing lights.
Dave said Woods Park Advocates has dropped their efforts to stop the development at the Freeman Water Tower property. He said that Bob Stacey said they may be able to get a path through the development. He pointed out that SW Trail 7 goes on 42nd and it is important not to mess it up in the development plans.
Don said he would like to see the ivy cleaned out between Barbur and I-5 and he is talking to people about ways to do that.
Don said Commissioner Amanda Fritz, Parks Director Mike Abbate and Metro Councilor Bob Stacy came to the Raz-Baack crossing opening.
Don said there is a suggestion to change the name of Custer Park to Raz Park.
Marypat said Tryon Creek State park is looking at a new parking lot and we may consider putting it on the agenda at a future SW Trails meeting.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:0pm
Lee Buhler
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