2.10.25 Kernside meeting

Thomas (Lone Fir Fitness): [00:00:12] All right, let's get started. We've got plenty to get through. Dim the lights and the music. Super. All right. Welcome, everybody, to the March meeting of the curbside. Um, neighbor business Association. Um, we'll start off with some introductions and go around. So I'm Thomas. I'm from Lone Fir Fitness. We can go around.

Shay (Inner Beast): [00:00:48] I'm Shay from Inner Beast Strength and Conditioning.

Melanie (Vida): [00:00:52] Melanie Marconi from Vida Coworking Community.

Thomas (Lone Fir Fitness): [00:00:54] Welcome.

Alex (Mikiko Mochi Donuts): [00:00:55] I'm Alex from Mikiko Mochi Donuts.

Owen (Stammtisch): [00:00:58] Owen from Stammtisch.

Nicole (Revamp Salon): [00:01:01] Nicole from Revamp Salon.

Jesse (Collector Bar): [00:01:03] My name's Jesse from Collector Bar.

Rachel (NW Nest PDX Real Estate): [00:01:06] I'm Rachel Schmerge with Northwest Nest PDX Real Estate.

Phil (Music Millennium): [00:01:11] Phil from Music Millennium.

Thomas (Lone Fir Fitness): [00:01:13] Welcome.

Terese (Burnside 26th Apartments): [00:01:14] Terese with Burnside 26th Apartments.

Rebecca (Kerns NA): [00:01:18] Rebecca from the Kerns Neighborhood Association.

Jenna (Community Energy Project): [00:01:21] Jenna from Community Energy Project.

Mallory (Windermere Real Estate): [00:01:24] Mallory with Windermere Real Estate.

David (Curbside Serenade): [00:01:26] David with Curbside Serenade.

Alyssa (Turning Pointe): [00:01:29] Alyssa from Turning Pointe.

Andrea (Kerns NA): [00:01:33] Andrea from Kerns Neighborhood Association.

Toby (Rose City Guitar): [00:01:35] Toby from Rose City Guitar.

Amber (Rose City Guitar): [00:01:38] Amber, Rose City Guitar.

Kelly (Rose City Guitar): [00:01:40] Kelly from Rose City Guitar.

Samantha (Rose City Guitar): [00:01:42] Samantha from Rose City Guitar.

Rebecca (Kerns NA): [00:01:45] Is anybody here from Rose city?

Thomas (Lone Fir Fitness): [00:01:50] Very well represented.

— [brief pause in recording] —

Thomas (Lone Fir Fitness): [00:00:00] A form is going around. See if you can sign and fill in any information that's not printed on that. That will also function as consent for filming today. There will be a more detailed, um, I guess just disclosure form.

Justin (Barnegat Studios): [00:00:15] So with the email list, I'll be able to send you an electronic release form. So that way you can read through it to consent to have your image and likeness in the documentary. Now I can blur people's faces out. Things like that. Change things.

Thomas (Lone Fir Fitness): [00:00:29] Cool. And we'll hear more from both Jude and Justin.

Justin (Barnegat Studios): [00:00:32] Yeah, we'll get into more detail.

Thomas (Lone Fir Fitness): [00:00:32] Get more info later on about the content of that, which is very exciting. Um, so now for the business meeting. First up, we'll go through the administrative detail. We have been drafting these items for about six weeks or so. Um, with reference to other associations and to the various templates available in the city of Portland for what should be in that we try to keep them as short and clear as possible. There is quite a lot of stuff that you just need to have to have in there, so you should have all received those to your email. And anyone who is on the list like two weeks ago or a week and a half ago, but they're also circulating through printed copies. So if anyone has any questions arising either from the email or thing that you can read them today, feel free to speak up. At this point, we can still make edits and change them before we approve. The record show no hands raised. In that case, the um, yeah, let's just move to to the vote. Um, a show of hands. All those present who approved these titles in the current form. Okay, we can get a rough count, but that's basically most people in the room. Um, Anyone want to bet against? No answer. Is there any abstentions? No answer is there either. So I think that passes. So we have now bylaws of the association.

Thomas (Lone Fir Fitness): [00:02:11] This is extremely important because now we can elect a board. Once we've elected the board we will have people who we can put the contact points for our incorporation and register as a non-profit enterprise under the main section of the bylaws that I wanted to bring up was the way that it works with the board, because we're going to talk about that today, and they have elections next week and next month, next month for the meeting. So business Association membership is currently a little over 100 members, which we are now. That's right. Um, it's doubled more or less in the last 4 or 6 weeks. Um, I think we're up to 1 or 2, 103 and two more people joining in the last couple of days. Um, the membership will then elect five board directors. The board directors will be doing a significant amount of general work and perhaps specific tasks too. This is a lot of fun and interesting based on our experience so far, but it is not light. There's a lot to do. There is the Regional Manager, the Assistant to the Regional Manager. Those are essentially the chair and the vice chair of the organization. But we thought that that was a little bit boring. We wanted it to be a bit tongue in cheek with this Secretary Treasurer and a Community Liaison. The Community Liaison will tell us what's happening and tell them what's happening on the neighborhood association or any others that we take part in, effectively making sure that we're coordinating.

Thomas (Lone Fir Fitness): [00:03:36] So there are a lot of these kind of organizations in the city, and then we can also have appointed officers for specific tasks. These are unelected roles that will just crop up for particular projects. So the person who tells us what's going on, Rainbow Road, for instance, or someone who's managing live events and music, so stuff where people have a particular enthusiasm, and we're realizing both that don't necessarily have capacity for when the football drops. So those are the other things to think about. And we can essentially add them. And for whatever amount of time we need, the elected board positions will have two year terms enshrining the bylaws, 2 or 3 of those, we haven't quite decided yet, will for the first term be re-elected after one year, so that then the board rolls in a staggered basis. The next steps for the board election will be anyone who's interested in either of these roles, email myself or say we now have sweet new email addresses. Thanks to Shay. By the end of the week, we will then meet for coffee next week with Jay, who is head of the Kerns Neighborhood Association and a fount of great wisdom who will help us with the nominations process to advise on what makes for an effective board and how we talk about representation, how we talk about efficacy and balance all of these things together to come up with the best that we can do.

Thomas (Lone Fir Fitness): [00:04:57] At least in this first year. I'm sure we will learn a lot as we move forward. Over time, we'll get a little bit better at it, but for now, we'll do our best. Um, after that, anyone who wants to stand will send out a brief associated statements from the nominations of the names to the full mailing list. And then at the next meeting, we will elect the board with a show of hands. We'll do roll ups if necessary, so you'd have to get a majority of votes. If no one gets a majority, the two candidates will go to a runoff. I wouldn't expect that we have that many candidates, but we'll see. Any questions about the board stuff? Um, so in terms of specific roles. So Secretary will be involved in record keeping and taking notes of the meetings. That would be one specific part. Treasurer will be the mentioned one of the two signatories for the bank account, which again, we can't open until we're incorporated. Um, but so there will be kind of some specific technical elements to it. Apart from that, most of these people will be doing all of the sectors involved in project management and all the grunt work necessary. Okay, sounds like no more questions than that. So the fun stuff! Mural is 90% done. It's out there if you haven't seen it already. Um, many thanks to everyone who is involved. It is absolutely tremendous fun.

Thomas (Lone Fir Fitness): [00:06:17] I think we had 20 plus volunteers, um, including like 13 or 15 kids from Pacific Crest. So we got it done way faster than I expected because we had so many hands. Um, at this point, there is probably a little bit of still volunteering for the painting that would be helpful for doing some detail work and touch ups. Uh, mostly the contribution that we helped at this point would be a little bit of cash to defray the cost of paint. So it came to about $430 for a huge thing of paint that we did all the background color with. That will be leaving the shop and then the two main colors. Again, we have plenty so that when it inevitably gets tagged, we can go and paint over it and keep it looking fresh. And we're aiming to do that every week or two, I think, and Amber and I will spearhead that, but any help would be gratefully received. Um, so yeah, you can either donate, catch the meeting, or you can send it to my Venmo. It is fine. In future this will be more formal and available through the website and to our bank account. But that will be another couple of months before we set up that, um, Instagram is actually kicking off. I took the screenshot this morning and we now we have six more followers between now. So we're up. We're up more than 200 followers over the last month.

Thomas (Lone Fir Fitness): [00:07:34] It's absolutely crazy. So it's doubled. Um, the content is great. The interactions are fantastic. Yeah, like 23,000 views, almost 800 interactions. People are liking and commenting. So yeah, that's been excellent. We added tons just the day that we were painting. So many people come up and talk to us and be like, hey, what's this? Like, how can we get involved? Really? Really good. So that's all going well? Anything you want to highlight on here? I'm, and Shay are too, every day we're looking for, like, the kind of content that is worth sharing on this, which is like fun, quirky, particularly collaborative. Anything which is bringing multiple businesses together or highlighting just like anything fun will find. But you can also submit stuff, so please reach out. The map will go to print this Thursday, so I will be going to outlet and we'll be printing on some beautiful risograph machine. It's like they have about maybe 15 barrels of color like this. It's like a literal barrel. All of that is pink ink if they get shipped individually from Japan. And so each time you change the color and the print it, it goes in and out like a warp core. It's a lot of fun. So they'll all get printed and then we'll go around. And must be. So print run, maybe about 400 bucks. We've got a little over 100 so far. So again, cash contributions to me would be fantastic. Like 5 or 10 bucks each.

Alex (Mikiko Mochi Donuts): [00:09:02] Is the idea with this that we would, like put in our shop window?

Thomas (Lone Fir Fitness): [00:09:05] Yeah. Exactly.

Alex (Mikiko Mochi Donuts): [00:09:07] Love it.

Thomas (Lone Fir Fitness): [00:09:07] Yeah. Print the shop window. And then I will also distribute a like a high def digital asset. So you can use that in whatever you want to sell.

Alex (Mikiko Mochi Donuts): [00:09:15] Awesome.

Thomas (Lone Fir Fitness): [00:09:16] Um this is the first phase. The second phase will be a landscape version of the west side of the district as we add. So not everyone will be on here. This goes to about 24th and 24th to 12th will be a second map. Right now I think probably about three quarters of our members are on the east side, not least because I live here. So I'm walking around here a lot more. Um, but we're adding members on the West side, a reasonably good rate to spend valuable time. Um, and then the plan is, I think, probably to update it, maybe to start with, we might do it up to six months, but after a year normally order to account for the changing businesses. The website. I would like to invite Shay up here to talk about his. Because she did all of this, and it's incredible.

Shay (Inner Beast): [00:10:07] Can you all hear me? Okay. Alright, so the website is up and running. I have to apologize for my. I've been working all day, so I've got kind of a Tom waits kind of vibe. So the website is up. A lot of you have already become a site member and put up your photo and description, but a lot of you have not. So can I have a show of hands of who has not, who business owners who have not become a site member yet? Okay, so let's check these out. Yes. And then how many of you have also not given me a description or a photo? Okay, so there are a couple instructions on there. Um. Let's see. Okay, so if you are not a site member yet and have also not yet submitted your photo and description, this QR code is going to take you to a form where you can put that right in there. So I've been getting a lot of descriptions that are like full essays. It has to be under 200 characters. That is very small. So if you need to use a character counter, please do that because it will just arbitrarily cut off and it'll be mid-sentence and that won't look very good.

Shay (Inner Beast): [00:11:23] So it would help me a lot if you could use that form, because it will give you an automatic cut off at 200, and then you can edit it to your liking so that I'm just not chopping your sentence off in half. Um, if you aren't a site member yet, but you've already submitted your photo and description, whether you've emailed it to one of us or put it in the Google Sheet, I'm going to have you from now on, do it through this QR code. So you're going to log in to your account. If you if the QR code does not prompt a pop up, you can just go on the website and like any website has at the top right corner and avatar for a creative login. So that's how you can create a login if you haven't already. Um, so that should be pretty straightforward. Um, are there any questions about logins or photos or descriptions or anything pertaining to the website at all? Yeah?

Amber (Rose City Guitar): [00:12:18] I think on the other page it said somewhere about the yearly fee to be a member or something on the the last page that you had on the screen, uh, down at the bottom cost of hosting per year, is that in total or per member?

Shay (Inner Beast): [00:12:32] That's in total. So if you read in the bylaws, the first year of membership is nothing at all. And then after the first year we'll be asking $10 a person per year, which is nothing, but that should help cover along the cost. And then if there are, you know, if we get some amount of contributions for projects and particular things, that should help. Also getting a lot of grants once we're a nonprofit. So this is not per person, this is just the entire cost for the year. So yeah.

Thomas (Lone Fir Fitness): [00:12:58] Bargain. With that.

Shay (Inner Beast): [00:12:59] It's a pretty sweet deal for how robust of a website it is. It really does a lot. Um, the membership page is going to help us a lot with streamlining communication. I know nobody wants to be getting a million emails per week. Um, so the great thing about this is that we'll be able to put people into groups, and then you can check on those groups for updates whenever you want. So you're not getting emails about Rainbow Road or PBoT or anything that you don't want to. And you can also set up your notification preferences in the member area. And there will be a directory and all that. So it's just going to help with communication a whole lot so that you can keep up with what you're interested in and not get a barrage of emails about everything else. So no questions? We're good. Okay. Thanks.

Thomas (Lone Fir Fitness): [00:13:45] Thanks, Shay. Alright. I would like to invite Justin and Jude to talk about what they're making.

Justin (Barnegat Studios): [00:14:05] Hello, everybody. My name is Justin Boswick. So I'm a filmmaker here in Portland at a production company here since 2022. But a few movies in theaters, but mainly been working in the documentary space recently. I've been working with Jude for a few years now. I know he had started working on, like an audio podcast version of, you know, tracking what this group is doing. He talked to me about adding a visual component to it, and kind of where we're at right now is over the next, like month and a half, I'm filming some different events, some meetings, things like this putting together short 5 to 10 minute documentary as a proof of concept to showcase what you're doing as a group and how you're all coming together and working on the betterment of the neighborhood. And then the goal for that is to get funding to create a docu series, in the sense that we would try and make an episode a month and do that over the course of, like a full year, to really show the growth that you're able to do. And something we were talking about regarding success is the idea of being able to repeat the success you have in this group. So if we're able to capture the process, all the pitfalls, all the issues you guys might be running into, we can then package it together and use that as a way to teach any other neighborhoods in Portland or in any other city, you know, how this group came together and how they created a framework to help businesses, small businesses.

Justin (Barnegat Studios): [00:15:37] So that's the goal of the project. Right now, it's just me running around with a camera, and Jude's been doing some audio for it. And as we go along, I know we had mentioned something about releases as we go forward there. Right now I'll use that email list to send an electronic release. But if you have any questions about any of the footage we're covering, what I'm doing is I'm putting all of the footage onto a secure, password protected site. That's all the raw footage that's covered. So if you want access, just let me know and I can send you a link. You can scroll through, you can see everything that's being captured. Obviously, as we start cutting it into a narrative and choosing what to include, the goal is good intentions and to really showcase the really great work you guys are doing together. So that's my goal here. This isn't reality TV. This is more let's show all the hard work you put into it. So I'm super excited to be around and hopefully be around for a good bit of time to showcase what you guys are doing and make something cool.

Thomas (Lone Fir Fitness): [00:16:43] The photos Justin got of the kids painting the mural was just wonderful.

Jude (Brewer Audio): [00:16:48] It's really great. I highly recommend you reach out to Justin and take a look at some of the stuff that's being shot, just to kind of get an idea of what it looks like. Justin's wonderful to work with, and I'm excited about this because I feel like it just expands the footprint. Um, and just gives obviously a good visual. I'm still doing audio interviews, so anyone who is interested, I'm going to put another call out for that, where I'll basically section off a week and there will be some times you can sign up for, we can come in and talk with me. Um, that's where we just have basically like a 15, 20 minute chat about your history with the neighborhood, your business, and you just kind of good general questions. And that might find its way into the visual documentary as well. Like it might appear as voiceover in it. Um, but I am still working on the audio version of this as well, so. Yeah.

Thomas (Lone Fir Fitness): [00:17:42] Thank you so much guys. Alright. Update on Rainbow Road. So we had a meeting which was actually also video. Um, this week with Greg from PBOT. So the idea of this friends of Rainbow Road organization is an organization at our site with people from here, people from KNA, from Buckman, Sunnyside, too, to help people to do all of the things that they can't. So the kind of things that they do are there is some money for using the background furniture. Um, they will give us $7,000 for street furniture this year before their funding is potentially cut by the city.

Rebecca (Kerns NA): [00:18:24] Who is they?

Thomas (Lone Fir Fitness): [00:18:26] Um, PBOT.

Rebecca (Kerns NA): [00:18:27] Oh, PBOT.

Thomas (Lone Fir Fitness): [00:18:27] Yeah. And specifically the public plazas group that Greg heads up. So that's one project we'll be able to put in some more some more furniture, some more stuff to make the road more appealing. Um, some of that will be parameters. The things that they can't do are upkeep, basically. So water the plants, pick up litter on a weekly basis, things like that. And the other thing that they can't do is come up with an organization that makes how do you say like organizes the use of the space. So we need to figure out a way to like, fairly equitably make available some kind of booking calendar so that people can use the stage and they can use the road for all kinds of fun events like that. That should help everybody, right? So we have some ideas ourselves for stuff we want to do. So we're doing a big straw man competition with to celebrate the reopening quarters. And there's a poster on the next page. The lake, we hope, is going to be a ton of different people who want to do a ton of different things. So like maintaining the space and also making it available and advertising all the stuff that's going on. So we want to have some science out there, like here are the next events coming up on the road. So that's what's happening next. Any of you are interested in being part of that friends group? Just let me know. We'll leave you in. Any questions that. And then finally collaborative events. So here are just two that have kind of come into form over the last couple of weeks. So April 12th we're doing the Strongman Competition, which is a collab between East, Lone Fir, Gorges, and Migration. Um, that's going to be on Rainbow Road. It's going to be people like throwing kegs around and lifting. It's going to be silly. It's going to be fun. There'll be a beer mile, which is a grand British tradition of running and drinking.

Shay (Inner Beast): [00:20:07] Um, you don't have to actually run. You can leisurely stroll.

Amber (Rose City Guitar): [00:20:15] Um, but by the time you guys have the event, is it predicted that the painting will be ready by then? Or is it kind of in between time?

Thomas (Lone Fir Fitness): [00:20:26] Uh, it could be repaved, but maybe not.

Amber (Rose City Guitar): [00:20:29] Okay, I wasn't sure if there was.

Shay (Inner Beast): [00:20:31] I'm not sure either.

Thomas (Lone Fir Fitness): [00:20:34] If we get a timeline on that, if it's going to be a long while, we might repaint it first and then just repeat a little bit softer. If it's going to happen soon, we might not. So it's just it's in their hands essentially. But it's going to be fun regardless. Yeah. Um, and then the other thing that all of the wine merchants on the street were really thrilled to be part of is this wine walks. So I just reached out to all what was that? Five of them, Vino, Montelupo, Pairings, Portico, and Parallel. And they're doing this joint event where people will start at Vino, it'll be ticketed, they'll do a flight there, they'll walk up to my studio, do a flight or a snack there and walk around. One thing that is really fun is that they will, we will they will need volunteers to help, like walk people around. And while we're walking them, we can maybe tell them some fun stuff about the other businesses in the neighborhood. Um, and those people will all get lunch for free at Providore and get to taste the wine on the way. So it's a pretty good gig that's going to be on the 19th of April.

Rebecca (Kerns NA): [00:21:33] How are you advertising these?

Thomas (Lone Fir Fitness): [00:21:35] Um, so great question. Shay, do you want to hand out some?

Shay (Inner Beast): [00:21:38] Yes. Can you please raise your hand? If you'd be willing to put one of these in your shop window? I don't have enough.

Thomas (Lone Fir Fitness): [00:21:45] So we have bigger ones.

Shay (Inner Beast): [00:21:46] I've already gotten a lot of them, so.

Rebecca (Kerns NA): [00:21:54] So both events are on this page?

Thomas (Lone Fir Fitness): [00:21:56] No.

Shay (Inner Beast): [00:21:57] This is just the Beer Keg Strong Man. So if you have a nice storefront with a window. Um. Anybody else?

Thomas (Lone Fir Fitness): [00:22:05] The second poster is finalizing the details this week, and then that will be printed and distributed, too.

Rebecca (Kerns NA): [00:22:13] Do you think we'll promote on telephone poles or what?

Thomas (Lone Fir Fitness): [00:22:16] Certainly if you'd like to. Yeah. I was just planning to hand them out to businesses and then put it on the Instagram if anyone wants to do flyering, you're very welcome to. Um, so, yeah, these are just a couple of the things, but like this is just one example. If you guys have ideas for collaborative events that you want to do together, like just let's start doing them. Email me. Email each other. I will help out as much as I supposed to count one that I was just talking to. A couple of the vintage businesses in the street was we have five vintage shops. We do like a charity fashion show in the summer and have all the models wear stuff from the vintage stores. That'd be fun. Um, but there's I'm sure there's a ton of stuff that I can't even think of. So, you know, have have some ideas, throw them out and we'll make it happen. Okay. And that's it for me. So this is the any other business anything you want to talk about section. So hands up and then come up to the front if you'd like. Yeah. Come on up, David. From Curbside Serenade. Nice to meet you, David.

David (Curbside Serenade): [00:23:26] Yeah. Nice to meet you, too. Awesome. Cool. All right. So, yeah. My name is David, and I run a nonprofit called Curbside Serenade, and we put on a lot of events in the past on Rainbow Road. Um, I run this with Johnny Franco. If anybody's heard Johnny Franco, I'm sure people have. Um. He's everywhere. Um. But, yeah, it's a nonprofit. Our our whole mission is to activate street spaces, uh, parks, pedestrian plazas. And we were one of the first to help with PBOT two years ago with their, um, program to bring music to pedestrian plazas. We did every week in Rainbow Road for a while in 2023. Um, Main Street Plaza as well. Um, downtown Ankeny Plaza as well. Downtown. So yeah, we would love to come back and do at least a monthly, you know, showcase there with musicians. Um, basically, you know, what we do is, you know, we honor the street performer, the busker. So we'd love to do some sort of organized, uh, street performing in Rainbow Road and bring that back and have that be part of our programming. I think that'd be awesome. So, yeah, if anybody's interested.

Rebecca (Kerns NA): [00:24:52] So they should contact you if they're interested in doing that?

David (Curbside Serenade): [00:24:54] Yeah, yeah. And I would I would love to get I'd love to talk and get a date that we could do um, or a day that we could do like once a month, you know, starting in, let's say May or June and go through September or October. That would be awesome. Once a month or bi weekly, biweekly. That would be amazing. But yeah, if anybody's interested, they could, uh, email me at Curbside Serenade at gmail.com. Or, um, I could also, you know, talk to me. I could give you my phone number as well. I'm going to go from there. So yeah, we'd love to come back to Rainbow Road. Yeah, it was awesome. Thanks. You can also check us out at Curbside Serenade dot org.

Shay (Inner Beast): [00:25:51] We are going to be having a raffle at the Strongman event. Um, if any business would like to donate a small item, it could be a physical item or a digital item, like a gift card. Um, I did print something out at work, and so I'm actually just going to pass this around and it has. Um, you can put your name and email if you'd like a flyer since I ran out. And if you'd like to donate a raffle item for a raffle.

Travis (Gorges): [00:26:18] And I have a question to ask you, because I know that I've donated the gift card for Gorges for like, the reopening. Is that now tied into this Strongman? Or is this a separate event from that, do we not?

Shay (Inner Beast): [00:26:30] I don't know.

Thomas (Lone Fir Fitness): [00:26:32] I think that the official reopening is maybe a week earlier than this.

Travis (Gorges): [00:26:38] Okay.

Shay (Inner Beast): [00:26:40] If you can write it down. That way I can follow up with you. Yeah.

Thomas (Lone Fir Fitness): [00:26:48] Sweet. Anything else anyone would like to mention?

Rebecca (Kerns NA): [00:26:50] Is it okay if we put this in our newsletter?

Thomas (Lone Fir Fitness): [00:26:52] Yeah, by all means.

Rebecca (Kerns NA): [00:26:53] Okay.

Amber (Rose City Guitar): [00:26:56] Um, I kind of want to suggest Andrea talking a little bit about some of the bike stuff. Ideas. Would you be okay doing that?

Andrea (many hats wearer): [00:27:03] Yeah. Yeah.

Amber (Rose City Guitar): [00:27:04] Cool. You get a lot of good ideas. I think that, you know, we can share interests.

Thomas (Lone Fir Fitness): [00:27:10] I was going to say. I'm with you on this.

Andrea (many hats wearer): [00:27:14] Hi. My name is Andrea. So I wear many hats. Um, I am on the Kerns Neighborhood Association board now as our Land Use and Transportation Chair. I'm also, um, in a volunteer advocacy organization here in town called Strong Towns PDX. I'm the neighborhood captain for Buckman and Kerns neighborhood. We have a group of about 20 of us who really want thriving, economically resilient, productive streets that where small businesses thrive and where kiddos age eight, you know, all the way up to 80 are able to walk and cross streets and shop safely. I'm sure everyone has noticed that Burnside. It does not feel like a 20 mile an hour street, right? Mississippi Avenue thriving people, their businesses booming because it is actually 20 miles an hour and it is safe and easy to cross. Um, I know that when I lived on this side of Burnside, I never visited the businesses on this side because Burnside is difficult to cross, to find a safe crossing where you feel safe with my little chihuahua and same on the other. You know, now that I live on this side of Burnside, it's it's like a trek to make it to where my partner works at Baby Doll. So not only would I love to work with everyone to to make it the place where people can bike and take transit and walk and shop, because you can get many more customers and feet per hour through those modes of transportation than single car parking.

Andrea (many hats wearer): [00:28:48] But it makes it safer. And then putting some, you know, pressure on the city to help fund the things that make this feel like a street that's 20 miles an hour with three schools on it, but in the kind of side business district. And that'll also be really, really, really good for, for all the shoppers. So one idea I had too, is one thing in strong towns, we want to do small bets, little bets. You know, I'm not looking for $1 million project, but what is the lowest cost, high impact thing that we can think of? When I think of the Mississippi Street Fair and the Hawthorne Street Fair, those are big thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars, generators, porta potties, like that is really expensive. But, you know, it would be high impact and get you on the front page of Bike Portland and on the keeping being like the coolest neighborhood modal filters, which basically filter cars out but allow bikes in on stretches from stark to Sandy. We can't stop Burnside, but we could probably make it Portland's first bike business district for a day and just say, bikes can smooth and sing along and just have the safest ride. We have bike towns. It'll help shoppers get here in the summer and explore the businesses. There can be street dining, um, you know, convert parking spots to be, you know, used maybe someone's Etsy shop.

Andrea (many hats wearer): [00:30:11] Maybe there's some entrepreneurs in the neighborhood who want to to highlight that, but kind of flipping it so the sidewalks are still a productive sidewalks, and people can bike up and down and explore. And, um, there's something called a bike valet. There's a bike valet that's very popular down by OHSU. It's essentially like, where can I park my bike? If we just set up an intersection, I would love to help volunteer to help organize such an event and to bring a bike lane. And then maybe if you biked here or if you took transit here, you get like a dollar off a beer or $0.50 off coffee or, you know, something like that would be very low cost and high impact to create an an Alberta Street Fair or Hawthorne Street Fair, that's that's a big endeavor. But I think Portland's first bike business district is possible. And I know a lot of volunteers who would be excited about that, as well as getting safe crossings on, you know, whether it's 26th, 24th, 22nd and any other ideas you have. I was talking to no preference about, you know, street dining solution, you know, helping work with them and PBOT on what an awning might look like and a noise filter. So, um, county as a resource. And I know a lot of people are really excited.

Andrea (many hats wearer): [00:31:26] One of Strong Town, Buckman, Kerns' first projects is going to be painting, hopefully, Salmon along the Salmon Greenway. That's not in this neighborhood, but it's in it's in Buckman. But there's PBOT has free street painting permits. You apply for one permit for street painting to paint outside of your business, whether it's a painting, crosswalks on 28th, maybe they look like pizza, maybe they look like mine. You know, like showcasing the businesses. They're up and down. That permit is free. And then you get a permit for like a block party. Basically, if you're closing off the street, you can have businesses in that area and vendors like set up shop and put up. Um, yeah. So those are free. And there's workshops through City Repair one on March 15th and one in April. But I'm going to be going to those because I'm excited about street painting and I'm excited about place making. And yeah, so those are some of the ideas. Those are some of the thoughts and some of the initiatives underway. Um, we have a letter going through Kerns Neighborhood Association right now. About just like this intersection is really, really dangerous. I saw a car flipped upside down by the apartment building. Now you don't get flipped upside down. I'm driving 20. So this was two weeks ago. Um, and I've seen people struggle to cross this street, and, you know, it's it's going to be hard to to keep people coming here if they're like, oh, yeah, I went and checked out that Kerns neighborhood, and I almost got hit by a car going right on red on, you know.

Andrea (many hats wearer): [00:32:54] So there's some intersection safety things that they have at 26th and Powell and all over the city where at night it stays red or flashes red until cars reach it, that that will help limit drag racing and unsafe driving at night. There's something called pedestrian, uh, lead intervals where for five seconds, pedestrians can walk and there's no cars that would really help our elderly or disabled people with children. Um, and then there's another fix that. Um, no. Right on red. Because a lot of people don't actually stop all the way when they're doing red on red. They just saw on through. And that is supposed to be when people are walking is when that red light exists. So those three low cost signal timing improvements could make this intersection much more safe. And when a safe intersection, it's a productive intersection where people want to bike and shop and play.

Thomas (Lone Fir Fitness): [00:33:54] How can we help support this?

Andrea (many hats wearer): [00:33:56] Um, what ideas do you want to see? You know. So I think I think that's the first thing. Um, the first thing is, if Kerns Neighborhood Association formally votes at our next meeting to sign the letter to PBOT about the 28th intersection safety, having a business district sign, and also say we as businesses want this intersection safer and slower. Um, that in the short term and then in the long term, getting a shared vision of what residents who are, you know, your shoppers and people who love this neighborhood and the businesses see as some solutions that we can advocate for on this road. Um, and then, you know, bring your vision for what, you know, a street, a street fair, a street plaza, you know, whether it's for bikes or for walking, what those look like.

Rebecca (Kerns NA): [00:34:46] So it sounds like the March 15th meeting is about coming up with ideas. Is that what that's about?

Andrea (many hats wearer): [00:34:52] Um, the next is that the next Kerns Neighborhood Association?

Rebecca (Kerns NA): [00:34:56] No, no.

Andrea (many hats wearer): [00:34:57] Oh, the city repair?

Rebecca (Kerns NA): [00:34:58] Yeah.

Andrea (many hats wearer): [00:34:58] The March 15th workshop is all about how to do street paintings and block parties and, yeah, how to how to bring your community in to take ownership. Kind of like the Rainbow Road. Like if we built colorful crosswalks all up and down 28th, you know, it can't just be, you know, my idea. It has to be everyone's idea. So it's kind of just like the foundation about how you organize your community in that way. And then in April, there's a very nitty gritty how to what kind of paintings, where do you order them? Here's the PBOT permit process, and I'd be happy to share those along with the group, those upcoming events.

Rebecca (Kerns NA): [00:35:36] I want to share that March 15th information with Thom is just the business association may very well walk somebody there.

Andrea (many hats wearer): [00:35:43] Yeah, yeah, I'll I'll send that. Um, cool.

Thomas (Lone Fir Fitness): [00:35:48] Thank you so much, Andrea. Yeah. It sounds like there might be a position for Transportation Safety Officer on this as well. Um, great. Anything anyone else wants to raise while we're here?

Rebecca (Kerns NA): [00:36:05] I would like to know how to get a hold of Justin.

Justin (Barnegat Studios): [00:36:09] Hi.

Shay (Inner Beast): [00:36:09] He's right there.

Justin (Barnegat Studios): [00:36:13] I have a business card, and I can give that to you. Or if you just want to take a picture. That's got my personal email.

Rebecca (Kerns NA): [00:36:19] Okay, great. Cool.

Thomas (Lone Fir Fitness): [00:36:20] The other thing that I would encourage is. So when I was out here painting yesterday, some of the touch ups and two old chaps will pass. One of you who live in the neighborhood 57 years. Another one, 40. And they were just interested and started telling me stories. And I was like, hey, Jude would like to hear these stories. So if you know people in the neighborhood who had interesting things to say, who've been here a long while, who've been through, who want to talk about the positive elements, or you've had a real struggle, like, let us know there's the stories we want to tell. Great. Well, thanks, everyone for coming. Really appreciate it.