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.