What SOME Lake Oswegans want

Choice comments from the 12/01/2014 Oregonian article, Urban renewal boundary changes could benefit big names in real estate.

As you read the article and comments, think about how urban renewal plays out in Lake Oswego with LO being a small-time version of Portland.  Some Lake Oswegans, staff, elected officials and developers have similar plans for our city and are loathe to give up the urban renewal kitty - tax dollars they don't have to ask citizens to pay for.   There are a LOT more projects on the Redevelopmnt list for downtown, and if the Foothills URA is ever reconstituted... Watch out!  People's careers, influence and fortunes are at stake, and your wallet is fueling their gain.

USC NOTE:  Urban renewal is corporate welfare with crony capitalism thrown in on top.  Developers should risk their own money and pay their own way.  Where there is money and power, there will be corruption.  Can't happen here?  How would you know?

*
Portland Mayor Charlie Hales and aide Gail Shibley                                                                                                                       

     

Portland Mayor Charlie Hales' year-long plan to rewire the city's urban renewal districts – aka, its sometimes-ATMs – is nearing completion.   

Brad Schmidt - The Oregonian

Comments:

Gardener Menefee:  In the absence of any capacity for reform of our inadequate, unrepresentative mode of city governance, the voters of Portland must continue to oppose the short-sighted proposals advanced by the mercenary staffs of the curious entity referred to as the City of Portland, including their elected, impulsive cheerleaders.

salanie: Those big boys have plenty of money. We could use our tax dollars for other things. 

Bojack:  "Even" Dan Saltzman?  Gee, Brad, that makes it sound as 
if he isn't already scarfing down voraciously at the public trough.  Do some homework.  Can you say "light rail and streetcars through my property"?  How about "fat Tri-Met office lease"?  As for Hales, he's always been a prostitute for the real estate tycoons; this is what they bought and paid for when they got him elected.  
Portland City Hall is a truly hopeless den of financial vipers.  Corruption, legal and illegal, at every turn.  But the voters don't ever see it.  Maybe the local mainstream media has failed to do its job?  Just a theory

Tea Tea:  I find it interesting that the "districts" are now defined on a building-by-building basis, and that somehow these names come up as interested parties.   The whole thing stinks   Some of these properties should be improved (or not improved) on their own merit without public money.  

Jay Frazier:  The headline ought to read Urban Renewal District changes will most definitely benefit big names in real estate instead. It is all a scam.

letusbe:  Tens of millions of dollars are diverted from the tax roles and used by PDC as corporate welfare. Were we to sunset the Urban Renewal Districts there would be no need for a street tax. Jordan and Goodman don't need out tax money. They have plenty of their own.

Density at ANY cost?

Density is a dirty word to a growing number of Metro area residents.  Clackastanis, followed by residents in Washington County and Portland are pushing back on Metro's (Smart?) urban growth plans.  The plans have had the effect of limitting housing choices, increasing housing costs, and tearing apart the fabric of existing neighborhoods with destructive infill and limited parking.  A lot of these planning principles are hitting Lake Oswego, and residents here too are angry and split over how growth should look.

Here are three Portland Tribune articles on urban growth published just this week. These stories are becoming more common as discontent spreads throughout the region.  But first read Dr. Gerry Mildner's report: Density at Any Cost as the basis for all reactions to Metro Plans. (Link also at bottom.)

The message needs to get to our Blue State Legislature that the people are uneasy and want and out of the social experiment called urban planning.  Whatever the profession used to be, it isn't the same now - arrogance and ideology trump human nature and quality of life.

Sure planners and urban idealogues say they like the idea of Smart Growth, but when the accumulated effects of this theoretical planning destroy the livibility of the Portland region, expect these people to opt for a new home leaving the rest of us to live with their mess. How many urban planners live in the Beaverton Round?  Or any similar TOD?  No, that's for the masses - for us.

Hit the pause button.  You already know what the citizens want.  Make it happen.  If the problem is in Salem - go to Salem.

December 04, 2014

Planners, neighbors spar over mixed-use zones in comp plan

by Jim Redden

Officials reluctant to delay vote until details are ironed out Portland planners have released concepts of four new mixed-use zones where most growth is expected to occur during the next 20…

December 03, 2014

Region's mayors question Metro's density plan

by Jim Redden 

Ad-hoc organization pushes back on housing shift An informal organization representing the region's mayors is questioning whether a proposal to increase density will work — or whether it will…
(Way to go Kent!)

December 02, 2014

Expert: More density in Portland will drive up housing costs

by Jim Redden

PSU real estate professor says Metro assumptions are flawed Regional plans to increase density will drive up housing costs, burden the poor and cost local governments billions they do not have,…

Metro's growth report blasted

PSU's Dr. Mildner's assessment of Metro's Irban Growth Report is scathing.  It's an important document for every citizen and policy maker to read - it can and should change some minds.

Home Builders Association of Portland, December 2, 2014  By emilyz
PSU Center for Real Estate blasts Metro's Growth Report

http://hbapdx.org/2014/12/psu-center-real-estate-blasts-metros-growth-report/

Gerry Mildner, head of the Center for Real Estate at Portland State University,  reviewed Metro’s recently-released Urban Growth Report (UGR).  His review and research is now final, and can be viewed here.

Dr. Mildner has analyzed Metro’s UGR and discusses the serious problems with it.  The compelling and significant conclusions, include: 

• Metroscope is not a forecasting model, but a population and job assignment model that doesn’t take into account the cost for developing at higher densities
• Metro has produced an unsubstantiated housing production forecastthe amount of housing price increases required by Metroscope to fit growth within the current UGB is staggering and would cause Portland to rise to the 4^th least affordable metro market in the Country over the next 20 years the large projected housing costs disproportionately affect low income households
• Metro’s growth proposal creates a huge unfunded government mandate in transportation subsidies and subsidies to develop high-density housing
• Metro’s plans are based on perceived harm to the climate/environment which are unsubstantiated and actually would be made worse if Metro’s plans ultimately push economic dev’t out of our region
• Metro’s plans would significantly increase commute times
• Metro’s plans assume a huge downshift in auto usage and increase in public transportation, even though no such shift has occurred over the last 20 years (despite significant investments)

Dr. Mildner has sent this report to the Metro Council.  It is also being published in the well-read PSU Center for Real Estate Quarterly available online at www.pdx.edu/realestate/center-for-real-estate-quarterly.  An article reviewing the findings in The Oregonian is anticipated.

Portland from on high

Aerial view of Portland
The Oregonian, July 20, 2012
Photographer/Pilot: Jamie Francis

Oregonian photographer Jamie Francis took to the air Friday to photograph a variety of images from a helicopter.  Use link above to view photo essay.   

Streetcar fantasy off track

U.S. effort to help build homegrown streetcar manufacturer falls short 
Washington Post, November 29, 2014  By Michael Laris

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, left, speaks at the unveiling of an American-made prototype streetcar in Portland, Ore., on July 1, 2009. Standing in the background, from left, are Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), then-Gov. Ted Kulongoski and Rep. Peter A. DeFazio (D-Ore.) (Don Ryan/Associated Press)

Early in President Obama’s first term, transportation secretary Ray LaHood traveled to Portland, Ore., stood before American workers in red, white and blue hard hats and made a pitch for their gleaming back-to-the-future product.

“These are the first streetcars to be manufactured in America in nearly 60 years,” LaHood told the cheering crowd in 2009. “This is the dawn of a new era for public transportation in the United States, a new opportunity to claim ‘Made in America.’ That is a great thing to be able to say!”

Company executives and their patrons greatly overestimated the size of the market they could capture and underestimated the difficulty of starting a homegrown streetcar business from scratch. Executives hoped to sell 10 or 15 of the 8-by-66-foot vehicles each year and create hundreds of new jobs as communities embraced a national streetcar revival. The company’s president at the time, Chandra Brown, set her gaze further. “One day, we can’t wait to be exporting these cars,” she said during another LaHood visit in 2011.

Instead, the company built just 18 streetcars for three customers — the District, Tucson and Portland — and was late delivering them to all three cities. There are no new orders, and the facility built to produce up to 24 streetcars a year is dormant after the last Portland car was shipped out Nov. 21. Some workers have been laid off, others have been reassigned to United Streetcar’s parent company, Oregon Iron Works, which builds bridges and boats.

"..we figured out how to pull together all these American resources* and American people to,build a very nice streetcar, and we don't have the orders to build more," said Clarke.

*

Clackamas County taxpayers spent millions in financial incentives to OIW for job creation and business generation. The love affair with streetcar and light rail transportation was spearheaded by Earl Blumenauer and supported by local politicians including:
-  Judie Hammersted - former director of Portland Streetcar, Inc.  The City of Portland contracts with Portland Streetcar, Inc. to construct and operate the Streetcar system. Portland Streetcar, Inc. is a private non-profit corporation.
-  Ann Lininger - voted for a package of benefits for Oregon Iron Works just before the end of her term as Clackamas County Commissioner.  She received campaign money from OIW, and went to work for the company immediately after leaving office.  

The disappearing wetlands

Kruse Development LLC asks for and gets 4-year extension on development agreement.

The original agreement was crafted in 1999 with Clackamas County and covered development on the south side of Meadows Rd.  In 1999 the property was in the county and the county signed off on plans for building 4 large office buildings (Kruse Oaks I, II, III, and IV) three buildings were completed.  Now Kruse Development LLC

would like the original agreement with Clackamas County to be homered so they could proceed with their plans to finish their 4-part development.  

In 2005 the area west of Carmen up to the freeway was annexed into the city.  At that time the city extended the development agreement until December 31, 2014.  With the agreement set to expire at the end of the year, the developers needed to get this thing renewed.  Why?  Why not just use city development standards?  

Sensitive Lands.  

Nobody wants them.  Everyone knows what a burden they are and how they devalue private property.  Sensitive Lands regulations are a noose around property owners' necks that they didn't bargain for when they purchased their home in the trees, or the commercial property with 2 streams, 1 wetland and a tree grove on it.  

Kruse Development (KD) would like to avoid the Sensitive Lands regulations that cover a large portion of the vacant building site.  Who can blame them?  What should the city do?

The 1999 agreement with Clackamas County did not address protections for the 2 streams and  wetlands area on the site.  A surface water detention pond had been built in the middle of Meadows Creek where the native wetlands once were.  The pond receives surface water runoff from the parking lots in the development.  In pond section drawings there is no indication of any system, mechanical or biological, to clean the polluted water it receives.  Tragically, this situation has been left in place for another 4 years and will become permanent if construction is done within the agreement time frame.

Q and A:  

Wasn't there something the City Council could have done to make this situation better?   

Yes. 

Isn't it the job of the planning staff, that oversees all components of the Sensitive Lands program, to point out problems and suggest conditions for approval?nto the Council?  

Yes.

This could have been a win-win for everyone including the public.  One idea was to require the developer, as a condition for approval of a building permit, that they restore the wetlands and create a system for filtering and cleaning storm water runoff.  Instead of a stream-fed, polluted hole in the ground, this site could have been so much more.  Perhaps there is an opportunity to amend the agreement or maybe KD will be environmentally sensitive and remediate the wetland and streams on their own.  

Where was the planning staff in all of this?  If this was a homeowner trying to deal with restrictions on their land, staff would be all over them, and there are plenty of examples to prove this.  People who own large tracts with trees and/or wetlands have no opportunity for reasonable development or compromise.  The City Council approved another round of changes to the Sensitive Lands program last night, and though some very bad rules have been lightened, the quantity and minutia of regulations are astounding. KD could never have developed under these guidelines.  The trees and water may be the same from property to property, but how property owners are treated is far from equal.
Why?
What will Metro say about removing Sensitive Lands from the Meadows Rd. property, either on the map or by development?  Will the designation be left in place for show while the development follows different rules?  Hmmm.  Can homeowners do this too?  You know - have SL regulations on their land, and then ignore them with the city's blessing?
Why not?

Money and power.  Big developers with land use attorneys and other resources can fight city hall more effectively than a single homeowner.  And as a commenter pointed out, the developer of a large office building will bring in more in taxes than a lowly homeowner. Who should City Hall put first?

Your answer here: ___________________________________________________________
Your comments on this blog are always welcome!  

Hitting a single, but no score

City Council recovers from strikeout on November 18 and gets to base in a re-do last night.  However, the team did not score in the inning.

The LORA meeting last night was so Councilor Skip O'Neill could state his conflict of interest and remove himself from all discussion and voting on the lease for Wishbone Home and Design in a LORA-owned building at 41 B Ave..  After a prompt from City Attorney David Powell, O'Neill declared his bias in the matter: He revealed that both his wife and daughter share interest in Wishbone.  He should have revealed this at the May 20 LOTW meeting when the initial lease was approved - at the last minute - with no paperwork available for the Council.  O'Neill's ignorance of ethical behavior in public office, or his forgetfulness in 2 meetings (May and Nov.) is inexcusable.

It was encouraging to see that the Mayor and Council members questioned LORA administrator, Brant Williams, about how LORA property in the North Anchor Blocks is handled.  They also asked how businesses might rent the vacant spaces.  Unfortunately, Mr. Williams replied that the process is for interested parties to come to him. Where

is the "For Lease" sign on any of the vacant spaces?  Can we have a policy about this please?!

We need the Council to be more inquisitive.  We need them to lift the veil and see how the city conducts the public's business.  Even if everything is aboveboard and well functioning, it doesn't mean there should not be changes in policy direction and management or operational practices.  There isn't any organization that can't use a periodic independent evaluation.

We need an audit.  The City of Portland has an in-house auditor, but it is a huge city and needs one.  Lake Oswego could get a check-up once a year using an outside firm.  The city should have its practices and finances tested to make sure all is running at peak efficiency.  This has nothing to do with doubting personnel services. It is about the Council's fiduciary obligation to make sure our city is functioning in the best manner possible. Trust but verify.

Last night the City Council did what it should have done 2 weeks ago:  Council members should state conflicts of interest and ask lots of questions of staff!

The home team needs more seasoning to deal with the curve balls, sliders, sinkers, and fast balls that are constantly being thrown at them.  If the team keeps looking at every pitch as if it were just for them so they could make home runs, the game of city politics will not be worth watching because the outcome would already be known.  This team needs an early Spring Training to figure out how to get what it wants from city staff - and a thorough audit would be a good place to start!

Metro seeks input on natural areas

 Land banking is what governments do when they purchase property without knowing how it will be used.  The practice is not without controversy, but in an area where the state has restricted land uses and population is growing, land becomes more expensive and purchase in advance of need becomes important.  It's a good thing that Metro will not keep the land locked up but will make it available to the taxpayers who paid for it - for their own use and enjoyment.  

 

Public input wanted on how Metro should use natural areas
The Oregonian, December 2, 2014  By Stephanie Yao Young

Voters helped to put four separate natural areas in the North Tualatin Mountains in the public domain, thanks to Metro bond measures passed over the years. Now, the public is invited to give input about how that land will be used.  

The areas are former timber land containing a network of old logging roads. They are the Burlington Creek Forest, McCarthy Creek Forest, Ennis Creek Forest and North Abbey Creek Natural Area. Along with currently restoring native habitat, the regional government wants to hear from neighbors as well as recreational users to know why people visit the area, what they do there and what brings them back.

[Dan] Moeller says some uses he knows about in the area are hiking, mountain biking and horseback riding. With four completely separate parcels of land encompassing 1,300 acres, he thinks there is room to care for the habitat while carefully planning opportunities for people to enjoy it.

There will be two more meetings, in the spring and summer of 2015. Online comments also accepted here: https://naturalareas.wufoo.com/forms/


Metro hopes to have a comprehensive plan in place by the fall of 2015.

Frozen crystals

Oregonian photographer, Benjamin Brink's photos of ice on December 1 in Washington County.  See the photo gallery on the Oregonian website.

The Oregonian
December 2, 2014  By Benjamin Brink

 

 

Smart new blog in LO

Keeping score in Lake Oswego

A new blog, Lake Oswego Scorecord, has been operating less than 2 weeks, but has great promise to shed light on what is going on in the city.  Bookmark this one!  

Having more eyes on City politics is a good thing.  I have been researching issues and following City, Metro and other Government and Agency activities for several years and am still learning.  It is a mystery to most people how the system really works.  What the public reads in the paper or hears from friends only covers a tiny piece of the pie.  We need more pie!  

"Light and liberty go together." 
             --Thomas Jefferson to Tench Coxe, 1795.

"No nation is permitted to live in ignorance with impunity." 
             --Thomas Jefferson: Virginia Board of Visitors Minutes, 1821. ME 19:408 

LORA Meeting tonight to discuss lease

LORA tries it again.  

The Lake Oswego Redevelopment Agency (LORA) will meet tonight to discuss the lease of. LORA-owned property to Wishbone Home and Design.  See prior post:  "City property for rent"

USC hopes Wishbone Home and Design has spectacular success and will remain in Lake Oswego after the North Anchor Block is developed.  Independently-owned businesses are what make a town unique and make the downtown area worth going to.  I want to extend my congratulations to this fledgling business and all small businesses.  It is becoming increasingly difficult to be entrepreneurial these days, so all who try are to be congratulated for their guts and vision.

USC is only interested in how city property is used, who might benefit, conflicts of interest, and having a policy that puts citizens' needs and wants first in all things, large and small.  

If you can't make it to city hall to attend the City Council or LORA meeting tonight, the meeting is available on cable TV (CH. 23) and streaming live on the internet. Past meetings of the Coty Council and planning Commission are available as digital files on the city website:  See the Meeting Minutes and Agendas for the date you want and the recording will appear on the left.  Click on the item you wish to watch.  Archived meetings are also available on the Tualatin Vally Cable website.

Use link to read Board Report.   Excerpt:

As you might recall, this month-to-month lease rate is the same rate as the one previously negotiated with Connectechs for the newly leased space at 33 B Avenue located on the east side of Gourmet Productions. The Board subsequently approved a month-to-month lease extension on November 18, 2014. The Board Chair has asked that this extension be presented to the Board for re-approval to provide an opportunity for conflicts to be declared. 

AGENDA  Redevelopment Agency Tuesday, December, 2, 2014 09:45 p.m.

---

Contact: Email: Phone:

Also published on the internet at: www.ci.oswego.or.us 

The meeting location is accessible to persons with disabilities. To request accommodations, please contact City Staff, 48 hours before the meeting. 

---

1.	CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL

2.	BOARD BUSINESS

2.1	Approval of 41 B Avenue Lease Motion: Move to re-approve the month-to-month lease of 41 B Avenue to Wishbone Home & Design, in place of the approval granted on November 18, 2014.

2.1 Board Report 

3.	ADJOURNMENT

Lying with Pictures

You don't need photoshop to lie with images.

In articles about Climate Change (Global Warming, Climate Disturbance, Global Cooling, etc.), One can see how alarmists use images to sell their story.  Propaganda of all types often use exaggeration for effect - to minimize opposing views and exaggerate the worth of their own.

I ran across the following images from the "Ecocity Builders" website where I discovered the top two images that are clearly exaggerated forms of story-telling.  Ecocity is a non-profit group that wants to transform the world through how man interacts with the built and natural environment. In the first image one can see how Ecocity (and other planners) would move all humans out of the suburbs and exurbs into urban areas in order to reclaim agricultural, natural and wild areas.  These ideas aren't new.  In some plans, humans would not be allowed back into the natural areas - just nature in the neighborhood.

This is Denver.  The left side shows how the city has developed over the last century, and the right side shows the city's transformation to a more eco-friendly design favored by Smart Growth advocates.  Who would want to live in the gray, lifeless world on the left?  In comparison, we should all want to be in the lively, prettier places on the right.  Right where they want you - well, maybe not in the suburban neighborhood!

Left: Existing Denver area zoning map in black and white and too small to explain what one is seeing, and no relationship to right image.
Right: Digital, larger, image with artificial colors  "Eco-City" design (similar to Smart Growth) that clearly shows design elements.

Left: Through an airplane window - image is obscured by thick airplane window glass and distance (atmosphere.). Dull.
Right: Digital image with artificial, enhanced coloring. Pretty.

    Left: Winter: brown, lifeless. Right: Summer: Green, alive.

Top: Dark foreboding, no snow covered mountains in the background, lots of shadows.
Bottom: Beauty shot, bright colors, clear cays,
bright colors, appealing. Not like the same landscape as the airplane-window shot at all.

Silbo

Canary Islands - 

Where phones and computers are a disease.

In a Word

tongue-shot
n. speaking or talking distance, voice-range

Inhabitants of La Gomera, a small mountainous island in the Canary group, use a whistled language called the Silbo to communicate over great distances. “This is a form of telephony inferior to ours as regards range, but superior to it in so far as the only apparatus required is a sound set of teeth and a good pair of lungs,” noted Glasgow University phoneticist André Classe in New Scientist in 1958. “The normal carrying power is up to about four kilometres when conditions are good, over twice as much in the case of an exceptional whistler operating under the most favourable circumstances.”

The Futility Closet

Free speech: Science or ideology?

There is a phrase in the video about judges and juries, when hearing technical, scientific arguments, might make decisions based on popular beliefs rather than science.  This is how the court of public opinion and government operates today.  Free speech needs to be protected so that no matter the topic, no matter what side one is on, the truth can be told.
  
Opinion Journal:
Is Questioning Climate Change Illegal? 
Wall Street Journal November 25, 2014   
Video interview.
  
Author Mark Steyn explains why Penn State climate scientist Michael Mann is suing him for alleged defamation.

More government, more favoritism

Tensions are building that a return to a bigger city government and more spending is in the near future.  There is talk of expantion of urban renewal and a resurrected streetcar (it is still on Metro's wish list as a project on hold).  While these are still in the rumor stages, the size and scope of the North Anchor Blocks development will be an indicator of what might be coming: how much, how big?  And most of all, who will benefit from government spending?  Public money = crony capitalism.   

Americans Not Enjoying Era of Big Government
Wall Street Journal, November 20, 2014  
By James Freeman 

After historic spending surge, most say the system is stacked against them

According to the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, a full 56% of Americans agree with this statement: "The economic and political systems in the country are stacked against people 
like me." This disillusionment index has been 
rising for more than a decade and coincides with an explosion in 
the size of the federal government.

As John Cochrane suggests in our pages today, less government means people can get rich by starting companies and developing new products; more government enables people to get rich through 
political favoritism. In the era of the Beltway boom, no wonder so many people feel the deck is stacked against them.

Give thanks for private property and the marvel of America

THANKSgiving

Two essays for Thanksgiving Day:.   

Thankful for Private Property

Wall Street Journal, Asian Ed., November 26, 2014

Today Americans celebrate one of the year’s major holidays, Thanksgiving Day. It commemorates the harvest feasts of the first Pilgrim immigrants who arrived from England in 1620. But as Governor William Bradford wrote in his history of the Plymouth Colony, the settlers initially shared in common the land and the work of cultivation, and as a result the first two harvests were meager. In 1623 scarcity gave way to plenty, because the settlers divided up the land into private plots and cultivated it individually. It is to that year that we date the first true Thanksgiving. The following is an excerpt from Bradford’s “History of Plymouth Plantation”:

And the Fair Land   

Wall Street Journal

Updated November 26, 2014

This essay has run continuously since 1961.

...We can remind ourselves that for all our social discord we yet remain the longest enduring society of free men governing themselves without benefit of kings or dictators. Being so, we are the  marvel and the mystery of the world, for that enduring liberty is no less a blessing than the abundance of the earth....

How to put on the pounds. Mmmmmm...

  

get out the walking shoes!

Check out this website BEFORE you eat that turkey dinner.  I apologize if this takes some of the fun out of the holiday, but I will probably enjoy my dinner and just walk a bit more this week.  Stuffing, mmmmmm!

Thanksgiving Calorie Counter

How many steps and what distance must you walk to walk off that Thanksgiving dinner?

Suburbs don't make you fat

Your bacteria may be making you fat!

You see it everywhere - the propaganda that living in the suburbs is inherently unhealthy.  It's bad for the environment and it's bad for people.  Because people in the suburbs are dependent on cars, they don't get enough exercise walking and biking in a more "vibrant" town center or more dense neighborhoods built around neighborhood villages.  People have become obese because they drive everywhere.

But wait!  

I grew up in the suburbs, and obesity was rare.  It isn't the suburbs - the physical layout of houses and where shopping and services are located - fat is caused by something else.  So far the obesity culprits (never mentioned by Central Planners) are:

• Stress, anxiety, depression, lack of sleep
• Fast food, convenience food, eating out
• Abundance of store-bought food, but little time to grow and cook food at home
• Snack food and sugary drinks/sodas
• Latchkey kids who have to stay indoors
• Computers, video games, TV and other sedentary activities
• Busy lives - adults all working, few stay-at-home wives or husbands
• Parents pick their kids up from school or kids drive - kids don't walk home

None of these conditions existed when I was growing up - in the suburbs - except a few kids had cars in high school.  Life is different now, and people are fatter.  Humans weren't made to live a modern lifestyle.
Now we have one more cause to add to the list: gut bacteria.  This is fascinating research - here is a great article and video from the Wall Street Journal.  This is a cautionary tale about using too many antibiotics and antibiotics in food, but you can't blame the suburbs and cars.

People still walk and ride bikes in the suburbs.  In fact, people living in suburbs are healthier than people in either urban or rural environments.  So next time someone tries to blame obesity on the suburbs or driving cars, tell them to go take a walk - and go research their "facts."

(P.S. People in Europe and Scandinavia where most live in dense, urban areas are getting fatter too - they just have a long way to go to catch up to America.)

How to change city codes?

City codes:  If you don't like them,
 change them.

*

Thoughts Regarding the Wizer Block
By Mayor Kent Studebaker

Excerpts from the Mayor's monthly column in the city's newsletter, the November, 2014 Hello LO, .

Certainly, as individuals we may have had personal opinions about the pros and cons of the development but as members of your Council, we are tasked with making an objective decision based on our City Codes.

From a strictly legal standpoint, once LORA had approved the project, the decision by Council had a framework – the City Code.  If I had decided that was not enough, it would put me in a position to be subjectively judging the appropriateness of any development project. A number of people felt subjectivity would be desirable for this project. But here I have to caution – be careful what you wish for. You may not want me or other Council members to be the taste arbiters for another project. Subjectively declining a project after a developer meets Code would set a dangerous precedent that could haunt us for years to come in terms of business development in the City of Lake Oswego. If citizens want to make changes in our Code with which a majority agree, then that is an acceptable way to change things.
                            *

How does a citizen change a city code?  

What is the acceptable process?  

The city is undergoing some code changes right now - changes that may drastically change the way things are done and how the city 
might look in the future.  If a group of citizens wanted to make sure city codes restricted absolute height and number of stories (incl. height of stories), how would they do this?  With the North Anchor development looming on the horizon, if this isn't addressed, there will be more battles ahead.

Goal #1 of the state land use laws require citizen involvement in every phase of land use planning.  Citizen involvement starts at the begining when the Comp Plan is created, then when codes are developed, and when they are implemented.  

There are opportunities for citizens to listen to study sessions and comment at public hearings with the Planning Commission and City Council, but one has to be totally committed to reading and comprehending the codes, being able to articulate what is they want to see, learn to write testimony that will be acceptable to the hearing body, and then go to every meeting possible.  Even when working with a group, it's a hard slog through the minitue of bureaurocracy.  At every turn, there is an interface with planning staff who may, or more frequently, may not agree with you.  What sane person would want to do this?

At one Planning Commossion meeting this year, Commissioner Ed Brockman brought a list of ideas/suggestions for new development codes.  Deputy City Attorney Evan Boone told him that codes come from the planning staff.  Brockman put the list into his pocket and said no more.  If a member of the Planning Commission can't get their ideas across to the staff, it is clearly beyond the average citizen's cability to do so.  Even the most committed of the bunch winds up frustrated and rebuffed.  

Respectfully Mr. Studebaker, can you please elaborate on how an 
average citizen could initiate or change codes in an "acceptable" or even unacceptable way?  I understand your motivations are pure, but looking at things from this side of the fence, I wonder if we are even talking the same language.  

Carpe Turkey Diem

Something to be thankful for: 

The real cost of a Thanksgiving dinner is 1.3% cheaper 
than last year, 21% cheaper than 1986.

Bottom Line: The fact that a family in American can celebrate Thanksgiving with a classic turkey feast for less than $50 and at a “time cost” of only 2.39 hours of work for one person (and only $32.64 or 1.58 hours of work for Walmart shoppers) means that we really have a lot to be thankful for on Thanksgiving: an abundance of cheap, affordable food. Compared to 1986, the inflation-adjusted cost of a turkey dinner today is 21% cheaper, and 26% cheaper measured in the “time cost” for the average worker. Relative to our income and relative to the cost of food in the past, food in America has never been more affordable than it is today. 

Read more at:  Something to be thankful for.