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A frightening visit to Rose City: Having grown up in Portland, I decided to take a family vacation there to enjoy the Rose Festival events. What we found was a city that has degenerated into filth and has become a scary place to visit.

On a recent Saturday, we biked along the Portland harbor wall to the Saturday Market and the CityFair. Starting at OMSI, we were accosted by frightening residents of sidewalk campgrounds, and we smelled human excrement and stench. As the day warmed up, the smell of human urine wafted through the air along the river. We stopped in Waterfront Park to picnic and witnessed drug needles all over.

The next day, we decided to bike the Springwater Corridor Trail; there were so many vagrants and frightening-looking people in the bushes, I wished I had brought a gun to protect my family. We were even concerned about having our expensive bikes stolen when we took water breaks. When we returned to our car near OMSI, there was a van next to ours that looked like it had people living in it; they aggressively demanded money -- standing between us and our car. Again, I wish I'd had a weapon.

Visiting Old Town for Chinese food was no better; I kept my wife and children close as we were again accosted by street people. We became aware that Portland's downtown sidewalks are, in reality, human toilets. Every major street had disheveled beggars. I know now that I won't return to Portland again.

Many street people prefer this way of life, and you won't change them. Portland needs to make it known that they will not be hosts to degenerates and vagrants. I am ashamed of my birth city, and the city's leaders should be even more ashamed.

Get a backbone, Portlanders! Your city is frightening and nasty.

Andre Marcel

Bend