🌱 City Workers Strike + Investors Sink Billions Into Portland

It's Saturday, Portland! Let's all enjoy ourselves. It's going to be quite the day, so let me tell you what's going on.

First, today's weather:

Chilly and slightly sunny today with a high of 48.

Here are the top five stories today in Portland:

1. More than 1,100 city workers in Portland are prepared to strike if the city doesn't improve its offer to them. The main issue is wages. Union officials say that the city's proposal doesn't keep up with inflation and that it's becoming harder for union members to live in the city where they work. If the strike happens, it will affect wide swaths of life in the city. (Portland Patch)
2. Portland businesses continue to get hit with vandalism and burglaries. Local advocacy group Bricks Need Mortar recently surveyed 110 Portland businesses on this growing issue. It found nearly 63% have been vandalized or broken into in the last year and a half. Angelique Davis, the owner of Thee Lucky Bastard PDX is a part of that group. Davis says the group plans to meet in the next couple of weeks and aims to present solutions and concerns the Portland City Council. (KPTV.com)
3. Helping Hands, the nonprofit that runs the Bybee Lakes Hope Center at the former Wapato Jail, is in discussions with the city to run the safe rest village planned at the Jerome F. Sears Army Reserve Center in Multnomah Village in Southwest Portland. The impending selection of Helping Hands as a contractor is significant for two reasons. First, the Multnomah Neighborhood Association last week demanded that City Hall scuttle its plans for a Southwest Portland rest village and redirect the money to Helping Hands for Bybee Lakes, which it runs. Second, the shelters that Helping Hands is best known for running use different criteria for entry than what Ryan and his colleagues have promised. (Willamette Week)
4. Real estate investors spent far more money on Portland-area apartment buildings last year than previously thought. CoStar Group, a real estate analytics provider, last year tallied in excess of $3 billion worth of sales in the region's multifamily market, which broke a 2016 record of $2.978 billion. CoStar counts complexes with five or more units and doesn't include residential condos or co-ops. (KGW.com)
5. Multnomah County has hit a milestone in its goal to end chronic homelessness and keep people from becoming homeless. The county’s Board of Commissioners approved an agreement with the regional government Metro on Thursday, Jan. 27, setting the terms of oversight and distribution for an anticipated $1 billion tax revenue over the next decade as part of the Supportive Housing Services measure. (KOIN)

Today in Portland:

• For some local blues talent tonight, head to the Blue Diamond to see Lady Kat & Sonny Hess play. Known far and wide for her sensual guitar playing, songwriting gifts and soulful vocals, local blues legend Sonny Hess fires up shows around town performing in a variety of forms and combinations - solo, in duos, full bands, and as part of the venerable NW Women Rhythm & Blues. Doors open at 5:00 PM.
• For music for a cause, check out the 19th Annual Covers and Blankets, open-mic Clothing and Blanket Drive benefiting the Janus Youth Programs of Portland and SW Washington. Sign-ups to sing a COVER Song start at 6:30 pm. While experiencing this community and the music it offers, we will also be helping Janus Youth Programs do what they do at their leanest time of year. Doors open at 6:00 PM.
• Film School will be performing with Sun Atoms and Shadowgraphs at the Vitalidad Movement Arts & Events Center in SE Portland. Indie shoegaze stalwarts Film School return with its sixth full-length release and first for Sonic Ritual, We Weren’t Here, the follow-up to 2018’s Bright to Death. Tickets available online. Showtime is 8:00 PM.
• Join local rapper and producer Sincere God Magnetic, fresh off the release of his Elements EP, for the second annual Jinglin Baby Hip Hop Jam at Hawthorne Hideaway in SE Portland. This local hip-hop celebration will feature special performances by songstress, saxophonist, and composer Evie B, hype MC Scooter Rogers, stylish singer-songwriter Lana Shea, Flow Show hip-hop showcase host Chain Taylor, soulful lyricist Lyric Divine, and underground hip-hop DJ Lady X. Showtime is 8:00 PM.
• Portland's own Vintage Soul will be playing at Mississippi Pizza Pub & Atlantis Lounge in North Portland. Vintage Soul is an all-star Portland band that plays blues, funk, soul and more. Featuring Brian Foxworth, Steve Kerin, Chance Hayden and Ben Jones. 8:00 - 11:30 PM.

From my notebook:

• Travel Portland: "Portland Dumpling Week runs 1/30-2/5! 🥟 Check out the link in our bio for all the delicious details. Which spot are you going to hit first on the official dumpling passport? Let's go! #ThisIsPortland Pictured: @mamachowskitchen #Dumpl..." (Instagram)
• Portland Audubon: "Baby bird season is coming soon and we are looking for volunteers to assist with the extra traffic they bring to the Wildlife Care Center! There are two volunteer roles we need to fill; assisting with cleaning and prep needed for baby ..." (Instagram)
• A collaborative storytelling project out of Portland State University aims to draw up change regarding the narrative surrounding homelessness through ethnographic cartoons based on PSU students’ lived experience of housing insecurity. In partnership with PSU’s Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative (HRAC), Street Roots, and Independent Publishing Resource Center, the project utilized research led by PSU instructor, Kacy McKinney, the talents of 10 Portland-based comic artists, and the untold stories of PSU students to produce 10 cartoons which illustrate the reality of student homelessness. (KOIN)
• Here is a completely realistic video of what it's like to be in Oregon. It's put out by Travel Oregon and produced by Wieden+Kennedy with animation by Psyop and Sun Creature Studio and the musical score composed by Jim Dooley. (YouTube)
• Not sure if you know this, but Guillermo del Toro is doing a remake of the classic tale of Pinocchio. Why am I telling you about it? Well, this stop-motion film was made right here in Portland. Oscar-winner del Toro had been musing about making his own version of Pinocchio for many years. Work finally got underway in 2019, with the animation studio ShadowMachine filming the movie at a studio in Northwest Portland. Veteran Portland animator Mark Gustafson directed the film with del Toro, whose most recent film is Oscar contender “Nightmare Alley.”(The Oregonian)
• If you're a fan of Chinese cuisine, Eater PDX has compiled a handy list of some of the best Chinese restaurants in the Portland metro area. As usual, the points on this map are not ranked, but rather organized geographically. (Eater PDX)

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It's the weekend, folks, so have a great time. There're so many ways to have fun in Portland that it's hard to decide just what to do. But whatever you do, meet me back here next week for more talk about Portland.

— Dominic Anaya

About me: Doctor, educator and now a writer/artist, I'm just chillin' in Portland, OR with my wife, our ferrets, our chickens and our goats.