In the Neighborhood Associations this Week

Neighborly! A Church with a Vegetable Garden on the Corner

Several neighborhood associations meet this week, and the provisional minutes for June meetings and agendas for July contain some interesting items.

SCAN

At June's meeting SCAN learned the hospital's plan for a parking lot at the Blind School is stalled. They started, but tabled more conversation about Bike and Walk Salem. (Maybe new board member Curt or Carel can fill us in on that?)

They meet July 11, at 6:30 p.m., Calvary Baptist Church, 1230 Liberty Street SE.

Morningside

Morningside NA meets Wednesday, July 11th at 6:30 p.m., Pringle Creek Community Painters Hall, 3911 Village Center Drive SE. On the agenda is the Fairview Refinement Plan.

Grant

The minutes for the June 7th meeting contains this interesting paragraph and the Neighborhood Association supported the "no build" bridge alternative:

Cara reviewed the information in the EIS on the multiple alternatives for the proposed solution to the river crossing. No economic impact to downtown was considered. Only one option included bike and pedestrian options. One other public comment made note of the fact that ODOT’s data of the number of bridge crossings has been decreasing over the past 5 years. Concerns were raised about Salem becoming a by-pass town, still suffering from the traffic load, but with no benefits from it. Questions were asked about the true purpose of the crossing – was it just a remedy to get Portlanders to the casino at Grand Ronde and to the coast since the Dundee by-pass plan is falling apart? Neighbors felt that all of the options had too much impact. Comments were made that state workers, who are probably the biggest impact on our commuter traffic, will not drive a mile north to cross the river. Many were concerned about the impact of the long stretches of raised highway to both neighborhoods and aesthetics. Destruction of the main street area of Edgewater and Market streets was another concern along with the fact that the options still continue to funnel traffic right back to the bottleneck in West Salem. There appears to be no payment option except placing tolls on all of the river crossings. Chris moved that “We submit a letter stating our preference of the “No-Build” option, with a delineated list of our concerns.”...Vote was 7 in favor, 0 opposed.

There's also some interesting historic preservation and redevelopment activity.

The Grant NA meets Thursday, July 12th at 6:15 p.m., Broadway Commons Keizer Room (205), 1300 Broadway St. NE.

SESNA

SESNA meets Thursday, July 12th at 7:00 p.m., Richmond Park, 540 Richmond Street SE. Councilor Tesler is scheduled to attend and talk about the apartments on 23rd street.