Thank you for being so supportive.

We had a great day at the Market today. Since we didn't have access to a community booth at the Market we made our own spot working out of the back of one of our car's - old school, grassroots style. It's amazing that in just 1 weeks time how many of you had heard about us or have already visited our blog - thank you. Many of you eagerly grabbed the pens out of our hands before we could even talk. Tomorrow our group will be attending the Montavilla Neighborhood Assoc and we are asking them to please back the petition. However in talking wiih many of you in Rosewood or South Tabor, Lents, Mount Tabor, etc - we have stressed & will push that all of the affected Neighborhood Assoc to unite since 82nd Avenue's crime is a ripple effect.

Just wanted to remind you that you can still download the petition here (click), along with the handout - click here and gather signtures yourself just email us & we can arrange for pick up. Thank you again.

See you at the Market - tomorrow Aug 10th.

We will be at the Montavilla Farmers Market tomorrow - we look forward to seeing you there. We will be on the sidewalk since the Board of the Mrkt decided not to have a Community Booth for the remainder of the Market's season(thru Oct. 5). They cited many reasons for the denial-time being one of them, which we truly understand. We were hoping to HELP make this happen asap, we also volunteered our services & time if needed, to make a well needed collective Community booth for perhaps the Montavilla Neighborhood Assoc & Biz Assoc, Foot Patrol, updating neighbors on local events, issues (PFZ), etc. We hope that the Market is able to allow a Community Booth or even 2 (many local farmers markets have 2) for next year (June 2009). See you tomorrow at the Market!

What a great day in the park!

Thank you Oregon City Blessing Church for allowing us to share in such a wonderful day with you and your community today. What a great event that you provide for the neighborhood - especially for the children. To supply well needed school supplies for free and all of the fun activities today (the puppet show was very entertaining) is such an amazing endeavor on your part and should be well-commended. Once again we THANK YOU (especially Lisa) for allowing us to set up a table and outreach to our neighbors. We look forward to next year's!

Once again it was great to talk to our fellow neighbors, however we've heard far too many additional "horror stories" today - "one mother said while walking in the area with her 3 young children, cars have slowed down & propositioned her many times and unfortuntely she is looking to move".

Another mom said her young daughters ages 14 & 11 have been propositioned several times in the middle of the day.

Hearing these stories make us want to work even harder to make an emergency reinstatement of the PFZ ordinance happen sooner. It needs to happen. We've had a great response to our petition. Please email us & help us.

See you at the Kids Carnival this Saturday!!!

Last week at the Montavilla Farmers Market we spoke with many families about the daily crime we see each & every day. Many of us in our group are parents and grandparents. While speaking with familes last week we resorted to spelling "P-I-M-P-S" and abreviated to "Pros" for prostitutes, etc. in front of their wee ones. One dad last week even joked "I love seeing & talking about Hookers in front of my kids".

One other dad told us how he was recently driving at 7pm one night stopped at a stop sign to let a prostitute cross and she took that as a cue to get in and she tried to open the door to get in his car with his 2 children in their cars seats in the back!!!

One mom who works in the area mentioned that she was walking with her 11 yr old daughter and a man in a car slowed down and tried to proposition her right off of SE Stark in the middle of the day!

These stories break our hearts - help us make our neighborhood safer for all of us especially for our children. This Saturday Aug 9 from 11-3pm @Montavilla Park - the Kids Carnival has graciously allowed us to set up a table at their fun filled event. Please come & help sign our petition to reinstate the Prostitution Free Zone ordinance and get active. Please help us we definitely need more volunteers.

More info on the Event: In 2006, Oregon City Blessing Church hosted its first ever Kid's Carnival. Over 250 attended and over 200 boxes filled with school supplies were given away to kids in the community. Everyone had such a great time with all the games, puppet shows, and music that they had to do it again. Come and join in the fun this summer, August 9th at Montavilla Park between 11am-3pm. For more info, visit http://www.thekidscarnival.blogspot.com/

See ya at the fair!

Supersize Security.

Hello all - this is on our handout of "6 things that you can do to become active": #5 >>>COMPLAIN TO BUSINESSES THAT ALLOW CRIMINAL ACTIVITY - McDONALD’S - 8149 SE STARK, PORTLAND, OR 97215

This location has turned a blind eye to the crime activity happening at their location, allowing drug deals to happen in their restaurant, allowing prostitutes to be picked up/dropped off in their parking lot. It's become a criminal base camp. We need the community to call/email & complain to the both the local franchisee owner and to the corporate site. They need to step up their efforts - get security guards patrolling inside & outside especially the parking lot and based on the complaints and what we have witnessed this security is needed 24 hours. They need to install additional security cameras and better lighting - they need to truly step up and address the issues.

While we are at it...

Also what about utilizing all of their parking spaces that are usually empty, (except when the drug activity - drops/handoffs occur) - the spots closer to SE Ash + SE 80 and creating an outdoor playstructure - which they don't have?

Lastly according to their website they do not have free wi fi at this location but they do at the majority of their Portland locations.

Please take a minute or two to outreach to both the francisee owner & corporation.

>Local franchise owner:
Pres. Mike Kennedy / Double K Ventures Inc 503.598.9995 8255 Sw Hunziker St #203, Portland, OR 97223
>From their corporate website:

How do I share feedback about a recent visit to a U.S. McDonald's restaurant?
There are three ways to share a comment, question, complaint or praise with McDonald's.

>>Call us. 1-800-244-6227

>>Email us. To send us an email, please choose the most appropriate subject/category describing the purpose of your message and fill in the appropriate text boxes. Doing so will better enable us to respond to you as quickly as possible. http://apps.mcdonalds.com/contactus/navigate.do?link=restmatters

>>Write us. Our U.S. corporate mailing address is: McDonald's Corporation, 2111 McDonald's Dr, Oak Brook, IL 60523

Thank you.

Progress.

First off thank you to all who came out specifically to sign our petition to reinstate the Prostitution Free Zone at the Montavilla Farmers Market yesterday. We had such a great turn out! It was great talking with our fellow neighbors about this particular issue - so many neighbors & families told us of their daily occurences of >not feeling safe >cleaning up condoms on their blocks >women now being harrassed by men as they walk alone or while waiting for a bus in the middle of the day >men being propositioned >condoms in the school yards of Bridger+Vestal schools >families feeling robbed of their security. We also were able to speak to some of the business owners on SE Stark and they all agreed to & signed the petition. The business are being affected greatly as well. We outreached via email to the Montavilla East Portland Business Assoc (METBA) however their website is currently down) because we want us to all be united in our efforts. We plan on attending the next Montavilla Neighborhood Assoc Meeting on Monday Aug 11 @7pm Montavilla Community Center - 8219 NE Glisan St to present & get their backing of the petition as well. We asked if a member of METBA will attend this meeting as well? Truly this needs to be a consolidated effort the Neighborhood Associations (Montavilla, Mt Tabor, Lents, South Tabor, etc) as well as the Business Associations (METBA, Think Hawthorne, Ave of the Roses.

Many of you are collecting signatures for us - thank you, we encourage you all to please do the same - just download the petition here. We also have a great double-sided hand out with info/important numbers/ upcoming meetings etc that you can download here as well too. We want to collect signatures at least for the next 2 weeks - please email us & we can arrange pick up.

This is a great start, we realize that reinstating the PFZ is one tool in trying to solve or deal with the crime of prostitution. We have personally seen and experience life in our neighborhood with the PFZ ordinance in place and now without it and we can attest that it was working! We will urge that our elected officials look at other tools to combat this issue, along with the community's involvement, but a priority reinstatement of the PFZ needs to happen immediately due to the recent stats from SE Precinct directly and from the critical safety violations that are affecting all of us.

Thank you again + stay tuned.

Meet you at the Market!

Tomorrow on Sunday Aug.3rd members of Montavilla in Action will be at the Montavilla Farmers Market to talk with our fellow friends + neighbors about our concerns and we will be asking for your help + support. We will have copies of our petition that we hope to get tons of signatures on. We will also be handing out this doublesided handout which explains the issue of why we want to reinstate the PFZ & on the other side is important info on the Montavilla Foot Patrol, Neighborhood Assoc. Mtgs, the Non Emergency Police #, etc.

Please keep an eye out for us - we'll have the clip boards - also if you would love to join us we have extra copies of the petitions for those to help us gather signatures. We want to get as many signatures of the 1500 on average attendees to the Market each Sunday. We will also be canvasing the local businesses in the area & ask them too to please sign the petition.

Look forward to seeing you there...

WELCOME & please help us...

Hello all this is our first entry to our groups' blog - so
welcome + a big thank you for visiting, please join us and get active. Feel free to post comments, give suggestions, send articles, links, photos that you would like us to post.

We originally met for the first time a few weeks ago on July 15th in one of our neighbor's living room - all of us concerned about the growing & blatant criminal activity we see happening on our streets daily. Primarily our inital focus is the blatant increase in prostitution - we see it not only on 82nd Avenue, but it is affecting all of the surrounding neighborhoods, especially our schools and parks - discarded condoms and needles are constantly found in these areas. Unfortunately 82nd Avenue has become know as "Portland's Red Light District" to the johns + pimps, as one neighbor was recently told by local law enforcement. This avenue is a key artery that all of the surrounding Neighborhood Associations must focus on not only with regards to crime, but also the focus of "revitalization"- new + needed businesses - Trader Joes, etc. However first we must deal with and address the crime that is damaging our livability and safety.

We as residents on Montavilla and Mount Tabor have seen a sharp increase in prostiution ever since the Prostitution Free Zone (PFZ) ordinance was lifted on Sept 27, 2007. We are asking that the PFZ be reinstated & we have created a petition & we urge you to help us gather signatures. We don't want this problem to get worse - please read this compelling letter to The Oregonian by Brian Wong a fellow resident who took action & started the Montavilla Foot Patrol in response to the growing & blatant crime in our neighborhoods.