Author: Chris Waldmann

News from the President

Hi Sunnyside! Since it’s finally July, I’m really putting the emphasis on “Sunny”! It’s a great season to fill a basket full of food and drinks, grab a blanket and pack up the kids for events across Portland. That’s right, it’s time for our third annual summer events guide! As always, this is just a taste of all the free events going on around town and definitely puts the focus on events in Sunnyside and our surrounding neighborhoods. Visit portland.gov/parks/arts-culture/summer-free-all/cultural-events for a wider list of events in our city parks.

The Sounds of Summer

• Bring your dancing shoes (or just dance barefoot!) for Melao de Cuba at Mt.Tabor’s Caldera Amphitheater on July 9th at 6:30 p.m.

  • The Rose Park Amphitheater will be the site for the Washington Park Summer Music Festival on August 8th and 9th at 6 p.m. This year celebrates the history and future of Black music in Portland with the Time Sound Big
Band and original soul music from Ural Thomas and the Pain.

  • With the kids out of school, parents may be feeling a bit of summer stress! Can I interest you in a glass of wine? Bring your kids to Firefly Wine Room (4538 SE Hawthorne) for Family Music Night with Mr. Ben on the 1st, 3rd and 5th Mondays all summer long.

Sunset Cinema

  • The Buckman Community Association will have a viewing of Men in Black on August 1st at 7:30 p.m at Colonel Summers Park. After last year’s showing of Galaxy Quest, Buckman keeps killing it with the funny sci-fi!

  • Nothing says cool like Jamaican bobsledders at the Winter Olympics!
The SNA, in partnership with the Richmond and the Hosford-Abernathy
NAs, will host Cool Runnings on August 22nd at 7:30 p.m. in Sewallcrest Park.

A Night at the Theater (in the park)

  • Set in the shadow of Shakespeare’s 12th Night, A Simple Truth by Ken
Yoshikawa is an epic five-act verse tragicomedy. It tells a story of
sovereignty, grief, and ecological preservation. Presented by Oregon
Adventure Theater at TaborSpace on July 10th and 11th at 6:30 p.m.

  • Longtime readers know that I am a sucker for the Original Shakespeare
Company’s hilarious takes on the Bard. This year’s slate at Laurelhurst includes something for everyone with Henry IV – Part I on July 10th, King Lear on July 11th and a double-header of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and
Twelfth Night on July 25th. The full summer schedule is at ​​opsfest.org.

Dancing (and eating and playing) in the Street

  • Sunnyside’s street murals will be highlighted during a Pedalpalooza ride
on Saturday, July 18th. The ride starts at the Heart of Hawthorne
Plaza (at 37th Ave.) at 10 a.m. and proceeds on a 3.8 mile route
that will highlight the salmon murals on Salmon St. and the Sunnyside Piazza. More info at shift2bikes.org/calendar.

  • How about a little educational fun? Explore Northwest Geology on a walk
through Mt. Tabor on July 26th at 2 p.m. Meet at the Visitor’s Center.

  • Street fair season returns on August 23rd for the Hawthorne Street Fair and the summer wraps up with the Belmont Street Fair on September 19th. The SNA will be at both, so stop by and say hello!

That’s the summer fun list for 2026 but fear not, the SNA is not taking the summer off! We are working on multiple issues that affect the neighborhood, including dangerous traffic on our corridors, proposed developments on the empty lot at 4511 SE Hawthorne, and engaging with neighbors and other stakeholders around the long-vacant Laurelhurst Village property on Stark at 30th. More news on all of these fronts to come, but for now get outside and enjoy all that our city has to show off in the summer!

News from the President

Welcome to summer, Sunnyside! Long days and hopefully cool nights; it’s the best! I can’t wait for all the summer activities that Portland has to offer. Check this space next month for our annual guide to warm weather events in and around the neighborhood.

Now onto the news…

In May, the SNA held its Annual Meeting. It was a great time to reflect on the past year, look towards the next and elect Board members to serve for the next two years. You can view the presentation slides at tinyurl.com/dzm2twn8 but I’d like to highlight a couple of accomplishments from 2025/2026. First, after a few years of fading paint, over 80 volunteers, led by Board member Tim Quayle, came out to freshen up the Sunnyside Piazza. We’ll be out next year to do it again! In November, we had a meeting highlighting the need for a new Neighborhood Emergency Team (NET) in Sunnyside and a community member responded! Shout out to newly-elected Board member Ophelia Schechter for stepping up and getting trained to be our newest leader of the Sunnyside NET! It makes me feel like the SNA can make a difference through not only our actions and projects, but by highlighting public needs.

Thank you to all who came out to run for the SNA Board. We had seven neighbors running for five Board seats! Congratulations to Ophelia, Tim, Dresden De Vera, and Lindsay Cogan Sant for stepping up to help your local civic association. I also got re-elected and look forward to continuing to work with this Board to bring you the local information you need and projects to improve the community and help Sunnyside succeed.

In other news, there’s a new crosswalk in the neighborhood! Thanks to neighbor advocacy, additional safety protection is now in place for those crossing Stark near 44th. This is not the end of the story. There’s still so much work to do to improve safety on this arterial road, including increased speed enforcement and improving pedestrian light timing along the entire stretch of Stark through the Sunnyside neighborhood. Additionally, the speed limit on Belmont has been reduced to 20 mph. Please be mindful of the new, lower speed limit in this area. Together, we can protect all of our roads’ users and make Vision Zero a reality.

That’s it for now. Our next General meeting isn’t until September, but the Board will be meeting in June and August to organize ourselves for the new term and continue working for you.

Proposed Bylaw Ammendments

At our Annual Meeting on May 13th, we will be asking you, the membership, to approve several minor, technical updates to the SNA Bylaws which have not been updated since 2017. These updates will account for technology changes in the last decade and provide some additional flexibility and direction for the board as it organizes itself each term.

Here are the proposed updates that will be presented for approval:

Meetings
Section 2: Board Meetings

Current Language:

Regular Meetings: The board shall endeavor to meet at least 6 times per year on the second Thursday of the month and up to 6 times per year at a place, date and time determined by the Board to conduct the business of the association. Opportunity will be provided at regular meetings for the membership to advise the board of current concerns and possible actions. Notice of regular meetings of the board to the public must be at least 7 days in advance. Direct notice to the directors and individuals known to have an interest in topics on the meeting agenda must be provided at least one day in advance.

Proposed Language (updates underlined):

Regular Meetings: The board shall endeavor to meet at least 6 times per year on a consistent day of the month and up to 6 times per year at a place, date and time determined by the Board to conduct the business of the association. The specific day of the month shall be determined by a majority vote of the board at the first board meeting after the annual election. If a change is proposed but fails, the day and time of the month used in the previous term shall continue for the new term.

Opportunity will be provided at regular meetings for the membership to advise the board of current concerns and possible actions. Notice of regular meetings of the board to the public must be at least 7 days in advance. Direct notice to the directors and individuals known to have an interest in topics on the meeting agenda must be provided at least one day in advance.

Commentary:
This update will allow the board to set the standard SNA meeting times at the beginning of the term. Board members are volunteers, and having, e.g. a Wednesday night work shift, should not be a strict impediment to serving! At the same time, we want to meet at a regularly scheduled time every month so that the membership knows we are there.

Elections
Section 3. Voting Process

Current Language:

A. Voting at the annual election shall be by secret paper ballot.

Proposed Language:

A. Voting at the annual election shall be by secret paper ballot and by a process determined by the board in consultation with ONI staff of SE Uplift to allow for remote voting via Zoom or other such technical tool approved for this use by SE Uplift.

(new section) E. In the event that there are an equal number or fewer nominees than the seats open for election, voting may be done by voice acclamation for the slate of nominees.

Commentary:
The SNA has been holding Zoom-only or hybrid meetings since 2020, but our bylaws don’t currently allow remote attendees to vote in our annual elections. This amendment fixes that and ensures that our little democracy keeps up with the way our membership attends our meetings. Votes in elections will still be anonymous. Note, that we will be voting on these bylaws BEFORE this year’s election. So, if it passes, remote attendees will be able to use this method immediately!

Section 6: Board Officers

Current Language:

E. Installation of Officers: Newly elected Board members shall meet at the June Board meeting and, by majority vote elect Officers: President, Vice-President, Secretary, and Treasurer. The remaining board members shall be members at-large.

Proposed Language:

E. Installation of Officers: Newly elected Board members shall meet at the June Board meeting and, by majority vote elect Officers: President, Vice-President, Secretary, and Treasurer. The remaining board members shall be members at-large. Until such time as the officers are elected, the president during the previous term shall remain as acting president. If the former president is no longer serving on the board, the duty to act as acting president will fall to the Vice-President, Secretary and then Treasurer of the previous term. If no officers remain on the board, the duties of acting president will fall to the longest serving member of the board.

Commentary:
This update simply provides a guide on how the 1st meeting of term should be run. Since officer terms end at the end of May, we do not officially have a president at the beginning of the new term. This simply ensures that we have rules in place to guide that first meeting until officers are chosen by the board.

Board of Directors
Section 8: Termination for Non-Attendance

Current Language:

Board members failing to attend three consecutive board meetings shall be automatically deemed to have resigned from the board. The resignation may be acknowledged by majority vote of the remaining board.

Proposed Language:

Board members failing to attend three consecutive board meetings without prior notice and approval from the board president shall be automatically deemed to have resigned from the board. The resignation may be acknowledged by majority vote of the remaining board.

Commentary:
This amendment provides some flexibility regarding automatic termination. It gives the out of allowing the president to approve absences. We are all volunteer and things happen, so having flexibility is very important.

Annual Meeting and Board Elections – May 13th @ 7 PM

Our Annual Meeting will be held on Wednesday, May 13th @ 7 PM at SE Uplift and on Zoom.

We will be electing 5 members of the board of directors to serve 2 year terms. Nominations will be taken at the meeting. If you are interested in working with a great group of neighbors to help shape the future of Sunnyside, plan and host great events, and really get to understand how your city works, this is the opportunity for you! If you would like to learn more about serving your community on the SNA Board, please reach out to me at [email protected]. I’d love to tell you how being a board member has enriched my life with new friends, a sense of accomplishment and the knowledge that I am doing what I can to help this place I love.

We will also be voting on some bylaw updates. These are mostly technical updates to our governing charter. Most importantly is an update to our board elections process to allow those of you attending on Zoom to vote for your neighborhood association leadership.

This is always a fun meeting where we get to celebrate the SNA’s work over the last year and look forward to the next. Light refreshments will be provided.

See you there!

 

News from the President

Happy May, Sunnyside! I hope you are enjoying the freshness of spring. The first couple of rounds of flowers may be gone, but there are so many more to come. (Just don’t tell my allergies that!)

In April the Board met and discussed a wide range of issues for the organization and the neighborhood, from safety at Sunnyside Environmental School (SES) pickups and dropoffs, to partnering with a new neighborhood nonprofit, to renaming a prominent Sunnyside street.

We heard from the founder of the new Friends of Sunnyside Community Center nonprofit, which was founded by the tenants of the Methodist Church on Yamhill to help manage the building and advocate for repairs with the United Methodist Oregon-Idaho Conference. As you may know, this is where we have hosted the Sunnyside Shower Project (SSP) since 2021. It has provided us with space to grow the SSP and become an essential service for our houseless neighbors. It also contains several other tenants hosting activities like youth basketball, training and support for documentarians, and addiction support. It truly has become more than a church and has earned the name Community Center. The SNA Board agreed to sign on as a member of this new organization to help protect this essential neighborhood asset.

We learned from our SES PTSA liaison about dangerous, too-fast driving that’s been occurring during drop-off and pick-up times. The school is trying to ramp up its volunteer Crossing Guard program to help mitigate the issue. There will be more information as we head towards the 2026-27 school year, but if you are interested you can contact the PTSA at
sesptsa.org/contact-us. Please, drive safely out there! We’re all in a hurry, but everyone is someone’s child and endangering their safety is not worth
your saved minute or two.

Finally, we discussed the situation surrounding the potential renaming of Cesar E. Chavez Boulevard.  As you have probably heard recently, Mr. Chavez has been credibly accused of multiple incidents of sexual assault, harassment and child sexual abuse during his lifetime. 39th Ave. was renamed a decade and a half ago to honor the man who had spearheaded the great work of the farmworkers of America. 

However, we do not now believe, given the recent revelations, that his name should appear on one of our neighborhood’s major thoroughfares.  Portland government officials have said that the name should be changed, but we have seen little of the urgency that we have seen in other communities in the rest of the country. The SNA is calling on PBOT and the City Council to expedite the renaming rather than let it get caught up in the usual Portland bureaucratic maze. We are not advocating for a specific name, only that this one cannot stand.

May is the kickoff of election season in Oregon with the May primaries completing on the 19th. We’ll be voting for nominees for governor, state representatives, senators, Metro Council, and ballot initiatives. But, did you know that it is also election season for the Sunnyside NA? We’ll be hosting our annual meeting at 7 p.m. at SE Uplift (3534 SE Uplift) and on Zoom to elect five members of the Board to two year terms. Serving on the SNA Board has been so rewarding, knowing that we are donating our time to serve the community and its interests while getting to know a great group of neighbors! If you are interested in joining and would like to learn more, please contact me at [email protected]. I’d love to hear from you and tell you all about it! Before elections, the Board will be voting on a few technical amendments to our bylaws, one of which will allow you to vote for your Board even if you are attending remotely via Zoom. All residents and business owners in Sunnyside are eligible to vote and nominations will be accepted at the meeting. You do not have to be present in order to be nominated or elected.

That’s it for now. Looking forward to seeing everyone at the Annual Meeting as we wrap up this Board’s term. It’s been a great year and I can’t wait to keep working for this place I love!