By William Crawford

Hundreds gathered Monday night at the Acadian Ballroom to vent their feelings, frustrations and curious allegories on the increasingly popular Last Thursday event on Alberta.

The meeting sought to address how to reduce the event’s negative impact on the neighborhood, and how to decrease the staggering price tag the City says costs $14,194 each summer month—primarily paid by the taxpayers.

Ok, so this isn't Saturday Morning, but it still is Saturday and this is a video. This one was shot two weeks ago, at the opening night of the Beaterville Cafe's new bar at 2201 N. Killingsworth St. The new space is directly next door to the cafe. It's spacious, with lots of beer on tap, and its got that down home Beaterville auto-mojo all over it.  The James King Band from Danville, Virginia stopped in for a foot stomping old timey kick off. Beaterville has been in North Portland's Overlook neighborhood for over a decade. It's a bit of an institution around here, and like the James King Band, it has a following. Folks came up from as far as Eugene to see the band and give old "Beaterville Bill" a bluegrass congratulations on his new place.

Just saw this over at BikePortland: A $38 million project proposed by Metro that would buld an extensive bikeway system in N/NE Portland will learn its funding fate later this month.

U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood just announced that funding decisions for the Transportation Investments Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER - rawr!) grants, for which Metro is a candidate, will be revealed Feb. 17.

Metro's N/NE proposal, which includes other city projects and has a cumulative price tag of $98 million, would create 40 miles of new bike boulevards, as well as outfit the popular Vancouver-Williams corridor with sexy cycle tracks. The plan is projected to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in economic benefit.

For all the details, check out Jonathan Maus's excellent post here.

North Face - Directed by Philipp Stolzl - Germany - 2009
Opening at Cinema 21, 616 NW 21st Ave, Friday February 5th

A lot of trouble was clearly taken to get this movie shot. The occasional footage of actors, playing mountaineers, attempting to scale Germany's famous Eiger North Face just before the Berlin Olympics of 1936, is impressive. It's expansive, it's breathtaking, it's perilous, it focuses the movie into what is essentially and rightfully an adventure/survival story. That footage comprises the best parts of this film: professional climbers climbing, running into dangerous passes, nearly losing their footing,  helping their comrades up or down belaying ropes, etc.

Frustratingly, up to its final third North Face is too concerned with exposition and some really standard character conflicts to let loose the climbing scenes and craggy-peaks footage. Since it's relatively easy  to drum up excitement by putting hard-bitten professional types in harm's way, and considerably tougher to build realistic people  out of dialogue and scenes, it should have been a quick decision for a filmmaker as reliant on cliche as Philipp Stolzl to just put the majority of the emphasis on the action and the mountain, a la Cliffhanger.

It's that time again, tree huggers: Friends of Trees is comin' to the neighborhood for its annual planting party! This Saturday, join your neighbors and plant some trees in Kenton, University Park, St. Johns and Cathedral Park. Next weekend, bring your shovels and spades to Boise, Eliot, Humboldt and King. (Time and location info on the Friends of Trees calendar)

We've written about these annual plantings in the past, and how beneficial they are for the neighborhoods in which they take place. If you've never taken part, we highly recommend it, for you and your green thumb. 

 The students at Concordia University may be thousands of miles from Haiti, but they've still been hit hard by the quake. One student's 17-year-old sister is still missing in the rubble; her aunt and cousins were killed when their home collapsed on top of them. This deeply personal connection to the devastation in Port-au-prince, combined with Concordia students' commitment to service, has led the student body to hold a silent auction for Haiti during the Women's and Men's basketball games on Friday at 5:30 and 7:30, respectively. They're trying to raise $10,000 for Lutheran World Relief, which has an on-the-ground operation in Haiti.

Here's a video CU students made to promote their efforts:

[illustrative photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmentd/ / CC BY 2.0]

The Kenton Neighborhood Association has won a major victory for cutting down noise from the Portland International Raceway, says Ryan Pittel, the association’s noise subcommittee chair.

At a Jan. 13 public meeting, the Noise Review Board denied PIR a multi-year variance on allowable noise limits in four upcoming racing events. Instead, the board voted to review only 2010’s races.

“My stance was that variances should be applied for on a yearly basis,” Pittel said. “We just wanted a voice.”

Dump trucks, tractors, and shovels aren’t the only things shaking at North Denver Avenue and McClellan Street. 

Traffic director Traci Olson has stylishly eased traffic through the intersection over the past several months as the Kenton streetscape project has been digging deep into the heart of the business community.

But calling it traffic directing doesn’t do justice to the infectious grooves and smiles Olson adds to the job.

Hayden Island residents have made some headway in their drive to make the Columbia River Crossing project focus more on their livability through several key engineering adjustments.

 At last month’s CRC Project Sponsors Council meeting, CRC Transit Manager Steve Witter spoke about the numerous meetings between the CRC and various Hayden Island citizen groups that took place in the wake of December’s PSC meeting, where residents spoke out against the CRC cost-cutting project refinements.  

Intended to shave $650 million off the project’s $4 billion budget, the refinements were seen by island residents as going against the livability requirements of the city’s own Hayden Island Plan, primarily by choosing a project design that would cut the island in half and bulldoze its only grocery store and pharmacy.

Nena Botto is ready for her close-up – and so is St. Johns.

Botto, an actress and St. Johns resident, has given her neighborhood a starring role in her new web series, Blue Fiddles. Billed by Botto as “Sex and the City meets Lucille Ball,” the series chronicles the everyday adventures of three female friends in the Rose City. 

Part of a series on North Precinct
At a standing-room-only Public Safety Action Committee meeting in late January, Chris Duffy addressed North Portland’s concerns about crime.

“No matter what the crime numbers seem to be on paper, people are not seeing our police on the streets,” said Duffy, the chair of the Arbor Lodge Neighborhood Association. “The police are dashing from one end of the peninsula to East County and back again, and people are not getting the day-to-day communication with officers they expect.”

While the number of Portland police officers are up, Portland Police Bureau representatives have been saying for months that overall crime rates are down. Statistics from the PPB website and the bureau’s crime analysts corroborate those statements. But property crime in certain North and Northeast neighborhoods is up, and residents reeling from the loss of the old North Precinct in St. Johns are feeling increasingly vulnerable within the new police structure.

An economy-battering recession has daunted many aspiring nonprofiteers. Not Balam McNally, who founded Circadia Arts Center in early 2009 despite the downturn. 

The CAC, an Oregon nonprofit, is a multi-use facility that houses rehearsal spaces, classrooms, a gallery, banquet hall, woodworking and metalworking shop, and private artist studios available for rent. The center offers courses in various fine and industrial arts, including screen-printing, painting, and film. There are also courses in martial arts, yoga, and dance, all of which are held in an area called the “movement space.” Courses in puppetry, life drawing, and video editing are currently being developed.