To loyal readers of the Sentinel site and consistent users of our community calendar:

The Sentinel site is scheduled to lock-down this coming August 3. Staff content production ceased earlier this month but the site continues to be actively used by the community. However, after some effort on my part, I have been unable find a sustainable business model or partnership that would allow continued service.

Last month The Sentinel and the Oregon News Incubator ceased their publishing and office share arrangement. The partnership produced a significant amount of coverage throughout the spring. However, by June it was clear that taking on news assignments was more demanding for ONI members than the rewards yielded by relatively free workspace in North Portland. The ONI continues to meet and conduct its work of supporting freelancer reporters. I wish them well.

Despite the fact that no partnership or staff reporting has occurred recently, some 8,000 users still traffic and post to this site. I believe this proves that both the publication and the online model we created here turned out to be a useful resource to the community.

After August 3, the site and it’s data will continue to be publicly available through search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo. However, all dynamic features will cease to publish. No new comments, events, or other new material may be added after July 31.

The site’s files will be transfered to the non-profit group North Portland Community Works. The NPCW will maintain the files so that they can still be accessible through the web. A set of the Sentinel’s paper editions will be donated to the City of Portland's archives and another set will go to the St Johns Heritage Society.

Well it's day two of the big Open Source conference known as Open Source Bridge, happening here, at the Portland Art Museum all week long. What is "Open Source" well that's basically the technology that makes websites like the Sentinel possible. Open Source is a catch all for IT platforms, tools, and systems that are essentially freeware.

Usually we're pretty upbeat here at Saturday Morning Video. We try to keep it light and local. But we are big fans of Futbol and the biggest sporting event in the world, the World Cup, starts in two weeks.  South Africa hosting the games and in SMV's opinion SA is one of the more interesting and compelling of the world's emerging countries. Like Brazil, it's a powerful, wealthy multi-ethnic society on a continent that is struggling to emerge from poverty and dysfunction. The World Cup is a huge boost for the pride of SA.  They've earned it. But here are a few video blogs from two years ago that show how highly polarized and unsettling the political realities of SA can be.  The two video bloggers here are both very compelling and smart people. The first addresses a desire to have white South Africans into the 'big church' of the governments one party system.  The second video is a rather frightening, but seemingly well reasoned, rebuttal by a white South African who makes vast allegations against the government and culture of the majority, including a claim of deliberate ethnic cleansing of the white population and predictions that SA will descend into a Rwandaesque genocidal state.  Hmmm... Have a happy Saturday everyone and don't forget to tune in for the World Cup.

Last night, May 22nd, ego-maniacal publisher Cornelius Swart apparently won a major award thingy from the Society of Professional Journalists. Swart was awarded first place in the category of Best Online Coverage for this publication's 2009 stories on North Precinct.  The Sentinel competed in the category of non-daily newspaper with a circulation of 8,000 or more. This category includes publications like Oregon Business Magazine and the Willamette Week.

"I am gratified to see that years of ruthlessly pursuing my own self interest has finally paid off," said Swart in an acceptance speech that lasted approximately 6 hours and 41 minutes. "This is a tremendous honor.  I have no one to thank."

Typical of Swart's solipsistic blundering and general nincompoopery, he neglected to mention that he was only one member of an editorial team that covered the precinct. The team included Roger Anthony, Rebecca Robinson, Justin Dean, Rebbeca Bartleson, Jason Kaplan and William Crawford.

"I don't even know those people," said Swart defensively, when asked about his oversight.

Political blogger TA Barnhart from the Oregon News Incubator sits down to discuss his views and picks for this month's races in City Council, County Commission, Metro President and Governor.

[NOTE: POD PLAYER IS NOW LOCATED IN THE RIGHT HAND COLUMN OF THIS PAGE]

Sentinel's fancy new website welcomes you (REFRESH YOUR BROWSER AH-LOT!)

What's been going on since the March Street Edition said, "I'm hitting the road!"

The quest for sustainable service model

Welcome to the Sentinel’s new website.
Over the last 6 months we’ve been working hard on launching this new design and platform. All those involved are delighted with how well it’s turned out. Forage around. I hope you find it easier to use and more pleasing to the eye than ever. News and information should flow better, and as always you can post your own news and events by hitting the big blue speech bubble. The user login, though, is now discretely tucked up in the upper right hand corner of the site. Community users, should know that their post will still publish instantly. But it might take a few hours or a day for editors to review the content before a posting them the home page. Go to the RECENT POST page (button on the main navigation bar) for an unfiltered view of all public access and news service postings. Last but not least, if you have problems with site features, remember to refresh your web browser. Refreshing your browser will help your computer to 'learn' how to see the new website design and functions.  It sounds strange, but...yes..it's technical, trust me.

One of the most viewed videos on youtube this week is Jay William Johnson's latest blog called Robot Mouth.

Johnson is doing a style that's been out there for years. These blogs use topical stand up style comedy with quick cut away punch lines that works great with the intimate user experience allowed by youtube. He's also maxing out the emerging tech tools and trends: seemlessly bringing in video hyperlinks, twitter flow and user comment into the show in a way that doesn't seemed forced.  He's also plugging t-shirt sales.

Leno and the like can't compete. Johnson and his cohorts will surely take over the world! Or at least, here's to hoping they do.

Managing Editor Rebecca Robinson officially left her position here at the Sentinel on April 1. She will now be covering North Portland as a freelancer for the Oregonian. 

Robinson came to the Sentinel through its internship program in 2007. She continued on as a freelancer and became news and online editor in 2008. This year, she was promoted to managing editor and had final edit on all Sentinel print and online coverage. 

Robinson was one of four editors at the Sentinel that reviewed assigned and edited content. Those include myself, Will Crow and Roger Anthony. 

 FROM THE OREGONIAN

The Portland River Plan: Meeting our vision for the North Reach

By Guest Columnist

April 02, 2010, 9:00AM

Sam AdamsBy Sam Adams
 
My vision for Portland is a city that is economically prosperous and environmentally and socially sustainable. Striving for success on both the economic and environmental fronts is the true innovation of the proposed Portland River Plan, a plan for the Willamette River from the Fremont Bridge to Kelley Point Park.

The river plan acknowledges the tremendous success we've seen in our working harbor and seeks to ensure that it continues to prosper through key investments in industry-supporting infrastructure.

The plan identifies key "pearl" sites for focused environmental restoration, and it seeks to connect these sites through a string of natural resource areas to be protected -- or developed -- up and down the North Reach.

The existing Willamette Greenway Plan in effect for the North Reach, created in 1987, is sorely out of date. The current regulations require projects to meet vague approval criteria, often while they're subject to meeting federal and state criteria in a separate process. That's an onerous process for businesses to navigate. Eleven percent of Portland's job base is in the manufacturing sector, much of it concentrated in the North Reach. Advanced manufacturing is one of the four industries targeted in our Economic Development Strategy, our blueprint for creating 10,000 jobs over the next five years. 

READ THE EDITORIAL

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The Kenton Library opened at last today, officially and ceremoniously. The place has been packed all day as residents pore over the library's shiny bookish bling.  The library is around the corner from the Sentinel's office and I literally stopped in this afternoon only because I had to return some Terry Pratchett audio books. Today was a great day for the neighborhood and North Portland, and one that will be well covered by the mainstream press.  If you as a resident have photos you'd like us to post here or link to, please comment below or email them to pub@portlandsentinel.com. -Cornelius Swart

UPDATE: I stopped in as well, and it was packed to the gills with people - and, of course, books. City Council candidate Ed Garren was there, as was Multnomah County Commissioner candidate Karol Collymore and a host of other local luminaries. In the storytelling space, women used puppets to act out Dr. Seuss stories as enraptured children looked on. People perused the shelves, marveled at the extensive DVD collection (which pulls out, file cabinet-style, from the wall) and noshed on mini-cupcakes and lemonade provided by nearby Posies Cafe. The library is shiny, spacious and state-of-the-art (well, at least by Portland standards), and brings Kenton one step closer to being a gentrified destination neighborhood. YEAH literacy! -Rebecca Robinson

We know, we know..this video is  "like, like soooooo posted-last-week"- but still fresh in some minds. This is another logistical bit of brilliance from OK Go.

In today's Oregonian, columnist Steve Duin offered a thoughtful view on Portland Public Schools imminent high school redesign.  I recommend reading it.  Most of his comments align with our recent editorial. But we do differ in one area. The Sentinel recommends that Jefferson become a vocational special focus school.

Duin seems to believe that the redesign is on the right track, but doesn't go far enough. He makes the case that PPS is not looking into the future with it's vision. His case, perhaps, being that the redesign is, at it's least, triage rather than transformation.  Duin does not argue against PPS logic that a reapportionment of students to fewer and larger high schools would level some of the playing field. But he does say that's not good enough for a forward looking school system.

FROM THE OREGONIAN: BELOW THE CUT

In my five years with The Sentinel, my favorite story was “Crack in Kenton” (November 2006 article not available online).  An ex-pimp and drug addict named Lionel Scott walked into The Sentinel offices in St. Johns one evening in September. He said that he was seeing a lot of drug dealing in Kenton, but he felt that police and neighborhood activists weren’t taking him seriously. 

The newly installed community policing office on North Denver Avenue was not in regular use, and at the time, there were few businesses on the street that could keep an eye on things. Scott street mannerisms might have lead some to be dismissive or suspicious of him.

Scott appeared sincere to me.  He worked as a case manager for True Dialogue, a nonprofit that worked to keep kids off the street.  Scott’s references checked out, and distinguished people in the community such as the Reverend John Tolbert vouched for him.

Over the next two months, I followed Scott and his wife, Stephanie, as they told me of the remarkable turnaround Scott had achieved in his own life, and of criminal activity they saw in the neighborhood around them. 

In 2006, The Sentinel dedicated considerable coverage to the effort to rename North Portland Boulevard after civil rights leader Rosa Parks. In October 2006, Sentinel Publisher Cornelius Swart wrote an editorial in support of the name change.

But by the summer of 2007, as the first new Rosa Parks signs began going up on Portland Boulevard and became visible, a small backlash against the name change began to arise amongst residents. Little did they know that another street-renaming controversy was waiting in the wings.

In August 2007, The Sentinel street edition expanded on earlier online coverage about a campaign to change the name of North Interstate Avenue to Cesar E. Chavez Boulevard. The Sentinel reported that several neighborhood associations along Interstate Avenue had given initial support for the idea, but businesses were unaware of the proposal.

The efforts quickly grabbed citywide, statewide, and then national headlines as a determined activist group met with increasingly vocal opposition. Accusations of racism on one side were met by allegations of back-room deals at City Hall.

To those who invested their passion, energy and precious time to this paper, and to whom I am indebted for the rewards of this endeavor: Michele Elder, Will Crow, Theresa Rohrer, Colleen Froehlich, Roger Anthony, Rebecca Robinson, Jason E. Kaplan, Vanessa Anthony, Laura Hutton, Todd Anthony, Dave Johnson, David Sharp, Alex Blackwood, Yvette King, Charlotte Johnson, Dave Trabucco, Steven Ye, Connie Summers, Colleen McDonald, Chelsia Rice, James Yeary, Peter and Donna Bogdanov, my daughter, family and devoted creditors. Thank you.

~ Cornelius Swart

Any journalist will tell you that a good lede is elusive. The first sentence of a news or feature story, the lede must hook readers with irresistible brain bait that lures them into the next paragraph and beyond.

We’ve pored over thousands of articles here at The Sentinel, so many that after a while stories of brownfields and Business Boosters and Bachelor’s Clubs and brouhahas blend together, regardless of an individual piece’s quality. There are some stories, however, whose ledes lift them from interesting to instantly memorable. Mara Grunbaum’s lede for “Grand Masters from Astor” is a prime example.