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The Kenton Library opened at last today, officially and ceremoniously. The place has been packed all day as residents pore over the library's shiny bookish bling.  The library is around the corner from the Sentinel's office and I literally stopped in this afternoon only because I had to return some Terry Pratchett audio books. Today was a great day for the neighborhood and North Portland, and one that will be well covered by the mainstream press.  If you as a resident have photos you'd like us to post here or link to, please comment below or email them to pub@portlandsentinel.com. -Cornelius Swart

UPDATE: I stopped in as well, and it was packed to the gills with people - and, of course, books. City Council candidate Ed Garren was there, as was Multnomah County Commissioner candidate Karol Collymore and a host of other local luminaries. In the storytelling space, women used puppets to act out Dr. Seuss stories as enraptured children looked on. People perused the shelves, marveled at the extensive DVD collection (which pulls out, file cabinet-style, from the wall) and noshed on mini-cupcakes and lemonade provided by nearby Posies Cafe. The library is shiny, spacious and state-of-the-art (well, at least by Portland standards), and brings Kenton one step closer to being a gentrified destination neighborhood. YEAH literacy! -Rebecca Robinson

Plans are underway for the Kenton Street Fair, gracing North Denver Avenue in May. Jessie Burke, the owner of Posies Cafe, is helping to spearhead the fair's organization, and is giving Kenton businesses first dibs on booths. We've got the info below, and Kenton business owners can download the vendor form as an attachment at the bottom of this post.

We've completed our vendor forms and they are being prepared for distribution and to be posted on our KBA website.  I wanted to send them around to the Kenton area businesses first, however, because we wanted to give Kenton businesses first priority for booth space, and also a discounted rate for all KBA members.  At next week's KBA meeting we will be discussing KBA membership, dues, etc if you want more information on how to qualify for the discounted rate.

The rate for Kenton businesses is $25 per booth (10x10).  You must provide your own tent, table and chairs.  The remainder of details are listed on the application.

Wanna eat corned beef 'n cabbage while jigging to Great Highland pipe music in Linnton?(?!?!?) Of course you do...especially b/c this St. Paddy's Day celebration is also a fundraiser for the Linnton Community Center, which hosts everything from children's enrichment programs to quinceaneras and is where the lively locals of Linnton come together. Here's all the info, courtesy of Linnton mover-and-shaker Pat Wagner:

St. Paddy's Day Celebration and Dinner! $15 gets you corned beef and cabbage, potatoes and dessert. No-host beer and wine, silent auction, "Luck of the Irish" 50/50 drawing (winner keeps half, LCC keeps half), plus music and dancing with Irish quartet!

Sunday, March 14; doors open at 6 p.m.

Linnton Community Center, 10614 NW St. Helens Rd.

Sarah Stevenson, Executive Director of Innovative Housing addressed the Friends of Cathedral Park Neighborhood Association Tuesday night. She was responding to neighborhood complaints about Innovative Housing's 14-unit facility, with part-time service and care providers by Cascadia Behavioral Healthcare.  The building, located near North Trumbull and Edison streets, was purchased by Innovative in 2005 and renovated and rented the following year.

Tenants are formerly homeless residents who must be single when they apply and go through a screening process.

Exciting event tomorrow in Piedmont! From the Piedmont Neighborhood Association website:

Piedmont Neighborhood Association invites you to come meet your neighbors on March 11th at 7 P.M. at Rosemont Court, 597 N Dekum St. This is a new meeting place for Piedmont Neighbors. Come see this beautifully restored building. The front doors are located at the corner of Dekum and Kerby.

Piedmont Neighborhood will be having a “SHOW AND TELL” Event at this gathering. You will have a chance to talk to your neighbors and see all the good work Piedmont Neighborhood does for our community.

At long last, the Kenton branch of the Multnomah Library System opened on Monday March 7th. A grand opening ceremony and party is scheduled for this Saturday March 13th.

Has one of the key players in a series of commerical and residential break-ins along North Mississippi Avenue and Northeast Alberta Street finally been caught?  Has the recent crime along these streets been the cause of a select few or many small groups?  The Oregonian reports a man arrested whose MO fits the more sophisticated styles of commerical break-ins that have been seen along NE Alberta and N Mississippi.  Unlike other 'smash and grab' style break-ins, this suspect appears to be associated with break-ins where alarm systems had been cut pre-buglary.  In one case along Alberta, a safe was stolen. That's not your troubled teen or thrill-seeker crowd there.  We will see if this arrest has an impact on crime reports.
FROM THE OREGONIAN

Early Christmas Eve morning, Kurt Huffman was dismayed to find a mess when he arrived at the Whiskey Soda Lounge on Portland's Southeast Division Street. It was the second break-in at his business within 10 days. 

"You put your heart and soul into something, and then somebody physically destroys it," Huffman recalls. "It's really disturbing and makes you feel very exposed."

Huffman wasn't alone. As many as 30 other restaurant and taverns had been broken into much the same way since July -- many along Northeast Alberta Street, North Mississippi Avenue and Southeast Division Street.

 

READ THE ARTICLE

In addition to a spat about the St. Johns Farmers Market, there's plenty goin' on in the John this month. Thanks to St. Johns Neighborhood Association President Babs Adamski, we've got a quick 'n dirty wrap-up of events, meetings and must-know news for March. Here goes:

Monday, March 8 (that's today!): St. Johns Neighborhood Association General Meeting, 7:00pm - 8:30 pm, St. Johns Community Center Auditorium, 8427 N Central St. (at Leavitt). Agenda includes the introduction of Angela Wagnon as our new Crime Prevention Coordinator, planning for the Community Clean-up and Trash to Treasure in April.

Wednesday, March 10th 6-8 p.m.: St. Johns + Art Organizing Potluck. Interested in helping form the SJ+A group for 2010? We're having a family friendly organizing meeting & dinner. Send an e-mail to babsia@gmail.com for the address.

Friday, March 12th and Saturday, March 13th -- 7 p.m., Saturday, March 13th -- 2 p.m: MATINEE! Wizard of Oz  - Roosevelt High School
Tickets for the performances are now on sale online at www.roosevelttheatre.org or you can contact the box office at 503-916-5260 ext. 71424

In my five years with The Sentinel, my favorite story was “Crack in Kenton” (November 2006 article not available online).  An ex-pimp and drug addict named Lionel Scott walked into The Sentinel offices in St. Johns one evening in September. He said that he was seeing a lot of drug dealing in Kenton, but he felt that police and neighborhood activists weren’t taking him seriously. 

The newly installed community policing office on North Denver Avenue was not in regular use, and at the time, there were few businesses on the street that could keep an eye on things. Scott street mannerisms might have lead some to be dismissive or suspicious of him.

Scott appeared sincere to me.  He worked as a case manager for True Dialogue, a nonprofit that worked to keep kids off the street.  Scott’s references checked out, and distinguished people in the community such as the Reverend John Tolbert vouched for him.

Over the next two months, I followed Scott and his wife, Stephanie, as they told me of the remarkable turnaround Scott had achieved in his own life, and of criminal activity they saw in the neighborhood around them. 

Project at 8629 N. Crawford St.
Cathedral Park neighbors have been closely following a new multi-lot development near the intersection of North Burlington and Salem avenues.

Three-story multifamily condominiums with two or three bedrooms each will be going in at 8629 N. Crawford St., according to Jerry Offer, a planner for Otak Architects. Offer referred additional questions to the Otak architect on the project, Sinan Gumusoglu, but Gumusoglu did not respond to The Sentinel’s request for details.

A total of three lots and 18,000 square feet of land at the location are listed as belonging to East Coast-based M&T Bank and Chesapeake Holdings West, LLC. There is as yet no name for the project.
Barbara Quinn, chair of the Friends of Cathedral Park Neighborhood Association, heard that Otak is simply designing the condos for the out-of-town owners. She hopes that Otak will answer neighbors’ concerns at the next association meeting. With permits still pending, she feels there’s time to make sure the designs fit with the neighborhood.

Hayden Island is North Portland’s hidden resort community. Fringed in floating homes, furrowed with townhomes, its eastern residential areas are quiet, beautiful and in the perfect location.  However, the center of the island — I-5, the Interstate Bridge and Jantzen Beach SuperCenter — has been at the crosshairs of traffic and development controversy for years.

For a river/island community of roughly 2,100 people, Hayden Island has seemed overpopulated with woes these past few years, perhaps due to its place at the center of the bi-state metro area.

The planning for the second season of the St. Johns Farmers Market has hit a snag as representatives of the market and the St. Johns Boosters quarrel about jurisdiction over the downtown plaza and whether the market’s sale of perishable food is hurting local businesses.

Last July, the much-anticipated market was officially established in the St. Johns central plaza.  It was organized by a board of directors, headed by Simone Streeter and shepherded along by the efforts of many volunteers.

Uncertainty has consistently remained certain in the nearly three years that Portland’s Bureau of Environmental Services has been trying to develop the 0.16-acre brownfield at North Lombard Street and Baltimore Avenue. But by the end of this month, a final decision may be reached on proposed buildings for the site.

For the first two years of the proposal process, restrictions on the site scared away potential bids, and only recently have flexible terms attracted three proposals from real-estate developers. The three groups are developer Jeana Woolley in a partnership that includes Bloc Design Development LLC; Cavenaugh & Cavenaugh LLC; and a partnership among Innovative Housing, Inc., LRS Architects and Walsh Construction.

Where is the Grant Warehouse you ask? Nowhere. The building formerly known as the Grant Warehouse was demolished over 5 years ago, but once sat on NE MLK just south of NE Freemont. The site is now tentatively slated for development as mixed income housing (see below). The warehouse went through a number of uses in it's day. Before it was condemed it was said to have housed a illegal gold extraction operation. The EPA and City spent considerable time and money cleaning up the site.  But the property has sat vacant and un-redeveloped for years.

I love the smell of new books in the morning! I also love adorable press releases. Which is why today is positively heavenly. Fresh from the Inbox, a press release from Multnomah County Library, detailing how local children will perform the final inspection on the brand-spankin'-new Kenton Library tomorrow before it officially opens to the public on Monday, March 8. Will The Sentinel be there with camera in tow? You bet your sweet bippy we will! (Sorry, Public; you're not invited)

Check back tomorrow for "aww"-inspiring photos featuring kids in hard hats testing the book return. And be sure to mark your calendar for the Grand Opening Celebration on Saturday, March 13! Dr. Seuss plays: Need we say more?

Some crackerjack reporting here from your esteemed Publisher:  Kenton Library finally slated to open this coming Monday, March 8th! The Grand Opening ceremony's set for next Saturday.  Don't take my word for it; just look at this picture I took of a flyer in a window.  That makes it REAL. The Kenton Branch Library has been in the making for almost 10 years by my reckoning [but here's 100 years of history for you if you want it]. 

When I ran the Portsmouth Press in 2001, activists advocated for a branch along North Lombard Street.  Then-County Commissioner Serena Cruz chose to locate the planned branch in what is now the New Columbia development. Needless to say, that branch never materialized - perhaps to Kenton's benefit. Now, the little downtown strip that keeps getting better will finally have a daily regional attraction (other than the surly butcher shop and "7 Bucks a Whack" barber shop).

Kenton has had other new businesses crop up in the area, but unlike Mississippi or Alberta, the library will add a little more family friendliness to the mix.  This is more of the St. Johns model of neighborhood revitalization: a diverse mix of public services, small businesses and major corporations all in one confined area. (You don't hear St. Johns held up as model very often.) Good for the library, good for Kenton and North Portland and the city. ~ Cornelius Swart

From St. Johns neighbor Robin Plance [unsubtantiated account]:

Good morning friends and neighbors!

Yes you read the subject line correctly.

I am sorry to report to you all that with the nice weather prowls and home invasion increases and so it was this morning one of our neighbors woke up this morning to find that their home had been invaded while the family was asleep.

This is a good reminder for folks to check around your house to make sure you are keeping your loved ones safe and secure.

Lock up anything that you do not want to grow legs and walk off.
Secure ladders and tools that a person could use to break into your home.

Have adequate outside lighting around your home.

These are just a few of the things we can do to help ourselves.

As friends and neighbors we need to watch out for each other, so keep your eyes and ears open.
Together we build a better community.

Your friends and neighbors,

Robin & Pamela Plance

ps. please feel free to pass this along to your friends and neighbors.

Friday, Feb. 26, 6:45 p.m. - We just received this message from the Kenton Neighborhood Association, forwarding an email sent by a concerned resident about strange activity in Kenton Park. [unsubstantiated account]

I live on Terry Street and my husband had a very bizarre
experience at Kenton Park today involving a woman/child approaching another
child who appeared to be there alone...the woman was probably eastern
european, very heavy set, about 60+, pale skin, black/gray long hair. She
was with a teenage girl that was very, very thin with long black hair. They
had a blanket with a teddy bear print that seemed very worn and
inappropriate for the age of the girl she was with.

The teenager approached a child on the tire swing that was maybe 10 or so
years old and started asking her a bunch of questions (what;s your name,
etc.) but the line of questioning evolved into the pair asking the girl if
they could take her picture (which they did) and asked her how long she had
been at the park. My husband says his "spider sense was tingling." He got
a really, really bad vibe. There has been quite a bit in the papers
recently about human/child trafficking in the Portland area. I know it
sounds crazy but Rob is really freaked out and calling the police right now.
Could you send this out to the neighborhood list? Rob will be filing a
police report in the morning.

I just remembered something else. When my husband and I were walking into
the park we walked past the bench on the middle path that faces the play
area but is across the field from it. There was a woman with another person
(I didn't pay attention to who she was with). She had binoculars and I
remember it vividly because I thought to myself ?why does she have
binoculars and what is she looking at?? She was looking at the swings. I
thought to myself ?maybe she has grand kids and they?re over there but why
is she sitting over here? because she was much too old to have young
children. I just remembered this while I was nursing my son...one of those
observations you make and file away that don?t seem important at the time.
Something weird was definitely going on. We just missed the call back from
the police and are calling again...
 

From KGW

Last month the Sentinel reported that since North Precinct moved out of St Johns, the area has seen a spike in residential and commercial break-ins.  Could they all have been conducted by two teenagers?  Probably not, but someone should take these punk kids and give them a good boxing on the ears.

Exciting news from our friends at St. Johns' own Writers' Dojo: They're teaming up with Reading Local to present Read to Rebuild: A Haiti benefit reading. Set for March 16, the event boasts an impressive slate of writers/readers, including Tom Spanbauer and Ariel Gore. 100 percent of proceeds will go to Mercy Corps. All the details are below, courtesy of Reading Local:

Haiti still needs our help. They must rebuild. Let the Portland literary community come together to do our part and help Mercy Corps in their efforts to support Haiti. (You can see our Fundraising Page Here.)