In my five years with The Sentinel, my favorite story was “Crack in Kenton” (November 2006 article not available online).  An ex-pimp and drug addict named Lionel Scott walked into The Sentinel offices in St. Johns one evening in September. He said that he was seeing a lot of drug dealing in Kenton, but he felt that police and neighborhood activists weren’t taking him seriously. 

The newly installed community policing office on North Denver Avenue was not in regular use, and at the time, there were few businesses on the street that could keep an eye on things. Scott street mannerisms might have lead some to be dismissive or suspicious of him.

Scott appeared sincere to me.  He worked as a case manager for True Dialogue, a nonprofit that worked to keep kids off the street.  Scott’s references checked out, and distinguished people in the community such as the Reverend John Tolbert vouched for him.

Over the next two months, I followed Scott and his wife, Stephanie, as they told me of the remarkable turnaround Scott had achieved in his own life, and of criminal activity they saw in the neighborhood around them. 

In 2006, The Sentinel dedicated considerable coverage to the effort to rename North Portland Boulevard after civil rights leader Rosa Parks. In October 2006, Sentinel Publisher Cornelius Swart wrote an editorial in support of the name change.

But by the summer of 2007, as the first new Rosa Parks signs began going up on Portland Boulevard and became visible, a small backlash against the name change began to arise amongst residents. Little did they know that another street-renaming controversy was waiting in the wings.

In August 2007, The Sentinel street edition expanded on earlier online coverage about a campaign to change the name of North Interstate Avenue to Cesar E. Chavez Boulevard. The Sentinel reported that several neighborhood associations along Interstate Avenue had given initial support for the idea, but businesses were unaware of the proposal.

The efforts quickly grabbed citywide, statewide, and then national headlines as a determined activist group met with increasingly vocal opposition. Accusations of racism on one side were met by allegations of back-room deals at City Hall.

To those who invested their passion, energy and precious time to this paper, and to whom I am indebted for the rewards of this endeavor: Michele Elder, Will Crow, Theresa Rohrer, Colleen Froehlich, Roger Anthony, Rebecca Robinson, Jason E. Kaplan, Vanessa Anthony, Laura Hutton, Todd Anthony, Dave Johnson, David Sharp, Alex Blackwood, Yvette King, Charlotte Johnson, Dave Trabucco, Steven Ye, Connie Summers, Colleen McDonald, Chelsia Rice, James Yeary, Peter and Donna Bogdanov, my daughter, family and devoted creditors. Thank you.

~ Cornelius Swart

Any journalist will tell you that a good lede is elusive. The first sentence of a news or feature story, the lede must hook readers with irresistible brain bait that lures them into the next paragraph and beyond.

We’ve pored over thousands of articles here at The Sentinel, so many that after a while stories of brownfields and Business Boosters and Bachelor’s Clubs and brouhahas blend together, regardless of an individual piece’s quality. There are some stories, however, whose ledes lift them from interesting to instantly memorable. Mara Grunbaum’s lede for “Grand Masters from Astor” is a prime example.

Portland’s theatre scene has yet another small company in its ranks with the new Northeast troupe BaseRoots. This fledgling company, however, sets itself apart through its mission: to promote African American actors and present work that “showcases the unique African American experience.”

Founded in the spring of 2009 with the help of sponsorships from Miracle Theatre Group and the Regional Arts and Culture Council, BaseRoots is a self-identified African American theatre company in a city where such groups are exceedingly rare.

According to Andrea White, a BaseRoots co-founder, Portland has historically offered few roles for black actors. Those that have been available are often ones where the character is explicitly defined by race, an experience she describes as “tiresome.”

Project at 8629 N. Crawford St.
Cathedral Park neighbors have been closely following a new multi-lot development near the intersection of North Burlington and Salem avenues.

Three-story multifamily condominiums with two or three bedrooms each will be going in at 8629 N. Crawford St., according to Jerry Offer, a planner for Otak Architects. Offer referred additional questions to the Otak architect on the project, Sinan Gumusoglu, but Gumusoglu did not respond to The Sentinel’s request for details.

A total of three lots and 18,000 square feet of land at the location are listed as belonging to East Coast-based M&T Bank and Chesapeake Holdings West, LLC. There is as yet no name for the project.
Barbara Quinn, chair of the Friends of Cathedral Park Neighborhood Association, heard that Otak is simply designing the condos for the out-of-town owners. She hopes that Otak will answer neighbors’ concerns at the next association meeting. With permits still pending, she feels there’s time to make sure the designs fit with the neighborhood.

It’s been two years since the Portland Trail Blazers launched their “Rise With Us” slogan, a mantra that epitomizes the franchise’s hope of soaring back into NBA prominence on the broad, youthful shoulders of Brandon Roy, LaMarcus Aldridge and Greg Oden.

As Portland prepares for their second consecutive playoff push — with Oden lost for the season after left knee surgery and Roy returning from a nagging right hamstring that kept him out of the lineup for four weeks — “Rise With Us” has become more than a 127-by-59-foot vinyl sign that hangs on the giant grain silo across from the Rose Garden.

In a few short years, Jeff Joslin went from mild-mannered land-use manager to headline-making rabble-rouser to redeveloper of Clackamas County’s decommissioned Bull Run Powerhouse.
Joslin made waves — and Sentinel headlines — in late 2007 when he spent nearly $40,000 of his own money fighting the expansion of the ESCO landfill across from his Sauvie Island property on Northwest Gillihan Road. At the time, he was still a city of Portland planner.

The planning for the second season of the St. Johns Farmers Market has hit a snag as representatives of the market and the St. Johns Boosters quarrel about jurisdiction over the downtown plaza and whether the market’s sale of perishable food is hurting local businesses.

Last July, the much-anticipated market was officially established in the St. Johns central plaza.  It was organized by a board of directors, headed by Simone Streeter and shepherded along by the efforts of many volunteers.

Uncertainty has consistently remained certain in the nearly three years that Portland’s Bureau of Environmental Services has been trying to develop the 0.16-acre brownfield at North Lombard Street and Baltimore Avenue. But by the end of this month, a final decision may be reached on proposed buildings for the site.

For the first two years of the proposal process, restrictions on the site scared away potential bids, and only recently have flexible terms attracted three proposals from real-estate developers. The three groups are developer Jeana Woolley in a partnership that includes Bloc Design Development LLC; Cavenaugh & Cavenaugh LLC; and a partnership among Innovative Housing, Inc., LRS Architects and Walsh Construction.

You never know how much you miss something until it’s gone. Only after I heard The Sentinel would close its doors was I finally forced to take stock. The grief came in waves.

At first my heart went out to the man, publisher Cornelius Swart, who’s been pounding these streets around the clock. For years, he has forgone the big money that ad agencies would love to throw at him for creating spots for Pepsi and Walmart. Instead, he’s been thanklessly fighting the good fight in North Portland.

At many large papers, technology has advanced to the point where obituaries are now being written through an automated process so sophisticated, so digitally crisp, that the work doesn’t even need to be outsourced to the Philippines.

In the spirit of Citizens United, the Supreme Court’s recent ruling that businesses are people too, let’s punch out a modern obit notice for The Sentinel's Street Edition:

The Sentinel was born in the early 21st century.  It was a newspaper about North and Northeast Portland.  Survivors include The Oregonian, Portland Tribune, Willamette Week, The Mercury, Northwest Examiner, The Skanner and the Portland Observer. It was predeceased by The Portland Telegram, the Portland Reporter and the Oregon Journal.

 
In most issues, The Sentinel was the guy at the party who talked too much.  It had something to say about a lot of things going on in St. Johns, City Hall, the high schools, the rec centers.  The Sentinel had already tried out that new restaurant on Interstate Avenue.  That freak-folk band playing at the White Eagle?  The Sentinel heard the CD last week.

When I wrote for you, you were known as the St. Johns Sentinel and you offered me my first introductions to that quirky, northern neighborhood. I covered the opening of Proper Eats and attended meetings at the Sentinel offices when you were located in the back of a tattoo shop. For the Halloween “Nightmare” issue, I got to find out more than I might have wanted to know about what Portland would look like after a Cascadia subduction zone earthquake, another eruption of Mt. St. Helens or a giant tsunami on the coast.
My most challenging assignment for you was not as a writer but as features editor for the DIY issue. I really got a window into what your editorial staff goes through with every issue and it made me appreciate your hard work all that much more.

This little paper has grown and changed in so many great ways and I can’t believe you are going away. I know that the creativity and vitality that have kept you going all these years cannot be squashed and I’m excited to see what you do with your increasingly innovative web presence.

Julie Sabatier is host and creator of the radio show/podcast “Destination DIY” and associate producer for OPB’s public affairs talk show “Think Out Loud.”

The Sentinel's final Street Edition is fanning out for the last time all across North and Northeast Portland. In this edition, we say, "So long and thanks for the memories." This month's paper is a memoir comprised of some of our favorite local stories of the last few years. There are also a handful of editorials on beats we have covered in-depth, a few remembrances from past contributors and my personal thanks to a few collegeaus and friends. 

There's also current news in it too, including a story about conflicts surrounding the St. Johns Farmer's Market; Wendell Maxey's crystal ball-gazing about the Blazers; a feature on a new theatre troupe dedicated to tales of the "African American Experience," and every neighbor's favorite: land use reporting!

We are also asking our readers to please make a contribution to our online archive fund. This will allow us to upload all our paper archives to the web, and, if nessesary, it will allow us to donate them to another institution. This will ensure that these documents of local history are publicly available via Google and other search engines, for future generations.

Download the Street Edition PDF from the attachment link. The cryptic cover and "commemorative poster" can be downloaded separately.

READ THE PUBLISHER'S PAGE BELOW.

Dump trucks, tractors, and shovels aren’t the only things shaking at North Denver Avenue and McClellan Street. 

Traffic director Traci Olson has stylishly eased traffic through the intersection over the past several months as the Kenton streetscape project has been digging deep into the heart of the business community.

But calling it traffic directing doesn’t do justice to the infectious grooves and smiles Olson adds to the job.

Hayden Island residents have made some headway in their drive to make the Columbia River Crossing project focus more on their livability through several key engineering adjustments.

 At last month’s CRC Project Sponsors Council meeting, CRC Transit Manager Steve Witter spoke about the numerous meetings between the CRC and various Hayden Island citizen groups that took place in the wake of December’s PSC meeting, where residents spoke out against the CRC cost-cutting project refinements.  

Intended to shave $650 million off the project’s $4 billion budget, the refinements were seen by island residents as going against the livability requirements of the city’s own Hayden Island Plan, primarily by choosing a project design that would cut the island in half and bulldoze its only grocery store and pharmacy.

Nena Botto is ready for her close-up – and so is St. Johns.

Botto, an actress and St. Johns resident, has given her neighborhood a starring role in her new web series, Blue Fiddles. Billed by Botto as “Sex and the City meets Lucille Ball,” the series chronicles the everyday adventures of three female friends in the Rose City. 

Part of a series on North Precinct
At a standing-room-only Public Safety Action Committee meeting in late January, Chris Duffy addressed North Portland’s concerns about crime.

“No matter what the crime numbers seem to be on paper, people are not seeing our police on the streets,” said Duffy, the chair of the Arbor Lodge Neighborhood Association. “The police are dashing from one end of the peninsula to East County and back again, and people are not getting the day-to-day communication with officers they expect.”

While the number of Portland police officers are up, Portland Police Bureau representatives have been saying for months that overall crime rates are down. Statistics from the PPB website and the bureau’s crime analysts corroborate those statements. But property crime in certain North and Northeast neighborhoods is up, and residents reeling from the loss of the old North Precinct in St. Johns are feeling increasingly vulnerable within the new police structure.

The February 2010 Street Edition of the Sentinel is out and about.  This issue is focused on the offbeat and overlooked gems of the neighborhood. See the tag Objects of our Affection for more.

Also in this edition is the sad announcement that, unless unforeseen circumstances arise, the March 2010 Sentinel will be our last print issue. It remains unclear if the Sentinel can continue online service past March. See the excerpt from the Publisher's Page below. Or download the PDF from the attachment link.

FROM PUBLISHER'S PAGE

Final Sentinel Street Edition in March

I regret to announce that the March Street Edition of The Sentinel will most likely be our last. It’s an awkward way to announce this sort of thing.  As publisher, there are thousands of readers, hundreds of businesses, scores of writers, activists and dear friends to consider.  How does one impart this kind of news to everyone in a way that is fair? This is what I’ve come up with:

UPDATED VIDEO  2.15.10

Mardi Gras celebrations are often synonymous with excessive drinking and public nudity — hardly family-friendly fare. This year, however, North Portland families will be able to celebrate Mardi Gras at an appropriately G-rated event. 

Philip Stanton, owner of Mississippi Pizza Pub and co-president of the Historic Mississippi Business Association, and Deborah Petricek, owner of Gumbo Gifts & Gallery, have organized a “family-friendly” Mardi Gras celebration to take place on Saturday, Feb.13, beginning around noon. 

The mainstay of the event will be a street parade comprised of Boise-Eliot Elementary students, clowns on bikes, mini cars, and anyone in costume who would like to participate. In the hours leading up to the parade, there will be mask-making activities at the Q Center (4115 N Mississippi Ave. at North Mason Street) for those in need of festive “facial wear.” The parade will commence at 3 p.m., and follow along Mississippi Avenue, starting at North Skidmore Street and ending at North Fremont Street.