Moving Forward

April 10, 2010 meeting minutes
City Repair meeting report

• Plant order: not too late to order plants for the Community Board but must email Sebastian our list ASAP. Honeysuckle, grape & kiwi are available.
• PBOT meetings – mandatory attendance: April 19th 2:30 – 3:30 (Sally to attend) and May 3rd
• Newsletter article due April 16th (Eric to write)
• VBC write up due April 16th: 3 JPEGS (Compass, Kiosk and Street plan) (Eric to write)
• Possibility to work with a videographer for work day – need more information
• Paint sample: Need volunteers to go to Miller Paint to select colors

Up coming meetings (need volunteers):

• Roseway Neighborhood Association: Tuesday, April 13th, 7:00 – 8:30 PM, Grace Lutheran Church, 7610 NE Fremont, (Sally, Eric, Sean, Genevieve, ???)
• Roseway Heights PTA: Wednesday, April 14th, Roseway Heights School Library (2nd floor, use west entrance), 6:30 PM (Sally, Eric, Laura, ??) Sally to make a “Paint by Number” template of the compass and bring it to the PTA for show & tell
• City Repair, Thursday, April 15th (????)

Street closure – determine process for two dates (Eric) what happens if it rains on a work day?
Materials Lists (See attached) Group to review, amend and approve list by next meeting (April 17th)

Materials lists: add to, amend and sign up

Week 1: May 8th
Week 2: May 22nd
(Don’t forget neighborhood clean-up May 15th)

Materials List: Compass – Weeks 1 and 2

Item    Quantity needed    Who has it
Paint brushes    8 or more    Eric (3 or 4); Jeffrey (couple)
Paint rollers    8 or more (3” and 10”)    Eric (1 large and  1 small)
Sidewalk chalk        1 box    Sally
Tarp (large for paint clean up)    1  _______
Tape measures    1 @ 100 ft and a lesser one   Eric (100 ft)
String (100 ft)    1   _______
Chalk line (long)    2    Jeffrey, Eric
Paint (8 colors)    1 gal. each  ________
Clean up buckets    8  ________
Scale drawing        __________
Water and brooms to clean street    Several    Week 1; (Eric has 1 wide broom)
We will “Paint by numbers”; assign volunteers painting sequence; and ask volunteers to bring brushes

Materials List: Community Board –Week # 2

Item    Quantity needed    Who has it
Windows    2     ________
Tree limbs    2    Jeffrey
Plywood    one 4 x 8 sheet     ________
Cedar 1x2 boards for roof cap    16 feet     ________
Metal posts and brackets for tree trunks    2     ________
Linseed oil or natural wood sealer     ________
Cement    1 bag     ________
¼ minus gravel    ?     ________
Corks and glue          Genevieve
Lg. metal cans (coffee size)    16 – 20 sq. ft.     ________
Rubber Mallets    3    Jeffrey (1), Eric (1)   
Roofing nails        ___________
Nails, pegs and more to tie structure together      ________
Where to build structure?

Materials List: Gutter cleaning – Week # 1

Item    Quantity needed   Who has it
Flat shovels    4 or more    Eric (1), Sally (1)
Wheels barrows    3 - 4     ________
Gravel screen    1 or two     ________
Wagons    Several     ________
Tarp for dirt    1 or 2     ________
Trash bins    Several     ________

Materials List: Event food – 2 Saturdays

Item    Quantity needed    Who has it
Coffee (Peets or Starbucks)
Water
Pizza (Hot Lips)
Rice and beans
Plates and utensils
Donuts (Voodoo, Grand Central)
Other?

Volunteer activities – 2 Saturdays

Activities    When    Notes
Clean street    Week 1    Need hoses and brooms   
Chalk street    Week 1
Eat    Weeks 1 and 2
Sidewalk chalking    Week 1 and 2    What is a Siskiyou;
School kids can do this for an hour on a school day; other ideas
Music    Week 2    Madison Marching Band (who will ask them?)
Make cork board    Week 2
Paint compass by numbers    Week 2   
Needs a plan to paint from center out without messing up the design   
Smash cans    Week 2    Need mallets
Other?

A one hour meeting - Yes we can!

Siskiyou Passage: Working Notes, March 13, 2010 meeting.
“The end is nothing; the road is all.”
–Willa Cather

Attending: Genevieve, Rosemary, Sally, Eric, Laura, Matt & Rob

No meeting on March 20th

Updates from City of Portland Bureau of Transportation Monday meeting noted in ( )
Design Concepts
A. Street Painting: Rosemary & Genevieve met and presented the street painting design concept for discussion. The design will be based upon a compass. The center of the compass will be a stylized dream-catcher and, with a background color, can convey a sense of airiness. The directional pointers may be tree limbs or rock cairns. It is not yet decided whether the compass will use letters to indicate the N/S/E/W directions. Two concentric circles may depict water and fish (inner circle) human and animal footprints (outer circle). The four key design elements will be cairns, water, plants and passage.  Genevieve and Rosemary will refine the drawing this week. (update: the City will not allow letters, symbols or words in a street painting)
B. Community Boards:
1. The first piece would be a community information board built this spring within which people may leave and retrieve messages.  There is no design or volunteer lead for this piece as of yet.  However, Laura reported that she has a brother who works in metal and glass.
2. The second piece would be a non-interactive environmental education board that is part of the bio-swale project next fall. Laura suggested that we meet with the Roseway PTA to enlist the school children and faculty. (More below.) (update: City code won’t allow anything with words in a public space unless they write it. To be discussed further.)
C. Bio-swale: Sally is working on the Green Streets grant project due April 2nd.  The project will be built next fall, not this spring. Jim Walsh has refined the site plan and native planting list and the group would like to see more variety of native plants. After the meeting ended a utility locater visited the property and marked the location of the utility line in the planting strip. A NW Natural Gas line runs the length of the planting strip approximately 18 inches. Jim Walsh will modify the design, if necessary, so as to not interfere with the gas main. 

Roseway Heights PTA
Laura, an officer on the Roseway PTA board distributed our project information at the last PTA meeting. Our group has been invited to meet with the PTA in April to discuss the details of the project and to solicit PTA, student and faculty support. Sally & Eric volunteered to talk with one of the science teachers over a martini about the possibility of getting one of his classes involved in planting and building the bio-swale and education boards next year. They will meet with Laura in early April to go over the presentation.

Neighborhood support
A key element for city of Portland permit approval is that the group must notify, in writing, all residences within one block of the intersection at least 30-days prior to the street painting event. If our conflicts arise and if our group is unable to successfully resolve any significant concerns, the city will not issue the street permit. (update: 80% of neighbors within two blocks of intersection need to approve project, 100% on four adjacent corners need to approve.)

To do list

• Attend the City Repair meetings: March 18th at Sea Change Gallery (Sally); March 25th at Sea Change Gallery (Shawn & Jeffrey can you do this?); April 1st (need a volunteer, please).
• Inform all neighbors of the project no later than mid-April.
• Find someone who can translate our flyer into Vietnamese.  (Laura)
• Refine the street painting design by March 18th for delivery to Sea Change Gallery (Genevieve and Rosemary)
• Work on the Green Streets grant application (Sally & Eric)

Next Steps.

• No meeting March 20th

A sunny day. Short meeting. Great work.

Siskiyou Passage: Working Notes, March 6, 2010 meeting.
“The end is nothing; the road is all.”
–Willa Cather

Held on a beautiful sunny spring morning resulting in light attendance –
And great work in very short order.

Report on Open Community Garden. All are welcome to attend the Open Community Garden event at Madison High School on Friday March 12th beginning at 3:30 PM - the kick-off for a week long event concerning food production. Learn about the National Food Coalition, the Oregon Food Bank and localized food production.

Report on City Repair. Apathy Rehabilitation Place at Sea Change Gallery. Feeling the ‘Siskiyou Passage’ project blahs? Rejuvenate your spirit and ‘wake up refreshed’ (or begin kissing strangers) at the Apathy Rehabilitation Place. Check out www.cityrepair.org “Public Events” for the March calendar of events at Sea Change Gallery, 625 NW Everett Street.

Design Report and Concepts. In honor of the beautiful morning and a primal need to get outside, the stalwarts in attendance moved through business quickly. The group looked over the design concepts prepared by Genevieve, Rosemary & Sally, reviewed the committee’s report and made some critical decisions.
Design Foundation.
1. The basic design elements are:

• A ‘compass’ street painting in the intersection of Siskiyou and 77th,
• Rock cairns anyone can create in their own parking strip or front yard, and
• A community information board on Sally’s parking strip.
• (The stormwater swale in Sally’s parking strip is on hold while we apply for city Green Streets grant funding.)

2. Less is more – The final design should evoke the various meanings surrounding a passage but the design itself should be simple and easy to install and maintain.
3. The design motifs should be natural elements and should relate to ‘Siskiyou’, the neighborhood and/or a passage. Favored motifs include: leaves, plants, fish, foot prints, and ‘Six Rocks’. One example discussed was: The center of the compass could be a stylized ‘Dream-catcher’ which could be painted to suggest a rose – playing on the Roseway neighborhood connection and Roseway Heights School.
4. Colors should be ‘analogous’.
5. If possible, the painting should have visual depth. (That might slow traffic down!)
Design Timeline.

• 3/15 - 1st meeting with Portland Bureau of transportation (PBOT) to talk about permits.
• 3/25 - Meeting at Sea Change Gallery to talk about preliminary design
• 4/8 - Preliminary design submitted to City Repair
• 4/15 - 2nd PBOT meeting regarding permits
• 4/22 - Final design submitted for review and approval by City Repair
• 5/6 - Final PBOT approval of design and permits
• 5/8 - 5/9 - First street work days
• 5/22 - 5/23 - Final street work and party

Technical Issues.

• Can the street be sealed first?
• We need to notify all property owners on each of the four blocks leading into the intersection of Siskiyou and 77th 30 days in advance of the project.
• We need to work with all affected neighbors to resolve any concerns that may arise regarding the project. The inability to resolve such concerns may be grounds for revocation of the permit by the City Traffic Engineer.
• Someone should take ownership of the community information board design and construction - even if it is only a temporary board for posting project information.
• The USFS issues plant gathering permits – this may be a cheap source of native plants.

Volunteers!
—Task (Volunteer)—                       
Green Streets grant application for rain swale (Sally, Eric)
Get ‘Guidebook for Street Painting’ (Done)
Refine compass design (Genevieve, Rosemary, Shawn)
Get price for street sealant (Raphael)
Get paint costs (Rosemary)
Community bulletin board design (WHO??)
Temporary project information board (WHO??)
Locate source of free rocks for cairns for whomever wants them (WHO??)
Next round of City Repair meetings (Thursday evenings) (WHO??)
Next Steps.

• March 11th – City Repair meeting re: design update and progress report – VOLUNTEER NEEDED.
• March 13th – Short (<1hour) Siskiyou Passage meeting at Sally’s
  re: update on activity.
• March 18th – City Repair meeting – Shawn & Jeffrey

SISKIYOU PASSAGE Design Update

To make our goals a reality we need to keep our plans simple, yet effective. The goals we set early in this process are to:
•   Calm traffic
•   Make art an integral part of this project
•   Mediate storm water
As we gather information, brainstorm design ideas, and realize our financial limitations, our plan is taking form. A few budget realities we’ve learned this past week:
•   To build a cob structure we will need the assistance of a master builder. Cost: $1500 plus materials.
•   At the minimum, the bedding of the rain garden will need a special compost mix 4 feet wide, 2 feet deep in the center for drainage. Cost: $60 square yd. (min. $800)
•   Cost of curb cuts, permits, plants, paint, rock, dumpster, etc., still unknown.
•   We can apply for a $300 CWSP grant for the first phase of the rain garden in the City Repair project but the larger grant (up to $10,000), does not kick in until after July 2010.
How can we get the most bang for our non-existent buck and still convey the idea of passage?
The Design group suggests the following approach:
Calm traffic and make art integral to project:
•   May 2010. Street painting. A compass conveys many of the passage ideas discussed earlier: a journey, trail, arrival/departure, and East/West cultural themes.
•   May 2010. Rock cairns along street. Begin at the intersection of Siskiyou & 77th, in the rain garden location and across the street at Raphael and Maria’s house. A rock cairn is a trail marker made of stones stacked one atop the other to mark a trail; they are place markers or sentinels along a passageway. When a traveler sees a cairn there is a sense of relief in knowing that you haven’t lost your way. Cairns are simple, elegant and easy to emulate. If we build two or three, others may copy and we may start a movement (remember Alice’s Restaurant?). 
•   May 2010. Community board. Needs to be kept simple. See accompanying illustrations.
    Project needs: A design, paint, good rocks and people power.
Mediate storm water:
•   May 2010. Clean the gutters of the streets (preferably both sides).
    Project needs: People power or small backhoe or front-end loader AND a place to put gravel.
•   Fall 2010. Build rain garden. This spring we draw up plans, plant list, get permits, apply for grant funding  and be ready to go either before or after July 1. If we don’t get the grant, we still have a beautiful street painting and clean gutters that partially drain the streets to the drains on 76th.
    Project needs: Grant writing, budgeting, and design skills .
Reflections.
A statement from one of our earlier discussions resonates. “The traveler learns from the journey along the passageway and the traveler leaves things behind along the passageway, changing the trail itself and changing the lives of the animate beings it interacts with (knowingly or not) along the way.”
Our collective journey over the past two months has touched each of us; we have learned from each other and our ideas continue to evolve. We change and the trail changes as we travel its length. Our discussions have generated excellent ideas and we should not limit this project to one space or to only one or two ideas. As time passes, we will plant, make, install, interact, post our writing, drawing, and announcements. If we stay true to our goals and keep the framework simple and flexible we will accomplish much in a brief time and we will keep the passage open to future growth.

When good minds work together, amazing things happen. Our plan is evolving.

Come join us next week, 10 a.m. 3105 NE Siskiyou Street
Working Notes, February 27, 2010 meeting

Report on Village Building Convergence (VBC) meeting.
Cob requires a good roof and good foundation (hats & boots) to keep the structure dry. Anyone can build a cob building. The material is useful, resilient and long-lasting - if the hats & boots are well built and when it is coated periodically with linseed oil.  VBC will provide a master cob builder to assist us for $1,500 plus materials.

Roseway Heights PTA.
The PTA has heard about our project and is interested in learning more. They meet at the school beginning at 6:30 PM on the 2nd Tuesday of each month and would welcome a presentation from us.

City Bureau information.
The Bureau of Transportation report for the traffic counter study produced these results: The intersection of 77th & Siskiyou does not warrant a stop sign because of low speed volumes (85th percentile) and lack of reported traffic accidents (1) since 2002. City staff also reported that the city has no money for street maintenance, other than to fix big pot holes and thus placed a moratorium on all future residential street improvement.

Design Concepts.
The gathered multitude reviewed the basic design concepts discussed the prior week (see meeting notes from February 20th below), went outside to look over the construction site, and then each person took 20 minutes to sketch an original design concept on larger flip-chart paper. Afterward each designer presented their idea(s) to the group as follows:

1. The rain garden would contain six stepping stones, representing the six cailloux. A trail marker with weather vane atop catches the wind...and the attention of people. Trees, a bench, a simple bulletin board and shelf are included in this design.

2. The structure on the rain garden should be asymmetrical; it can incorporate see-thru boxes and squares and could convey a sense of movement.  If built out of cob, the structure could use recycled tree limbs as roof braces and could include windows, a book or poetry depository, a community information feature, and alcoves but no bench. Artistic motifs could include organic forms, such as leaves, the Six Stones, and vines (kiwi) growing up the utility pole guy wire.

6. Genevieve submitted these comments earlier: “I wanted to say that I think it is important to think about weather when creating a design for the wall, especially if we go with cob.  The more protected from wind and rain the less maintenance we will have to do in the future.  I liked the idea of doing a wavy design starting small and growing, I think this would work well with incorporating good weather resistance.  Sean likes small to big as well and he likes the idea of having upland plants around the structure.”

3. The Siskiyou Passage trail would be represented as a low concrete wall snaking throughout the garden. Rock cairns could represent trail markers along Siskiyou Street. There would be a central mound over the utility lines on top of which we could place one cairn or a conceptual sculpture of trees, the imagery being trees on a mountain.  We could do a street painting that reflects the passage; motifs could be a compass or footprints of humans and animals. 

4. Within the rain garden there could be low shrubs and boulders, perhaps six low stones reflecting the six stones concept. Rising out of the rain garden on 6 foot poles are three fish each 3-4 feet long (perhaps made out of cob). The scales of the fish could be bottle caps collected by school children. The fish represent a passage or journey. Over the fish would be a blue corrugated metal roof representing water over the fish.

5. A wall made of concrete that runs along one side of the garden represents the elevation changes of the trail.

6. Generalized themes could be: a berm rising above the utility lines that conjures imagery of a mountain or wall; a bottle cap river, a sculpted structure, bird houses, and rock with depressions for birds to drink from.

Group Consensus Design Motifs and Guidance.
A. Central theme. The central artistic theme is ‘passage’.
B. Scale. The scale of the project in the rain garden must be accessible to children.
C. Elevation. The center of the parking strip, over the utility lines should have elevation, if the utility companies allow this, whether it is from piled soil, rocks/boulders or sculpture.
D. Movement. The design should represent movement consistent with the idea of a passage.
E. Context. The design of the rain garden must relate to the street and beyond. Painting the street and/or rock cairns could convey the message that the passage is more than just the rain garden.
F. Structure. Benches or elements that might allow undesirable activity to occur are not allowed. The structure could include a cob structure with niches for community information, bird feeding and watering, or fish sculptures rising out of the rain garden.
G. Materials. The materials could be: stone/rock, cob, metal (someone knows a metal worker), concrete, paint, plants and recycled materials, such as bottle caps, wood, and building parts.) The use of recycled materials or even trash was a point of considerable discussion. If the Siskiyou trail was a route of commerce and if the traveler and the trail are impacted by one another, perhaps the use of recycled materials or trash reflects the theme of the impact of commerce upon the landscape.
H. Words.  The project design, in the street or rain garden, should incorporate words; for example, “The end is nothing, the road is all.” 
I. Maintenance. The project design and materials should allow for ease of cleaning and long term maintenance.

Next Steps.
A small group will meet this week to draw up plans for review at the group meeting next Saturday.

“The end is nothing; the road is all.” –Willa Cather

Siskiyou Passage: Working Notes, February 20, 2010 meeting. 


What is a Siskiyou?
Siskiyou is the name of a mountain range and pass, a national forest, a wild rivers area, a county in California, a local newspaper, an environmental advocacy project(1), a street in Portland and much more. But what exactly is a Siskiyou? The origin and original meaning of the word ‘Siskiyou’ is a minor mystery. There are several popular theories about what the name means and how it entered our lexicon. Is Siskiyou a word from the Chinook trading jargon that came from the Cree word for ‘bob-tailed horse’?(2) Does Siskiyou refer to a French-Canadian trapper’s term for Six Cailloux or the six stones crossing over the Umpqua River? Was Stephen Meek, the famed early explorer the first to apply the name for his ‘discovery’ of the Scott Valley in Northern California?

What we do know is that the Siskiyou Trail was an ancient foot path that connected the Columbia River and San Francisco Bay - through the Willamette Valley, across the ‘Siskiyou Mountains’, and into California’s the Central Valley. In the mid-1820s, the trail became a Hudson Bay Company trading route between British controlled Fort Vancouver and the Mexican controlled Sacramento Valley. When the people of the Oregon Territory raced to the California gold fields in 1848, they traveled by ship across the open sea or overland along the Siskiyou Trail. In 1887 the California Central Railroad aligned its new route along the Siskiyou Trail and is you drive to or from California today along US Highway 99 and Interstate 5, you follow the route of the Siskiyou Trail.

Regardless of origin or meaning of the word, there is a nice functional continuity between the ancient and historic Siskiyou Trail and the Passage we intend to create along modern-day Siskiyou Street.

Project objectives.
This design/build project is part of a larger multi-year phased project. This first phase will be built in May 2010 as part of City Repair’s 10th Village Building Convergence (VBC). The two components of this VBC project are: (A) to manage stormwater along the north side of Siskiyou between 77th and 76th and (B) to design and install a community art/information element in the parking strip on Siskiyou Street. Overall, the project has three primary objectives: (1) to calm traffic at the intersection of NE Siskiyou and 77th Avenue, (2) to manage the stormwater collecting on Siskiyou Street between 77th and 76th Avenues, and (3) to make community art an integral part of the traffic calming and storm water management objectives.

Site limitations.
The project site includes;

• The intersection of NE Siskiyou and 77th Avenue,
• The curbs and gutters along the north side of Siskiyou Street between 77th and 76th avenues, and
• The parking strip on Sally Heppner’s property.

Within the 10-foot by 89-foot parking strip, the site limitations (immovable objects) include:

• A gas line and water meter approximately 41 feet east of the intersection sidewalk,
• A 12-inch utility pole near the driveway, and
• A utility pole guy line and ground anchor approximately 32 feet from the pole.

This is a community-led design/build project. It is important that the neighbors collectively agree on the character of any intersection improvements and that the owner of a property on which part of the project will be located fully accepts any design element placed on their property.

Design Brainstorming - Meeting One.
The first brainstorming session every person attending was asked to voice their own ideas about how the two objectives (traffic calming and storm water management in the context of community art) could be met, where the work will be done, and how it might look. All ideas were welcome and nothing would be labeled a ‘bad’ idea. Over the next two weeks the group will refine the ideas into a buildable plan.

Bedrock Ideas.

• We have three main areas to address with the first phase of this project: traffic calming at the intersection of 77th and Siskiyou; rain catchment on the north side of Siskiyou between 77th and 76th; and art that has an understandable message.
• Local identity is important. Roseway neighborhood history is reflected in a wall mural on Sandy Boulevard and Portland business groups are using and East/West cultural theme. The message chosen for this project should reflect something from this place.
• The name Siskiyou is important; it reflects natural history, a journey, and a story about arrival and departure.
• The idea of ‘passage’ is central to the project.

Motifs.
1. Passage:

• A passage flows both ways; in and out, ebb and flow, and back and forth.
• Learning, growth, trade and change occur along the route and at the ends of a passageway. The passage elements can inform and educate.
• The passageway changes physically.
• The traveler learns from the journey along the passageway and the traveler leaves things behind along the passageway, changing the trail itself and changing the lives of the animate beings it interacts with (knowingly or not) along the way.

2. Cultural: Cultures meet and intermingle along a passageway.

• Native tribe to Native tribe.
• Hudson Bay to native and to Spanish.
• Oregon to California.
• Modern peoples: Native Oregonian, new-comers, Vietnamese and other immigrant groups.

3. Age: the ages of life - childhood to adult and back
4. Natural elements: Water flows, the wind blows, and the sun travels east to west.
5. Street painting motifs: How do all four corners of Siskiyou and NE 77th relate and interact?

• Abstract forms (Nazca-like).
• Organic materials.
• Footprints.
• Wind.
• Asian motifs, e.g. a flowing dragon.

6. Parking strip motifs:

• Use of native plant materials. Trees that look good in the winter and that catch the light or move.
• Habitat, food and cover for local animals.
• Rolling wave-like structure reflecting movement of water, wind or people. (Kinetic sculpture.)
• Kiosks with see-through areas.
• Six stones reflecting the Umpqua River crossing.
• Profile: the flow between Vancouver and San Francisco, water on the north and south with mountains in between (on top of the berm over the gas and water lines.)
• Materials: cob, metal, recycled products (wood, windows, bottles, and rocks), glass, and tile.
• Every material element of the project needs a reason for being, which work together to support the main theme.

Next meeting.

• Saturday February 27th, 10 AM - Noon. Sally’s house - 3105 NE 77th Ave.
• The objective is to refine these ideas into a recognizable theme and to develop more concrete forms. The meeting on March 6th will be the time to approve plans to send to City Repair for review.

1. http://www.siskiyou.org/about/index.html
2. In 1829 Alexander McLeod’s Cree-owned horse perished while the expedition crossed the mountains of southern Oregon and northern California.

Let's combine our efforts with City Repair to make our neighborhood safe, green and pedestrian friendly!

Do you have any of these tools or materials or know anyone who does?

Tools:
Dumpster
Backhoe
Screen for gravel
Shovels
Wheelbarrows
Sod cutter
Concrete saw

Materials:
Rock
Soil/compost
Native plants
Signage
Paint
Painting supplies
Lumber