Tuesday, August 19, 2008

They need to hear from YOU.

>>>PLEASE CALL & EMAIL OUR CITY’S LEADERS & state why lifting the PFZ was a critical mistake (main reasons are listed below) and that it needs to be reinstated immediately to stem the critical nature of this crime and end this violent turf war that is being played out in our communities, and until all of their other solutions are in effect.

Please call them & tell them what you are dealing with daily, like the Little League parents that have to make an announcement before each game for the parents to sweep the field for needles & used condoms, or the neighborhood women who are afraid to now walk alone since they are being proposition and verbally assaulted in the middle of the day or now our young daughters too are having their safety compromised - our city's leaders need to hear from you.

Mayor Tom Potter: ph 503-823-4120 fax 503-823-3588
no direct email listed, link:
http://www.portlandonline.com/mayor/index.cfm?c=41652

Maria C. Rubio - Mayor Potter’s Public Safety & Security Director
ph 503-823-3583 mrubio@ci.portland.or.us

Mayor Elect Sam Adams: ph: 503-823-3008 commissionersam@ci.portland.or.us

City Commissioner Randy Leonard: ph 503-823-4682 rleonard@ci.portland.or.us

Connissioner Nick Fish:
ph 503-823-3589
no direct email listed, link: http://www.portlandonline.com/fish/index.cfm?c=47691

Amanda Fritz (running for city council): ph 503-235-2295 AmandaFritzRN@aol.com

Jane Ames/ Sam Adams’ - Senior Policy Director - Education and Public Safety
ph 503-823-1126
james@ci.portland.or.us

Tom Miller/ Sam Adams’ - Chief of Staff ph 503-823-1121 tommiller@ci.portland.or.us

>>>>Priority reasons as to why the PFZ should be reinstated (under emergency status):
>>1. The research that the Mayor cited when lifting the ordinance did not even mention prostitution in the entire 18 pg doc it was lumped with the issues surrounding DFZ's enforcement.

>>2. According to the Neighborhood Response TEAM (NRT) - calls regarding prostitution have quadrupled since last year this time. Cause & Effect - Zone is gone = crime has grown considerably & taken roots
>>3. We the citizens around 82nd Avenue are having our safety compromised each & every day (read our blog to hear comments from your neighbors - how neighborhood women are being threatened, neighborhood young girls/children are being propositioned in broad daylight).
>>4. Crime from all over is coming to 82nd – it is well documented that the women are being trafficked from Seattle, LA and beyond to work on the avenue due to our laxed laws. Johns from all over the State & WA state are coming to our neighborhoods.
>>5. Until the city’s real solutions are in effect we need to immediately stem the crime that has taken over our communities.

>>>PLEASE ALSO CALL & THANK CHIEF ROSIE SIZER & HER OFFICERS WHO WANT TO REINSTATE THE PFZ & WHO ARE OUT HERE DAILY HELPING US WITH THIS GROWING & BLATANT CRIME.
ph. 503-823-0000 chiefsizer@portlandpolice.org

We have an updated handout with the contact info of our city's leaders, please click here for the document.

THANK YOU FOR ALL OF YOUR EFFORTS.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

How about if we collect all of the condoms, needles and dump them in the middle of Pioneer Square - Portland's Living Room, because I am sick of my neighborhood being Portland's toliet.

Has Potter or Leonards even been on 82nd since they lifted the ordinance???

To see how well it is all working out? I'll gladly give them a tour.

Anonymous said...

The city needs to put the safety and livability issues of it's residents and law abiding citizens first. I would love to help these poor women, I would love for our city to improve our schools, but first we need to address that this is a CRIME first and foremost and treat it as such.

We also need to alert of all Portland and beyond that 82nd is a no tolerance area for crime - since we are known as the "red light district" we need to educate that this area has a no tolerance policy for Prostitution & other crimes.

Anonymous said...

Mayor Potter emailed back and said that "new program" will start in the fall - we;; that's great since it was last fall - in Sept (1 yr ago) that they created this critical mess by lifting the pfz.

So by fall do you mean we won't be cleaning up used condoms out of our childrens' school yards?

Mayor Potter and Mr. Leonard - please we invite you to come and help our little league parents clean up the field before each and every game and pick up all of the condoms and needles - are you available this Sat?

Admit you made a mistake.

Anonymous said...

I am one of those bleeding heart liberals that the current Mayor and Mr. Leonard are trying to soothe & court. I assume Mayor-Elect Sam Adams will do the same as well, however I assume that Mr. Adams will look at the facts first, not the connotations regarding prostitution, that first and foremost prostitution is a crime and needs to be treated as such. My heart does bleed for these poor women, but bottom line, as long as my fellow citizens keep turning a blind eye, and don't regard prostitution as a "real" crime, we can expect to see an increase in sex-for-sale in Portland.

The residents of Montavilla are correct, Mayor Potter and Mr. Leonard made a critical mistake in not researching the PFZ and lifting in under the guise of the issues regarding the DFZ. Mayor Potter has a few more months to right his wrong and we know Mr. Leonard’s track record of reversing his wrong thinking, in 2003 he supported the invasion of Iraq, linking it to 9/11 he has since reversed his POV. We hope that they both can realize their error in judgment on the PFZ and give the residents and the police some relief after a long year of seeing their neighborhood give way to blatant and dangerous crime.

Thank you.

pinemonkey said...

I contacted Jane Ames and here is her reply:

"A great deal of action is happening with regard to the prostitution and related crimes in your neighborhood. Commissioner Adams, Sam, and I are both following the work being done by the Police Bureau and the Mayor's office as well as pressuring for intensifying the immediate actions and pushing for strategies to be pursued now.

While I don't perceive support for reinstating the Prostitution Free Zone (PFZ) at this point, Sam is urging that we establish an Enforcement Enhancement Zone and intensify the resources and efforts in that zone. That may sound like semantics to you, but to point out how that would effect your neighborhood while you are walking your kids to school, is that there would be more officers on the beat, more hours a day. The crime of prostitution would be added to a Chronic Offenders List so we could focus on those who come back to work in the area again, and get them into jail, offer them relevant treatment as an alternative or follow up to jail. The goal is to get them off the street and not return, and frankly the underlying goal is to make the business environment for prostitution very bad on and along 82nd Ave. Without detailing specifics I want you to know that some of that work is underway now. You should be able to notice the impact either now, or very soon.

Right now, because prostitution is a misdemeanor (that stunned me when I learned it) and because our jails and courts are so backed up, prostitutes and johns are cited and go to Community Court...there they are typically required to write an essay and do community service. And they are often released on their own recognizance. We are working to get that changed QUICKLY.

Many strategies that are frankly can be more effective than the PFZ's are not in place because the PFZ's were there and were easy. But they did move people to other locations; the efforts we are working to get in place now would truly arrest those involved, get them off the streets into jail and treatment programs. We are exploring the legality of drawing attention to the johns; we aren't sure we will be able to do that but it is worth exploring. We also believe these efforts would separate the women from the pimps far and long enough to help us build stronger cases against the pimps which is very hard and is very important in reducing the prevalence of street prostitution in Portland.

I do not have the fantasy that we will prevent the "oldest profession", but if we make profitability difficult in Portland, these people do move along a West Coast circuit and they will move on. If we interrupt their work enough and make the "easy money" difficult, local women may find other ways to make their money. The efforts on this have picked up mightily in the last couple of months, especially in the last few weeks, and will be even more so in the next several weeks.

Please let me know if you either see improvement and if you do not see improvement. I am thankful that you and others are putting the pressure on us. I apologize that you needed to do so.


Respectfully,


Jane"

I am unsure how to read this other than seeing what she has said as politico talk. I still believe that a big part of the solution is coming down with stiffer penalties for the customers of our street-walking entrepreneurs . Maybe more pressure is needed. I look forward to seeing the "change" that will be happening "very soon."

Anonymous said...

Nick Fish’s email is nick@ci.portland.or.us

Tom Potter’s email is tjp@ci.portland.or.us

pinemonkey said...

emails sent...

lets see what the guys have to say...