Your voice is being heard! City Commissioner-elect Sam Adams, in response to your letters about public safety, will propose that "The City’s and County’s law enforcement programs should go through a zero-based budget approach together, looking for operational gaps, overlaps, what is working and what is not, unrealized economies of scale, and private-sector cost comparisons."

Keep up the good work and continue sending your letters. The more support we give him, the greater chance his proposal will be considered.

Need to Rehabilitate old buildings in your district? The federal rehabilitation tax credit can help finance the project to the tune of 20% if the building is on the historic roster or 10% if the building is just old. This credit has been available since 1976, but few small businesses know about it.
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Neighborhood commercial districts are difficult, gritty, cranky, often struggling, contentious, and, to put it kindly, challenging. But they are also often the hotbeds of business creativity, neighborhood activism, nonprofit entrepreneurs, economic integration, and the locus of opportunity, particularly for minority groups and new immigrants.

The August issue of the Main Street News, in an article based on Donovan Rypkema's address at the Urban Forum, offers a list of quick and inexpensive ways to revitalize these districts.
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Mayor Katz proclaimed November 27th as Buy Local Day. Think Local First, a project of the Sustainable Business Network of Portland, is a multiyear marketing campaign aimed at keeping locally owned businesses strong. Think Local First wants to:

• Preserve and enhance respect for locally owned, independent businesses as an important force in the local economy.
• Increase visibility and prosperity of locally owned, independent businesses.
• Maintain Portland’s unique identity as a city, a home(town), and as a destination.

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Tax Credit
The National Trust for Historic Preservation's Community Partners (CP) program has created an on-line, step-by-step Rehabilitation Tax Credit Guide, available at http://www.ntcicfunds.com. The guide explains how the tax credits function and provides an easy way to learn if a building qualifies.

The National Trust Small Deal Fund is for projects from $1.2 to $3.5 million. All types of properties, including hotels, offices, restaurants, entertainment uses, retail and mixed-use projects are eligible.
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Commercial Districts
Here is a quick, 22-item list of mostly cheap ways to assist neighborhood commercial districts.

Do the basics - public safety, public space, clean streets. Don't tolerate drug dealing and prostitution.

Review ordinances and regulations and change the ones that keep you from doing what you want to do. That means zoning ordinances, building codes, parking requirements, and capital improvement projects.

Discourage metal security gates - they scare off customers.

Get the city to put in public services and pay rent.

Remove graffiti.

Do not allow suburban-business building types.

Chains should accommodate pedestrians, not automobiles.

Adjust design guidelines to the district. Most owners would "do the right thing" if they knew what it was.

Encourage the district's character.

Broaden the definition of historic preservation. Create historic districts or conservation districts.

Make sure public improvements fit the scale and character of the district.

Customize the city's development incentives to meet the specific needs of the neighborhood.

Push to re-open neighborhood institutions such as libraries and schools.

Encourage high-quality infill construction.

Encourage and assist little catalysts in the neighborhood.

Practice selective code enforcement. Try to work with property owners. If they are having an adverse effect on the businesses and buildings around them, get the building code enforcement people to help you.

Recruit institutional partners for your neighborhood efforts.

Adopt locally appropriate sign ordinances.

Demolition should be the last resort, not the first.

The city and other organizations should help. Public - private - nonprofit partnerships are critical to success.

If you can, keep the revitalization process nonpolitical.

Provide technical assistance - understanding the local market, parking, financial analysis, merchandising, business planning, etc.

Copyright 2004(c) National Trust Main Street Center, National Trust for Historic Preservation
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Buy Local
The Think Local First campaign will create opportunities for local businesses to make Portland aware of the small business community and identify your business as an essential member of that community.

Membership in Think Local First is available if the business is privately owned rather than publically traded, more then 50% of the business’s ownership resides within 50 miles of the main place of business, and the business is independently owned, as opposed to a franchise of a public corporation. (It is free to make decisions about the name, look and feel of the business, about the menus, services and products offered, and able to freely choose whether or not to sell locally made products and/or work with other local service businesses.)

If you are interested in joining Think Local First, contact Bridget Bayer or check out their website ThinkLocalPortland.

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