Foster Floodplain Natural Area The Mr. Lirpa Edition

Approximately 60 homes were removed to make way for the Foster Floodplain Natural Area (formerly known as the East Lents Floodplain Restoration Project). Some of these households were involved with the City of Portland's "Willing Seller Program", others like our neighbors, were threatened with condemnation and use of eminent domain if they would not move. Our family was not interested in moving and was made promises by the Mayor of Portland and BES management (Mike Rosen/Maggie Skenderian) which have not been kept. One of the commitments made to our family was that we would always have access to our former property with our dogs if we sold our home/property to the City to accommodate the construction of this project. Signs went up in 2013 stating that dogs were no longer allowed at this site. According to Maggie Skenderian Of BES, this decision was made internally between BES and Parks management and staff. That means that there was no public input, no public outreach, and no public involvement concerning this publicly funded site. This also means that the City of Portland has not kept it's word. Since we were forced to move and can no longer use the 1/4 mile asphalt paved trail that runs through the Foster Floodplain Natural Area to access the Springwater Trail for our daily dog walk, we and the other families of our neighborhood who have dogs are supposed to use a route with no crosswalk, no pedestrian signage, and very poor visibility attributed to four badly decided tree planting locations. This crossing is also the site of two traffic fatalities among many other accidents. This new route also leads to an intersection on SE Foster Road that is not wheelchair accessible. This site will be updated frequently with new images o0f how the City is only enforcing the no dog rule and none of the other rules of the site like "No Camping", No Campfires", "No Smoking", "No Alcohol", "and "No Graffiti", to name a few. In Portland Oregon 2015, flood mitigation project equals illegal, unmaintained homeless camp.