June 6, 2010

I was recently reminded that the website is static.

This is a problem for AAI, and I believe I know the cure.

I will today begin a series of posts describing our process, which is quite active despite appearances.

First, I want to describe a process we have been developing, where we are beginning to define the needs for all the households of our existing leadership.  We also have decided in the meetings last week, that we will start to define the organization in a flow chart, and we are getting close to being able to present these efforts at our upcoming allies meeting, on Thursday the 17th of June.  This mapping or charting of our organization will allow future allies to see how we operate and decide whether they might be able to fit within our structure.

Last week I announced the upcoming potluck, at Joy’s and my place’ the need to establish committees for ‘Mission Development’ and ‘Real Estate Development’ this month, and soon after, ‘Fund Raising’; and the time, location and day  of our next Allies Meeting.

MISSION DEVELOPMENT

AAI is a member of Sara Garrett’s motiveSpace Coalition.  This organization brings together community groups and neighbors to develop resources to address the needs of each organization for physical space, and build those spaces.  The Executive Team; Gary, Mary, and myself; is currently engaging with Sara to put together a ‘Seed Team’ from among her professional allies, architects, developers, funding agents, etc. to bring our vision into reality.  Part of this process is to define just who we are, and how we function, what do we need to do, and how would we interact with the world.  The Mission has been defined, and is currently under major revision.  If you want to help with this process, you will become one of our Leadership Team.  These are chosen by our Executive Team from among what we call our allies.  All leaders who serve on committees will be considered part of our Leadership Team, and will meet with members of the Exec. Team periodically for accountability, and present the results of their work to the Allies in our monthly meeting.

At a recent meeting of the Exec. Team, we began to identify the roles we need to play to make this Initiative a success.  These roles will be grouped into two broad categories, one assigned to the Executive Team and the other delegated to the Leadership team.  More detail will be provided to the Allies at our Thursday 6/17 Allies Meeting.

REAL ESTATE

A few weeks ago, four of our active AAI team members, Mary Bedard and myself from the Executive Team, and prime ally Madeline Janovec and her great colleague, and new AAI team member Carole Hagin, went for a tour of three potential sites.  It was agreed at our last Monthly Allies meeting that having an actual site to coalesce our vision around would help us bring all the energies at our disposal into alignment with our vision.

The trip included the site of an existing commercial building that is for sale at SE Harney in the corner of Portland close to the intersection of Highway 99E and Milwaukie Blvd.  It is a very large old structure and has a few challenges.  Potential for workshop space in it is quite significant.  There is also room for several residences, on the second floor.

The second site was in North Portland at N. Columbia Way and N Macrum 1 Block East of the Intersection with N. Fessendon.  There is a cluster of three quite interesting homes in a compound with space between them.  The owner has been in construction there for some time.  Gary Marschke has met the owner and he expressed interest in our project.  Each building looks to be two or three stories, and their suitability to a shared home commune would be possible, but we all agreed that having more than one level would not work for us.

The third site was the open lot in Fairview Village, which was a suburban development East of Portland and North of Gresham between Troutdale and East Portland.

Here are the notes from our last allies meeting about this property.  I have yet to make a report on two recent meetings related to this site.

‘That seemed to segue into the discussion of the discussions we’ve been having with Barry Smith Architects.  Barry and his employee, Chris Nestlerode (who had worked on the Memorial Coliseum proposal for Vision into Action with Gary) gave a tour of a property they want to develop into a senior independent living facility in Fairview Village, North of Gresham, at 233rd and Halsey.  Gary, Mary and I attended the tour along with Chris and Barry.  It turns out that the whole community, with its own city charter has been developed with most of the structures being designed by Barry and his company over the past 15 years.  His developer partner, Garth ___?____ will meet with our team soon and discuss the potential of our helping to design the building.

There is a design model that the entire city plan has relied on which was very much in fashion 15 years ago, called New Urbanism.  It has faded a bit and there have been some spectacular failures, one being ‘Celebration Village’, in Florida(?).  Alan is willing to help us think about how we could impact the process in the best way.  One thing he suggested was to ask Barry if they are required to build according to then standards of the C.N.U. or Congress of New Urbanism.  He also suggested we consider the functions of our building first.’

We will have a new meeting with whomever wants to meet as the Real Estate Committee within a week of our upcoming Allies Meeting on the 17th, where all these options will be discussed in much greater detail.

That’s it for now.

Respectfully submitted,

Jim Corcoran

Founder- 971-563-3694

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