Category: Neighborhood Newsletter

Adopt One Block in the Sunnyside Neighborhood

As of May 21st, over 100 blocks have been adopted in Sunnyside through Adopt One Block with fewer than 60 blocks still seeking adoption. This is more than twice as many blocks than when we started our neighborhood outreach in early April; we had 43 adopted blocks then. The areas marked in grey on the map have been adopted; areas in black still need adoption.

If you have adopted a block and haven’t contacted our Cleanup Coordinator yet, we would love to hear from you! Knowing who has adopted blocks within Sunnyside lets us improve collaboration and coordination among block ambassadors as well as offer local support. So far, about 30 block ambassadors have made themselves known but we would like to hear from more. On the map, the blocks of known ambassadors are identified with a thin white line around their adopted block. Your contact information will not be shared publicly, but knowing about you will allow our Cleanup Coordinator to privately connect adopters of neighboring blocks if they both choose.

To make yourself known to the SNA as a block ambassador, or if you ever need help with disposing of excess trash, dealing with larger items that have been dumped, needles or biohazard cleanup, please contact Vincent Dawans, SNA Cleanup Coordinator at [email protected].

More information about Adopt One Block (including an updated map) is available at sunnysideportland.org under the Volunteer menu.

Seeking Feedback: New public trash cans coming to Sunnyside and SE Portland

This autumn the City will be adding 182 new public trash cans throughout Southeast Portland. The city is actively seeking feedback from people who live or work in Southeast Portland on where the new cans should (or shouldn’t) be located.

As a Sunnyside resident or business operator, there are two ways that you can provide feedback. Ideally you should use both:

  1. Fill out the Sunnyside neighborhood online survey.* This will allow us to compile the information for Sunnyside and present a unified voice to the city. This survey is only for locations within Sunnyside.
  2. Fill out the Southeast-wide online survey provided by the city.* We do not control this survey. It can be used to nominate the same intersections within Sunnyside or other intersections in larger Southeast Portland.

As of May 14th, about 30 Sunnyside residents have provided feedback on our survey, but we would like to hear from more. 

* A link to the surveys and more information is available at sunnysideportland.org under the Give Feedback section in the sidebar.

Sunnyside DEIA Committee

The Sunnyside Neighborhood Association (SNA) has started a Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) Committee and we invite the neighborhood to help shape what this committee will provide for the Sunnyside Neighborhood. Please come to our upcoming meetings on Tuesday, June 1st and Tuesday, June 15th at 6:30 – 7:30 p.m. to help us plan a campaign for the upcoming Neighborhood Association Board elections. We aim to apply a DEIA lens towards the campaign to be inclusive, equitable, diverse, and accessible. Bring your curiosity. Come with an openness to have meaningful conversations and an eagerness to make a supportive impact on our neighborhood at-large. We look forward to building this committee together! 

Emergency Preparedness and the SNA Board Meeting

What have Portland NETS been doing during the pandemic, both neighborhood and city-wide? Lots of useful community activities as it turns out. Neighborhood Emergency Team (aka NETs) volunteers:

* are being deployed as wayfinders and traffic control support at vaccination clinics around Portland and further,

* continue to connect in their micro neighborhoods with neighbors on emergency preparedness, and

* have worked at our local ECC (Emergency Coordination Center) in a variety of support roles.

Hundreds of NETs have volunteered thousands of hours in support of all of our communities here in Portland since the beginning of the pandemic.

Personally, I have, among other things:

* spent an afternoon as a wayfinder at a local vaccine clinic,

* zoomed with our wonderful local co-housing community – PDX Commons – talking about emergency preparedness issues,

* zoomed with the KERNS NET and the Pearl District NET to keep up-to-date with efforts in other neighborhoods,

* attended almost weekly Zoom meetings on Wednesday nights with NETs and NET applicants from all over the city,

* did eprep outreach via snail mail and email with new neighbors on my block, 

* participated in a City-wide Deployment Exercise via Zoom with more than two hundred NETs and other emergency responders from around the country. This was a ‘day two scenario’ mirroring what a response would look like the day after an earthquake in PDX, and

* continued with my own professional development, taking FEMA classes, sometimes more than once. (I am not great at multiple-choice questions, but I am persistent.)

I know there are many ways that Sunnysiders are supporting other Sunnysiders. It really does take a village and the willingness to step up for each other in a mutual aid capacity.

With gratitude to all of you who care very much about Sunnyside.

SNA May Notes and June Plans

Slow Streets, Break-Ins, and Clean-Ups

The City of Portland Bureau of Transportation’s (PBOT) Slow Streets program (the orange barrels and “Local Access Only” signs) will be updated with more resilient materials over the next several months. That was the message conveyed at the SNA general meeting by Scott Cohen, who directs the program. Scott also reminded neighbors that the Slow Streets program has several distinct goals. It aims to make busy streets safer, promote healthy businesses, provide more space for physical distancing (during Covid), and slow vehicles entering greenways and other local streets.

A resident of Belmont Lofts, near Sunnyside Environmental School, also addressed the meeting to report problems associated with nearby camping. She said they have experienced break-ins including people sleeping in the boiler room, turning off the heat, and breaking into storage lockers. It is very stressful for residents, some of whom have left, and all fear continued illegal activity. She said that the media have not given adequate coverage to such problems. SNA board members invited her to write an article for the SNA newsletter.

The SNA board discussed ways to facilitate neighborhood clean-ups. Regular newsletter readers know that some SNA members have worked hard to clean up trash in the face of inadequate city resources. The gist of the proposed solution involves partnering with other neighborhoods through Southeast Uplift.

Finally, a word on some folks who contacted us about missing the meeting due to things like coaching a softball game or meeting friends at a brew pub. Awesome! We’re going to get through this.

SNA Annual Board Election July 8th [Reminder]

The Annual Election for SNA Board members will be held July 8, 2021 at 7 p.m. Like last year, we will be outside SE Uplift (3534 SE Main St.), both masked and physically distanced. Board terms are 2 years, with about half the seats open each year. Five of the nine board seats are open and at least one current board member is not pursuing reelection.

Membership is open to anyone 18 years of age or older who is either: 1) A legal resident of Sunnyside, 2) An owner of real property within Sunnyside, or 3) The designated representative of a business, school, church, or non-profit in Sunnyside. All members can vote and serve as board members. Members may declare their own candidacy or be nominated by another member. Those that declare or accept nomination by June 10th—the meeting prior to the annual meeting—will be announced to the membership by the Board of Directors. Nominations can be made from the floor at the Annual meeting provided that the nominee is a member and is willing to serve if elected. You have to be present at the Annual meeting to vote (secret paper ballot) but need not be present to be elected. Candidates will briefly introduce themselves before the vote.