Madrone Wall Update- Feb 2008

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This is the info in the mailing that is going out today. Thanks to Bill Coe, Jeff Hemphill and Jim Opdycke for helping us out at the Lucky Lab on Saturday. Last April, Newly-elected Commissioner Peterson told us we would get subsequent year funding following the completion of the Master Plan. Now Clackamas County wants to change their tune. All of the e-mail addresses for Clackamas County officials are below. Send them a note, or show up to one of the meetings below.

 

Citizens saved this site from being quarried or sold for development. If you wrote in one letter or e-mail back in 2005, write another one.

 

Thanks

 

AN OPEN LETTER TO METRO’S CONCERNED CITIZENS:

 

REQUEST CITIZEN ADVOCACY FOR TIMELY CREATION OF PARK AT MADRONE WALL

 

1 MARCH 2008: One mile south of the City of Damascus along the Clackamas River Bluffs resides an amazing civic treasure. You may have heard of it: MADRONE WALL. This publicly owned 44-acre Clackamas County sit e has been closed to public access since 1997 when the County closed it and pursued an ill-conceived rock quarry which would have forever destroyed these splendid bluffs. Over a quarter million dollars were wasted studying how to blow up the cliffs. The County eventually dropped plans in 2000 to quarry the site with “County forces” when the study the Madrone Wall Preservation Committee and the County co-funded determined it was uneconomical, even under the most favorable circumstances, to reduce these beautiful cliffs to aggregate thus destroying their unique watershed, natural habitat, and recreational and educational resource. Finally, in January 2006, the Board of County Commissioners took the step of unanimously agreeing the County would not sell the site for a private quarry or trophy-home housing development and would establish the site as a high priority for parks master planning and park creation. Timely execution of the Board’s agreement is needed for now, more than two years later, the County is only now just sending out the requests for proposals to start the parks master planning (expected completion: summer). Next, according to current County Park plans, the public is expected to wait a minimum of three to four more years while NOTHING is actually done with the parks master plan – no funding to create this primitive park, no implementation of park master plan – NO PARK. This countermands the massive public support where over 500 citizen letters (in 2005 alone), over 30 organizations (see ledger at left) – including the City of Damascus Council – advocated for park creation and re-establish access to this public site. We ask you to, once again, make your advocacy known to the County and request necessary capital improvement funding for the 2008-2009 fiscal year so a park can finally be opened in a timely fashion.

 

The County’s current five-year parks plan (February 2007) shows no allocation, not even a provisional one, ignoring funding it until at least 2011-2012. Almost no other parks master plan is followed by even a one-year gap and no other park creation effort has been in the queue longer. By the County’s own measure, ZERO acres of County parks exist in this burgeoning Damascus-Boring subarea even though it has a minimum park standard of 131 acres in 1990 and 259 acres by 2015. Implementation of capital improvements, namely on-site parking, will be of short duration once the master plan is finished and further delay is unwarranted. The cost for establishing the park range from one to three hundred thousand dollars, well below other park projects like the $1.5 million allocated for Barton Park improvements next year! Note this single County investment is taking up the lion’s share of Metro’s $1.9 million local share greenspace allocation. The payback at Barton, not considering time value of money, operational costs, and lost opportunity costs, is estimated to be over eight years! How is this nearly complete monopoly of unique taxpayer largess, which is a Metro gift over and above the existing County Park’s multi-million dollar five-year budget, justified when s o many other worthwhile projects, including Madrone Wall, are being sidelined, delayed, or shelved outright?

 

Make no mistake, this primitive park will be one of the County’s finest. This month, we need YOU to join us advocating an end to this decade-long, stop-and-start effort and create the park citizens demand. No public funds are needed for property acquisition for it is already public property. Matching grants may possibly be available from sources like the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department which funds capital improvements on fast-implementation projects ready to go just like this one, however, the County needs to ta ke the first step, allocate its own capital funding, and apply for grants. We will help: our 501©3, non-profit, all-volunteer organization offers a built-in, long-term “Friends of” park's advocate. We committed 1,000 hours of volunteer work to remove the illegally dumped rubbish and rock graffiti desecrating the site since County closure, pull invasive plants, build hiking trails, and erect educational signage. No other County park has this level of support.

 

HERE’S HOW TO HELP – ATTEND MEETINGS & CONTACT OFFICIALS: The County’s Parks Advisory Board (PAB) will be reviewing the County Parks Five-Year Capital Improvement Plan at its monthly third Tuesday meeting on 18 March and 15 April in Conference Room 406 of the County’s Sunnybrook Service Center (9101 S.E. Sunnybrook Blvd., Clackamas – near I-205) at 7:00 p.m.; PLEASE ATTEND. While these PAB meetings are open to the public, they are working meetings and public input is only allowed when requested by the PAB. Additionally, PLEASE CONTACT the following County officials. Request they allocate necessary capital improvement funding for the COMING FISCAL YEAR, rather than unnecessarily forfeiting an unknown number of many more additional years with no progress. We need a park created at the Madrone Wall in a timely fashion.

 

1.) Clackamas Board of County Commissioners: 2051 Kaen Road, Oregon City, Oregon 97045, 503/655-8581; Lynn Peterson, Chair (lynnpet@co.clackamas.or.us), Bill Kennemer (billken@co.clackamas.or.us), Martha Schrader (marthasch@co.clackamas.or.us)

 

2.) Dan Zinzer: Director, Department of Business and Community Services (Parks Dept.), Clackamas

County, 9101 S.E. Sunnybrook Blvd., Clackamas, OR 97015, 503/353-4661, danz@co.clackamas.or.us

 

3.) Rob Smoot: Chair, Clackamas County Parks Advisory Board, c/o Dan Zinzer

 

Other Upcoming Events:

- 20 April 2008 (Sunday) – Public Wildflower Tour at Madrone Wall: We received County permission to provide a public tour in April. Meet at 2:00 p.m. at Still Meadow Community (16561 S.E. Marna Road, Damascus, www.stillmeadowcommunity.com) for an introductory discussion about the Madrone Wall and then carpool a half mile to the site to witness one of the finest displays of wildflowers anywhere in the northern Willamette Valley. This public t our is open to all and you are encouraged to attend. Bring hiking boots and raingear (if necessary).

- Spring 2008: Provide feedback to the parks master planning process which will solicit public input; stay tuned for more information.

 

 

Keith K. Daellenbach (kdaellenbach@att.net, 503/249-1618)

Secretary/Treasurer, Director

Madrone Wall Preservation Committee

5815 N.E. 31st Avenue

Portland, Oregon 97211

www.savemadrone.org

 

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