Article From NW Examiner, written By Allan Classen.
After considering alternatives to a 24-hour Portland Loo at Jamison Square for almost a year, it seems the community really never had any options.
The Pearl District Neighborhood Association voted to accept the city’s specially designed public toilet last month, despite about 10 other ideas offered by neighbors at a meeting attended by 70 people two days earlier.
Sandy Ammerman, the primary spokesperson for neighbors opposing the Loo, said the board’s decision “was a foregone conclusion” affirming a PDNA position taken last year.
Although residents of condominium buildings surrounding the park insisted that these other options be explored, none of their suggestions came with the requisite funding and authorization from the affected property owners. Some neighbors favored doing nothing, but the idea of providing no means of relief for the thousands of children and adults who flock to the park’s popular water feature was unthinkable to most board members.
Stripped of euphemism and generality, the objections centered on fear that an overnight restroom would be used by homeless people and lead to a clustering of anti-social behaviors that would make the area feel unwelcome or unsafe.
“If you build it, they will come,” said Sheila McCoy, a PDNA board member who lives in the Streetcar Lofts. McCoy said she hears people pushing shopping carts past her windows until 3 a.m., suggesting to her that it would not take a strong magnet to cause them to congregate in or around the park.
“You’re absolutely right,” said Officer Carl Weldon, who has tracked behavior around the city’s first Loo, located on Northwest Glisan by the bus station. Weldon said he has found drug paraphernalia in and around that Loo, and arrests are high in the vicinity, although he admitted that it is impossible to separate the public restroom from other contributing factors in the vicinity.
However, Portland Police Chief Mike Reese has said he considers the Loo experiment on Glisan Street a success. “It is my opinion that the Loo makes sense in Jamison…
