home | reference | forums | boisevoice

April 2006 Boise Newsletter Articles:

GARDENING WITH BOISE-ELIOT BY MARTHA WRIGHT
If your children have never experienced the joy that comes from the contact with the earth and the satisfaction of growing your own vegetables and flowers, now is the time to do it with spring just around the corner. Even if you and your children don’t have a place to garden or you don’t have the time to do it yourself, there are still opportunities out there for them to learn about gardening. For children from Boise-Eliot School, they have to go no further than their own school playground to experience the wonders of gardening.

On the playground at Boise-Eliot School there are six raised garden beds and a flower garden that have been neglected for a number of years. This last fall, Norman Sylvester, a well-known local blues musician and parent of a student at the school cleaned up the raised beds and the flower beds, got a few donations from Pistils Nursery and planted them in the beds.

As a nearby neighbor and a person with a passion for gardening and mentoring children I am starting a garden project at the school with any interested students.

The garden is in the beginning stages now with plans to recruit students. For now, I am beginning to plant some vegetable starts and seeds. Donations of vegetable and flower starts are always welcome. While I do not consider myself an expert gardener, I have been gardening consistently sine the late 1980’s and have learned many things from taking workshops, reading and by trial and error. I am excited about the opportunity to work with some students and share my knowledge of gardening.

But, this project is about more than gardening. While I welcome the chance to teach gardening, it is also about mentoring children. If I can work with even one child and spend some time with him/her it will give me the chance to make a difference in that child’s life.

If you have a child that attends Boise-Eliot School and are interested in this project, you may contact me. Even if your child does not attend the school and you are interested, we may be able to negotiate something with the school. Interested parents can contact me at (503) 249-8817 or Hobbes@spiritone.com.

THE RUMOR MILL, BY LAURA PARISI
You might’ve heard this story before. Like many rumors about development projects in the Boise neighborhood, this one is grandiose and entirely false: a Texas developer has bought the empty lot on the southwest corner of Mississippi and Fremont and an 8-story condo is going up in its place. Sound familiar? It’s not true. Not only does the building code for the neighborhood rule out anything taller than 45 feet (about four stories), the man who owns the lot isn’t from Texas. He’s right here in Portland.

Since we’ve heard so many of these half-truths, we decided to hit the streets and find out what other tall tales were bouncing about. This is a small sampling of what we heard—though doubtless there are many others—and our attempt to set the record straight.

The rumor: PSU students are raising money to build an outdoor amphitheatre on the SW corner of Mississippi and Fremont .

Setting the record straight: “I think it’s a fabulous idea, but I don’t think it could work,” says Jim Winkler, president of Winkler Development Corp., who owns the lot in question. “There isn’t enough land [for an amphitheatre].”

So what are his plans for the grassy area, which is currently home to a big, gnarly tree? “At some point, we’ll do something with it—something sensitive and thoughtful and architectural,” he says. “I’m open to ideas.” He did say, however, that a parking structure is conceivable.

The rumor: Lovely Hula Hands is expanding to the old florist shop on Mississippi and Mason, the greenhouses are moving next door to Pistils and the space where the greenhouses currently are is going to become retail outlets.

Setting the record straight: This one is actually true—well, most of it, anyway. Lovely Hula Hands is moving into the old florist shop and plans to be open in the new location by October 1. Sarah Minnick, one of the restaurant owners, says that their current home has already been bought up by another restaurant, although she doesn’t know which one. Lovely Hula Hands now jointly owns the greenhouse land with development company BCMC Properties. Bryan McLean, owner of BCMC, says, “It’s too early to tell at this point” what will be going into that space, but he hasn’t heard the rumor that the greenhouses are moving: “These greenhouses are in bad shape,” he explains, adding that they’ve been around since at least the 1920s and have DDT and other pesticides in their soil.

BOISE LAND USE REVIEWS
Owners of the property at 3510 NE MLK have entered the design review process for a mixed use two story development and two separate structures on the property. Their development will contain seven residential units.

Lorenzo’s, at 3807 N Mississippi, is looking to expand their liquor selection. They have applied for Full On premises sales license (which allows the sale of distilled spirits, malt beverages, beer, wine and cider for consumption on the premises. If you are aware of any existing problems or concerns at this location, please contact Kimberly Mark-Villela at 503-823-3092by May 4th, 2006.

Neighbors may also wonder what will be become of the old Kelly Tires lot (1 N Fremont), which is being redeveloped by the Kaiser Group. They will be building Backbridge Station and Backbridge Lofts on the site. The developers describe the Station as “the long missing link between the residential neighborhoods of the Northeast to the hip Mississippi/Interstate Corridors.” The Lofts will be a mix of high-end condos and rentals, a total of 32 units. They are slated to start construction “Spring 2006.” — review compiled by bht

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN
Hello, I look forward to seeing this printed in next month's issue. While I should be thanking you for putting the effort in to getting the paper back into circulation, I must say it gave me a bit of a sick feeling in my stomach. The articles about the new development on Mississippi and about the drug free zone elicit a deep fear in me that someone is using a community newspaper to push a very personal agenda. Is this unfair? While those of you who wrote the articles clearly have strong personal feelings about these developments, the opinions voiced at the last community meeting were much more mixed/nuanced both for and against these things. Please, for the sake of honesty and the good of the neighborhood, if you are stating an opinion (eg. expressing the feeling "I don't like the new building being planned") identify it as an opinion, and for goodness sake identify yourself and what your geographic or other relationship to the issue is, and how you may or may not represent the other members of this neighborhood. At the last neighborhood meeting, strong nuanced support as well as strong reservations were voiced about both drugfree zones and the 4 story development , and it is a misuse of the community trust to not represent this when reporting on the issues in the community newspaper. And as for the drug free zone, and your stating that 98% of those excluded are black. Well, if let's say 98% of those with drug arrests in this neighborhood are black (this is for the sake of argument; I have no idea what the numbers are) then the percentage of people who thereby are on the exclusion list will also be african american, right? I mean, unless some other people from other ethnicities volunteer to be excluded just to balance things out, who else do you expect to be on the list? Now, if only 40% of those with drug arrests are black, and yet still 98% of those exluded were black, that would be racism. I mean, come on! I don't think my statistics coursework gives me any unique ability to understand this. We don't expect you volunteers to be schooled in balanced professional journalism, and apologies if I'm out of line here, but please hear these concerns if there is any validity to them. The value of the neighborhood association and the community newspaper is greatly diminished with precedings are fair, balanced, factual and transparent.

christopher davies
3820 N Haight
resident 5 years.