That busking child is clearly in violation of Oregon labor statutes, and possibly guilty of tax evasion as well. Shut 'er down!

The city is choosing to spend the money, by the way. If you didn't have cops on overtime, how much would it cost? Was this addressed? Cops can repond if there is a particular call, just as they would any other time.

Also, how much does it "cost" to close off the streets? You realyl cannot trust the city's accounting. They are probably budgeting $100 a hour for the Department of Transportaion guy to go drop some previously owned and existing barriers.

I hope some intrepid reporter actually calls the city on their numbers and asks for a copy of the accounting.

"other area homeowners welcome the festival (and its higher property values). "

That sentence doesn't make any sense at all. The festival has property, with higher values? Higher than what?

Even if you had constructed that sentence correctly, what does it mean? Property values increase during the festival? Property values are permanently higher, due to an event that happens 5 days a year? You have proof of that?

Unfortunately, thanks to Bill Sizemore's measure 5, while neighbors enjoy higher property values, the city and county do not receive the tax revenue they ought to from those new, higher property values.

I was disappointed by the meeting. NO ONE wants to end Last Thursday altogether, including probably 90% of residents in the area. So why did we spend two hours talking about that issue? They were never serious about ending it.

The important question was concrete fixes to some of the remaining problems, but that was hardly discussed.

It was two-and-a-half solid hours of "I moved here four years ago, and Last Thursday was a big reason for that, and I like that Portland is weird." Super.

If we don't talk about fixing some things, we're going to be having the same conversation this summer, then next spring, then next summer....

@ GLV: You are setting a new level for internet niggling. Combined with the street fair, Last Thursdays add to the image of Alberta being a "happenin'" neighborhood, which makes it more desirable to live there. I'm not sure why you're pretending to not understand that. Did you really just chime in to point out that a sentence on the internet was constructed poorly?

Otherwise, it sounds like you're implying a pretty high empirical standard for making simple, practically self-evident assertions.

@ Blabby: I sympathize; if everyone (Mercury included) hadn't been waving around the red herring of ending Last Thursday, we wouldn't have nearly as much useless histrionics, and maybe some practical results might have been accomplished.

However, I do have high hopes for next week's work group on Waterfront Park after-hours policy titled, "SHOULD WE STERILIZE THE HOMELESS AND THEN KILL THEM USING YOUR TAX DOLLARS?"

Can we resolve this conflict with a freewheeling hobo-clown tall bike joust-off? Or failing that, perhaps some bongos and twirling? Or we could mediate by downloading some stencil patterns off the internet and paint them on each others' garage doors.

@CC: See, normally nobody comes to those meetings, but when they start calling them things like that suddenly everyone shows up.

@NumberSix - The city's numbers are a little outrageous. They say they spend $3,000 a month on traffic barriers and crowd control.

@Commenty Colin - Fritz and Adams didn't set out to accomplish any practical results at the meeting, it was a "time to air things out" remember? I do think they put "end Last Thursday" as one of the options on the table to get people to attend, though, and it definitely worked.

@CC, hilarious!

Chunty, I feel that we've perhaps reached the constructive limit of what stenciling mediation can do to bring the parties together.

Perhaps some resolution can come from people selling their old clothes of the sidewalk?

Shutting down, moving, or greatly changing Last Thursday is not an option. The overwhelming support shown last night is a testament of how deeply seeded this event is in the fabric of this community. Many of the issues will be addressed and corrected, but so far the dialogue has been off course from addressing them.

First, many of those costs listed were not actually accrued by the city (the port-o-potties were donated by Binks and other businesses). They also said the health inspectors cost $3k a month. Really? That would be 10 health inspectors at $60 an hour to manage about 20 restaurants and carts for 5 hours each month??? I want THAT job. Not only are those costs over inflated, and out-right incorrect, but they don't list the money the city gets from the event. Businesses hire employees. People spend money. Houses pay more in taxes. If costs are cited for closing the festival, then it would only slam of shortsightedness and lack of any economic knowledge or study.

Second, if other neighborhoods in the city want twhat Alberta has put together, then help replicate the event elsewhere. Don't steal what we have going for us.

Third, how about we keep the ideas to fix Last Thursday targeted to areas that need fixing. If drunks are the problem, get rid of the drunks. If litter is a problem, identify ways to address litter.

As one gentleman said, "You don't break up with Brad Pitt over a little dandruff. It's Brad Pitt."

sinical, I agree completely. But I wish we heard more about those fixes last night.

Having worked in local govt before, I have a feeling that the cost to the city is not actually the city's greatest issue. I think they are probably more concerned with the simple fact that they don't want to end up "owning" this event.

I'm guessing it's pretty frustrating for the city to try to solve the problems, and turn to businesses, vendors and artists only to hear "Don't look at me. We're not in charge of this thing."

I have no idea if their cost estimates are accurate, but paying overtime to public union employees ain't cheap.

Blabby - I would agree that the city doesn't want to own it. It's my understanding that Fritz is trying to use the costs as a rallying cry and shortcut to nixing the event.

Colin: "Did you really just chime in to point out that a sentence on the internet was constructed poorly?"

Yes. And no assessor worth his weight in donuts would say that Last Thursday itself has any measurable effect on property values.

The Merc calls itself a newspaper, so I would like to see a somewhat higher standard than "the internet" has, such as proper sentence structure and factual reporting.

The idea of rotating it to other neighborhoods is kind of interesting-- they do precisely that for Sunday Parkways.

It seems like holding it on Alberta again and again establishes the neighborhood as a "party zone" more than a place where the people who actually live there have temporarily agreed to a street party (featuring your drunk ass). Maybe this helps people take it for granted.

Now I'm curious how the Pearl's First Thursday is run. Who's the city's contact for that? If we've already got Alberta business owners like Binks providing portajohns and Magnus Johannesson playing pseudo-leader, perhaps they could go all the way and organize some sort of business coalition.

How come nobody wants to touch this thing? It's obvious that muttering some junk about how it's a spontaneous hippity dippity autonomous zone doesn't work anymore. Last Thursday is a cash cow for those that know how to work it (ahem...realtors, bars). If they want to perpetuate this thing, they need to get real about it-- warts and all.

"...muttering some junk about how it's a spontaneous hippity dippity autonomous zone doesn't work anymore"

Judging by the audience last night, many people haven't figured that out yet.

Chunty - What issue does moving it around town solve? You just spread the issues around town and kill many of the benefits. There's better efficiencies, and levels of comfort by having it in the same place, same time every month.
If Hawthorne or some other district wants their piece of the pie, according to my calendar there's a few more Thursdays in every month that they could play host on. Second Thursday? Heck, there's even days on my calendar that don't start with THURS.

Except for the month February. My dog ate half the calendar and it literally only has 2 Thursdays. EFFF.

Anyway, Alberta and Last Thursday, for better or worse, are now symbiotic. Attempting to move it some other place, will either kill Alberta, or Alberta will find a way to still have it even if Portland SAYS it is some place else. In the end, nothing good will have happened.

But does it have to be in the same spot every month? With all the "good" it's done to promote the neighborhood and get people to invest, relocate there, etc, I'm willing to bet that a different upcoming neighborhood would be willing to step up and embrace a street fair.

How about alternating between Alberta and Mississippi? Or even alternating opposite ends of Alberta? Especially now that there's development on both sides of 15th.

I don't think the neighborhood would wither on the vine without Last Thursday. It's already off to a pretty roaring start. The yupsters they hoped to attact bought houses and settled into their favorite bars and restaurants-- you know, Southeast was gonna fill up sometime.

Last Thursday has done lots of good things for the neighborhood, including playing a big part in making it so attractive the last five years.

But I disagree that to end it now would "kill Alberta." The area is pretty humming all month long nowadays. (I don't want to end it though.)

Sarah (h?), although I agree with you about the cost of things being high and outrageous, $3000/month for crowd control is equivalent (with taxes and overhead such as management, paper, office space, etc.) to 1.5-2.5 weeks assuming a salary between $15 and $25/hour. Not totally unreasonable considering driving time, gas, perks, employee d.o, etc.