Yet another Mt. Tabor controversy

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A few photos of our fair city's Mt. Tabor Park [map], which is in the news once again. Word on the street is that the city's looking at selling off a chunk of it -- and to a creepy conservative religious college, no less.



Naturally, Grandpa Simpson, er, Bojack, & Co., are going ballistic -- see the previous link, or this update. I try not to indulge in hysteria here, and sometimes I succeed, so let's all take a deep breath and try to puzzle out what's going on.



One key point here is that the land under discussion is currently home to a Parks Bureau maintenance facility (above photo), including a bunch of greenhouses to serve the bureau's decorative plant needs across the city. On the map linked to above, it's roughly the area between SE 64th & 66th, just north of Division. It's not exactly the area you think of when you think about Mt. Tabor; I don't think it's even open to the public. This fact seems to have fostered the notion that it's not really part of the park, and what the city does with the land is none of the public's concern. You'd think the city would be a little cautious about this, since the park's one of the city's crown jewels, and the public went ballistic last time the Powers That Be tried to monkey around with the place. (Remember that ugly business about burying the reservoirs?)



Sadly, the bureaucracy has precedent on its side. Some time back in the 90's, the city decided it didn't need Reservoir 2, at the SW corner of the park, so they simply demolished it and sold off the land. Now there's a charmless Beaverton-style subdivision there. The only remnant is the reservoir gatehouse, at the corner of SE 60th & Division, and it's been turned into a private residence. I have to admit I wouldn't mind owning that gatehouse building myself, but I don't understand why they went the subdivision route. Other than generating revenue for the city, I mean.

Another account of the city's periodic real estate shenanigans, from a 2002 letter from area neighbors to then-Commissioner Jim Francesconi, who was responsible for the Parks Bureau at the time:

Commitment to keeping public lands, publicly owned concerns all of us. When the Mt Tabor changes were brought before the Landmarks Commission, the first question the commissioners had was whether or not the reservoir land was to be sold. This was not unfounded, as Reservoir 2, another 1894 marvel was sold and developed in the 1990's. Those of us who have lived in the Mt Tabor neighborhoods for a long time have watched as part of the old nursery land (Mt Tabor Yard), technically part of the park,
has been parceled out and sold for housing development. And recently, we have learned, an historic building in the nursery was demolished. We are interested in maintaining what is left of our green space and history. It is integral to our neighborhood and to the very city itself. We do not want to have what is left of our greenspaces sold or developed. We regret the move in this direction with the sale of Reservoir 2, the adjoining lands in Mt Tabor Yard, and the projected fire station to be built in Forest Park. As the Commissioner at the helm of parks, we hope that you will see fit to spend our tax dollars on protection of what little public land we have left and not continue the precedent of putting these lands up for development.

With a recent history like that, public mistrust is inevitable, and well-earned. While I doubt anyone at City Hall is seriously considering selling off the whole park for development, they clearly don't have a stellar track record of acting in the public interest, especially when that bumps up against the self-interest of well-connected insiders.

To me, and probably to most people, the land is part of the park, and if for some reason the city doesn't need it as a "backstage" area anymore, it ought to be turned into something the public can use and enjoy, not quietly sold off as surplus property. There's all sorts of things you could do with the area. Ball fields, open space for the off-leash dog folks, or maybe a greenhouse/conservatory people could visit and enjoy in midwinter. I've long thought it'd be nice to have something like that in town, somewhere to visit during the 9 months of the year when it isn't warm and sunny here. True, the place would be awash with tour buses full of geezers much of the time, but the inevitable gift shop might go a long way to plugging the hole in the city's parks budget, just on the collectible spoon and novelty shot glass revenue alone.

For a little more background on the area, the local neighborhood association has a history of the park and its reservoirs here.

Jack & friends suspect all sorts of dark fanciful plots, full of new aerial trams and condo towers and such. And in truth I wouldn't be surprised if money and insider connections played a part in this proposal, but this is a classic case where one shouldn't attribute to malice what one can attribute to stupidity. Recall that Dan Saltzman, the city commissioner responsible for the Parks Bureau, was also responsible for the abortive hide-the-reservoirs plan. He unveiled it as a done deal, not open to public debate, only to have the whole thing unravel at his feet. I mean, I think he's generally a decent guy, and his heart's in the right place when it knows what the right place is. He probably read somewhere that unveiling a grand plan and presenting it as a done deal is a mark of a decisive, forceful alpha-male leader, and possibly that's even true, generally. It's just that when he tries it, it's always a ham-fisted, politically tonedeaf effort on behalf of a poorly thought-out idea. And then when the proposal garners public mistrust, suspicion and hostility, he doesn't have the clout to push the thing through over everyone's heads. If you'd like an object lesson in the ungentle art of the fait accompli, you'd do well to look elsewhere. We are a city of process geeks, for better or worse, and when someone doesn't play the process game, with public meetings, "visioning processes", stroking the fragile egos of neighborhood association bigwigs and whatnot, people get suspicious. If you don't invite everyone to a grand open house right off the bat, people assume you're conspiring with greedy cigar-chomping developers. That accusation is true far more often than it ought to be, so it's only natural that people assume it's always the real motive. If it looks like you're trying to sneak something unpopular through before the public catches on, that's never going to boost your poll numbers.

Oh, about the other photos: Photo 1 is of the long, narrow stairs between the upper and lower reservoirs. The stairs are quite a workout. Not only are they long, without a single landing on the way up, they also get increasingly steep as you near the top. Photo 2 is looking southwest from the upper reservoir, with the lower one in view along with a tangle of Oregon Grape and various vines. The ducks in photo 3 were at the lower reservoir, just steps from a sign forbidding visitors from feeding any wildlife that might be present. Apparently the city tries to capture any beasties that hang around here too long, and I don't know what becomes of them after that. Probably they just truck them somewhere and release them, but that seems kind of silly for a bunch of plain old mallard ducks. They aren't exactly rare or anything. And duck can be awfully tasty. So who knows, really?