Editor’s note: Wellness Word is an informational column which is not meant to replace a health care professional’s diagnosis, treatment or medication.     The holidays mean sharing meals, giving gifts and sending greetings to family and friends. If you’ve lost someone, this can make the season the saddest time [...]

By David Kaplan The last time Portland updated zoning to support the Comprehensive Plan was in 1988.  That effort was a blueprint for increasing density in transit oriented neighborhoods that encouraged diverse transportation options.  The recent convergence of a depressed housing market has resulted in rental vacancy rates of under [...]

Portland’s Comprehensive Plan will help manage the city’s growth and change over the next 25 years. It will be used to instruct City decision-making on land use, transportation, and all the things that make a city successful, sustainable and livable in a changing world. It will guide future implementation measures, [...]

As the doors opened at Music Millennium on the Ides of March (March 15), 1969, the times they were definitely a-changin’. The quiet corner of SE 32nd and Burnside St. had, over the years, housed a Piggly Wiggly grocery store, ARCO Electric, the Smith Drug Store and Hollywood Casual, a [...]

The Northwest Earth Institute (NWEI) is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to inspire people to take responsibility for Earth. Since NWEI started the EcoChallenge in 2009, approximately 3,500 people have participated. Here’s how the EcoChallenge works: each October, participants choose one habit to change for two weeks, to make [...]

On a cool rainy Friday last month, local business people gathered to clean up the bioswales on SE Ankeny St. They are part of the Green Street Steward Program: citizens who have partnered with the City to help maintain the small rain gardens and make sure the overflow drains are [...]

The Boy Scout motto “Be Prepared” was taken seriously by the owner of Portland Preparedness Center due to personal experience. Twenty plus years ago, Michael Knight lived in New Zealand and worked in a high rise office building. He experienced two earthquakes that caused buildings to sway back and forth. [...]

By Heidi Kohne   Floy Jones reports she’s learned that Rochester, New York, has been granted a 10-year reprieve from a federal requirement that their open reservoirs be covered, meaning that they don’t have to act until the year 2024. Why can’t Portland’s open reservoirs be similarly spared?  A rally was [...]

October 27 was a big day for the Friends of Mt. Tabor Park Weed Warriors, the band of volunteers who pull invasive plants from the slopes of Mt. Tabor Park. Having cleared a 2.25 acre section, warriors will for the first time be doing planting of their own with native [...]

Restoration Ecologist Master Gardener Program   Multnomah County Master Gardener Mark Griswold Wilson will give a presentation on the Portland Urban Meadowscaping Project November 13 at 6:50 pm at the Mt. Tabor Presbyterian Church, 5441 SE Belmont. Parking is on SE 54th Ave. Front yards and parking strips are unique landscapes traditionally planted [...]