Democracy and the Language Police in Everyday Ramblings

This is a shot from the track I walk on (and sometimes run on) a half block from my place. It was built over a dump that filled in a gulch that had a creek running down to the Willamette River, the river that flows right through the middle of Portland.

The original field was put in in 1919 so that the city would have an excuse to tear down the migrant shacks that a lot of young Italian immigrant workers lived in under the guise of providing a place for “wholesome” activity for the neighborhood children. When they built the field, the hill up there was all clear cut. So these trees are all less than 100 years old.

But still it is a beautiful place.

Our Parks Department manages it and a few weeks ago signs started showing up all over the neighborhood about a meeting about proposed changes to the park.

Of course I had to go. It was last night in a big room in a building associated with the newly designated National University of Natural Medicine that takes up this island plot of land that was created by the redevelopment with the centerpiece being the old high school for the neighborhood.

There were 150 people there! Whoa baby. It was fascinating. I have been a student of “track life” since I moved here and I recognized many many of the folks in the room. Plus the high-end retirement community that houses 700 folks on the west side of the track brought 70 people!

So the plan is to take up the boggy grass turf of the field on the inside of the track, replace it with artificial turf and to slightly alter the size of the track so that it is meets standardized measurements and can be used for official track meets and most contentious of all, to take up some of the exterior sloping lawn and build an access road and add 46 parking spots.

In the plan, the access road to the parking lot would need to be crossed by the older folks using the track and in this preliminary design would not be safe.

I was thinking folks would be curious and open minded and engaged.

More fool me.

Although there were clear ground rules setup by the facilitators who were working very hard and agreed to by all of us participants, (they knew what they were doing), the predominant expression was one of impassioned anger. A lot of very opinionated anger.

People had opinions about everything! Oh my. The parking was by far the most contentious and a close runner up was the artificial turf, which a number of speakers were absolutely convinced is carcinogenic and promotes injury. It also needs to be replaced every ten years. Who knew?

There was a representative there from Under Amour who is moving into the old gym next to the track and actually paying for all of this.

I have to say that I loathed his language, his politically correct corporate language. They don’t have employees; they have “Team Members”. We went over the time allotted for the meeting and towards the end I actually got up the courage to stand there with a mic in front of all those people and ask what they were going to do about safety around the building and the park.

As soon as it starts getting dark it is not safe over there anymore. They are many homeless, mentally ill, and drug addicted folks that come there to hang out, use the restrooms and conduct business. Oh and teenagers gathering in small groups to be away from home and hang out and do drugs.

Mr. Corporate Speak was a bit nonplussed by this question…”We’ll have normal corporate security, key cards, locked doors, that sort of thing for our team members…” I think they were truly expecting us all to be grateful and compliant.

There is a plan to put in more lighting, which will help. Also if they do go ahead with it, and I am not sure now that they will, there is no doubt there will be increased use and more folks will mean it will be safer.

One thing made me sad. Some of the older folks who spoke up, were clearly quite successful in their professional lives and were having a little trouble letting that go, a female architect, an older male doctor, a smart woman attorney. These are folks who have privilege and are used to getting their own way and they were furious, furious they weren’t consulted on this earlier.

There was a very tanned man from New Zealand advocating for the ability to play Rugby, many members of the Ultimate Frisbee teams that have pickup games over there as well as a number of runners from the elite runner’s club that drive me nuts, the head of the expensive private school in the old Jewish Community Center, the two older guys I see walk the track every day that have been doing it since 1967 and last but not least…”The Track Lady”, the older woman who wears her gray hair in pigtails under a hat that with artificial flowers pinned to it, who walks the track for hours at a time sometimes reading a book. She was standing in the back.

Democracy in action sure is a messy miraculous thing.

Last updated September 26, 2015