Booster News Volume 76 Number 4 April 2010

In this issue:

• PTA president predicts Grant High will remain open
• Schools to consider redesign
• My turn
• May Lady Luck be with you
• Don't miss out on the News
• World disasters point to local need to prepare
• Crime reporting goes online
• Lookforitlocally.com offers free publicity
• Please don't let this keep happening here
• 2010 Hollywood Boosters Board of Directors

PTA president predicts Grant High will remain open

Scott Overton, Grant PTA President
Scott Overton, Grant PTA President
According to Scott Overton, Grant High School parent teacher association president, little is known about what will result from Portland Public School District’s upcoming efforts to redesign the high school program.
 
“This lack of details is driving everybody crazy,” he said at the March Hollywood Boosters meeting. “Everybody lets their imaginations run.” Rumors range from closing Grant to making it a “focus” school, to reducing its student population by sending some students elsewhere.
 
Rumors like that are not isolated to the Grant area, according to Scott. “Because it’s not even clear what schools are being considered to be closed, people figure theirs is going to be closed. The real answer is there is no answer.”
 
Rumors sprang from staff discussions and research about making high schools more comparable by providing equal opportunities for students and assuring equal distribution of students.
 
“This resolution [passed by March 8 by the school board] is not going to answer any questions,” Scott said.
 
“Although a lot of staff time has been spent on this, the board hasn’t really been engaged until the past couple of months.”
 
Scott didn’t predict what changes Grant may undergo. But he doesn’t think it will close. Why?
 
Grant has 1,610 students, while Jefferson has 400 and the district staff is reported to believe 1,100 is optimum. Grant has a strong PTA, while others like Marshall and Roosevelt have none.
 
And Grant has strong support of the Hollywood business district and the Grant residential community.
 
“The PTA, community involvement is a very important part to successful education,” he pointed out.
 
“The board will not have enough votes to close Grant High School. It’s been politicked enough and that’s pretty clear. But that probably was never the intention. The fear is that they could.”

My turn

Greg Mistell, Hollywood Boosters President
Greg Mistell, Hollywood Boosters President
April is when Hollywood shines. Trees are covered with blossoms, daffodils and tulips grow in places you don’t expect. When the sun is out, shoppers and merchants have a bounce to their steps — the weary grays and browns of winter are replaced by the pastels and water colors of spring.
 
If there are 1,352 guitars pickers in Nashville, there must be at least that many 500-pound planters in Hollywood. I walked home on a sunny March afternoon to check some of them out.
 
Going up Sandy, I felt encouraged — someone is giving some planters a little bit of love. Some had perennial bushes planted that continued to fulfill their purpose. Many others had dead brush — maybe last year’s marigolds. Last year’s water colors after another gray Sandy Boulevard winter. I counted seven planters in front of Starbucks alone.
 
I wondered to myself: Who “owns” the planters? Who owns the sidewalks? Who is responsible for the garbage on the streets? The graffiti on the walls?
 
Not meaning to (I was trying to stick to planters), I found myself paying attention to the trees along Sandy. The earth next to the trees was overgrown with weeds. Litter stuck to the dusty brambles. I came across a planter that had nothing growing in it. The soil was lifeless. An empty red grocery cart from Grocery Outlet was resting against it.
 
I looked up when a delivery truck honked at a car that had swerved around a bus that had stopped for passengers. The traffic roared down Sandy toward the freeway. A piece of dirty newspaper blew in the wind and landed at my feet.
 
I gazed across the street at the vacant lot next to the theatre looking for daffodils.
— Greg Mistell, Hollywood Boosters president,
     Fleur de Lis

May Lady Luck be with you

Casino Night Fund Raiser
Casino Night Fund Raiser
The Hollywood Boosters Casino Night is Thursday, April 22, from 6 to 9 p.m. at 42nd Street Station, 2000 N.E. 42nd Ave. Food and prizes are donated by Boosters and proceeds are used to support Booster projects. Call Paul Clark at 503-281-8891 to make donations, volunteer and to purchase tickets — $12 apiece or $10 apiece for two or more.

World disasters point to local need to prepare

Every business and home should have an emergency kit to last each employee or occupant at least 72 hours.
Every business and home should have an emergency kit to last each employee or occupant at least 72 hours.
Haiti, Chile, Indonesia. Japan. They all have something in common — earthquakes hit them in the first quarter of 2010. The devastation has the attention of the world and prompts communities everywhere to examine their own emergency preparedness.
 
That’s why leaders of the Laurelhurst Neighborhood Emergency Team were invited to the
March Hollywood Boosters meeting.
 
Ed Rentz and Mac McCawley volunteer through the Portland Fire Department as first responders in their neighborhood, which includes the Hollywood District.
 
They are trained in rescue, triage, first aid, victim extraction, fighting small fires and utility safety. Since they cannot be everywhere at once during an emergency, they seek out opportunities like the Boosters meeting to alert residents and business people how to prepare to take care of themselves in:

• Earthquakes
• Floods
• Volcano eruptions
• Snow/ice storms
• Wind storms
 
Ed believes — and so do other emergency planners — that a severe earthquake is in Portland’s future. The Vancouver subduction zone — from Vancouver Island, B.C., south into California — is due for one that could register as high as 9 on the Richter scale for the Oregon coast and 7 or 7.1 in Portland.
 
He said the shaking will be 46 seconds at that intensity, so it will cause a lot of damage.
 
He emphasized the disaster triangle:
• Make a plan — and practice it
• Build a survival kit — and store it where it’s accessible
• Get trained — and join the neighborhood emergency response team
 
For details on all three elements of the triangle, visit www.portlandonline.com and type “Office of Emergency Management” into the search engine.
 
“In a disaster, safety is going to have to be everybody’s responsibility,” Ed said. “Don’t bet your life that somebody else will take care of you.”

"Lookforitlocally.com" offers free publicity

Visit www.lookforitlocally.com for a new Web site designed to connect Portland shoppers with locally-owned stores.
 
Users can search by store name, address or items they are looking for. Currently the site has about 125 stores listed. To be truly helpful to local store owners and shoppers, it must have many more stores listed and more details added.
 
There is no advertising on the site and there is no charge to be listed. The creator has chosen to manage the site as a service to local stores and local shoppers. The hope is that it will grow and become a comprehensive resource for people who want to support locally-owned stores.
 
For details, e-mail Julia Grzywinski at jgrzy@hotmail.com.
— APNBA News Source

Please don't let this keep happening here

Help keep Hollywood Clean
Help keep Hollywood Clean
The district’s 91 planters aren’t alone in needing some TLC. So are the planted areas in Hollywood sidewalks and littered areas in the gutters. If you can’t join Hollywood Clean Up every second Sunday of May, June, July, August, September and October — and even if you can — Hollywood Boosters is counting on you to keep the area around your business tidy and inviting. For ideas on how to help, call Kim Cottrell, Hollywood Clean Up chair, and speech pathologist and Feldenkrais practitioner, at 503-890-6865.

2010 Hollywood Boosters Board of Directors

Greg Mistell, Fleur de Lis Bakery and Cafe, gregmistell@comcast.net
Jan Tolman, Jan And…, jan_and555@msn.com
Brett Kucera, Tony Starlight’s Supperclub-Lounge,
tonystarlight@hotmail.com
Mary Wohler, Able Business & Tax Service LLC, mary@abletx.net
Ellen Bergstone, Film Action Oregon, ellen@filmaction.org
John Perkins, Perkins Architectural, jwp@perkinsarch.com
Paul Clark, Township Properties, township@qwestoffice.net
Patrick F. Donaldson, Forbes & Associates Inc., pfdforbes@aol.com
Mark Halvorsen, Edward Jones, mark.halvorsen@edwardjones.com
Jeff Hurder, Albina Community Bank, jhurder@albinabank.com
Amber Kern Johnson, Hollywood Senior Center, amber.kernjohnson@hollywoodseniorcenter.com
Kimberly McCulloch, Sterling Savings Bank, kimberly.mcculloch@sterlingsavings.com
Linda Seals, Posh Designs, linda@poshdesigns.biz
Send news, questions and advertisements to: navcommunications@earthlink.net.
 
Visit our Web site at www.hollywoodboosters.com.