Dear Mayor Wheeler, Commissioner Fritz, Director Abbaté, East Precinct Commander Bryan Parman, East Precinct Captain Golliday, Chief Outlaw, Deputy Chief Day, Park Ranger Supervisor Mike Boyer and Community Center Manager Karen Birt



We are petitioning you to take action at Montavilla Park to address the epidemic of service-resistant addicts making our park unsafe and unclean.



For the last several years, we have seen drug use, drug sales, camping, bike chop shops, and other egregious activity become more and more common at Montavilla Park. Today, these activities are a daily occurrence. Our park, as of the writing of this petition, has garbage cans that have been overflowing for days. There is a trucks worth of trash and stolen goods spread across the park. Jugs of human waste across the park (despite a working Porta Potty being available), growing vandalism to park benches, open fires (including burning branches from trees) and lighting tables on fire is commonplace.

Last night, neighborhood volunteers removed more than a dozen needles from around a single individual who was under the influence of drugs and had trash and needles surrounding them and a crack pipe.

We’ve found used condoms along the baseball diamond. Our neighborhood volunteers see people shooting up in the futsal court nearly nightly.

Our calls to Park Rangers have mixed results. We’ve seen at least one tent with ropes tied to trees that has not moved in days despite a ban on camping in parks and calls to Rangers.

We’ve experienced campers and service-resistant addicts being hostile to neighbors who enter the park including this week threatening to shoot a neighbor.

All of these issues should not be occurring in the park as all violate the park code and some are outright criminal acts.

The fact that people are chopping up stolen bikes that are stolen from around the neighborhood and doing so nightly in the parking lot or other areas of the park is an insult to neighbors who have been suffering from property crimes for years now. We pay taxes that fund these parks and our own stolen property is being broken down to be sold for drugs which are then used in our park.

Portland Police Officers who come out share our concern and they do what they can but repeatedly have blamed Park Leadership, Police Leadership, and City Council for asking them to take a hands off approach to criminal activity being committed in parks. This is entirely unacceptable as it has created a status quo that makes our park unsafe and deters individuals and families from using the park. We’ve talked to many neighbors who no longer use Montavilla Park because of how bad it’s become.

So we ask that an action plan be developed to make it uncomfortable for these behaviors to continue in our neighborhood park by more proactive patrols by Rangers and Police and utilizing park exclusions or arrest for egregious and unlawful behavior. We ask that an action plan be created to address the lack of cleaning up trash and needles being left. We’ve, as previously mentioned, see trash that’s sat in the park for days and weeks without being addressed.



We are tired of our neighborhood park, which we pay for, becoming a zone where crime, drug use, and other unacceptable behavior is tolerated. We are ready for some solutions to mitigate these issues. In closing here are some photos (Click Here) from May 1st and May 2nd, 2018 of what the park looks like. We will be in touch separately via email and look forward to hearing about the leadership and action you can bring to addressing these issues.

Respectfully,

Montavilla Resident Petitioners and Montavilla Initiative



About Montavilla Initiative

Montavilla Initiative is a non-profit organization dedicated to fostering relationships, community building, and safety initiatives in Montavilla that enhance the quality of life of residents in the neighborhood and beyond.