Jeff Henderson

phone chat 11/14/07

re: Triathlon permitting issues

hard to know where process is stalled

lots of different entities in the City of Portland

2 primary:

1.  Special events permtitting (in Bureau of Revenue?; his contact--Dawn Yamasaki—she’s in charge of all events and allocating resources (PDOT and Police)

2.  Parks department (waterfront park; Cary Coker)

RFP already went out from Parks for use of Waterfront Park—Jeff specified a variety of dates, as he was asked; City indicated multi-day festivals dates were Aug. 3 or Sept.. 7

RFP was due Oct. 26, decision by City to be made by Nov. 6.

Last Friday Cary wrote Jeff that Aug 31 would be best weekend for the race…

Dawn had initially sent Jeff an approval for August 3^rd…[but this now doesn’t work for Riverfest/Triathlon…]

Labor Day Weekend was an absolute disaster last year for PDOT, ODOT, and Police (lack of man power and overtime). Sam Adams called meeting last year to fix things up; 25 people attended (police, Oregon sports authority, PDOT, etc.) and all said Labor Day weekend a problem….but, this conclusion seems to have gotten lost.

Jeff continues to stress he doesn’t necessarily have a problem with Labor Day, but everyone from city did last year, which doesn’t seem to have gotten through to City permitting folks…

the one weekend that seems to work is still sept. 7, the only conflict seems to be pints to pasta race; but it’s moved up a week this year for some reason; Jeff wonders why this is critical—why they couldn’t return to their traditional later date (or even October, since it’s a running race and weather isn’t much of an issue)

Paula Harkin, wife of owner of Portland Running Company, organizes P2P but seem very difficult to get ahold of…Her organization is Run with Paula…

Saltzman has also been supportive…never met personally but worked well with his office…Matt Groen/Grumm(?) of his office supportive…

Two types of events? City supported vs. non-city supported in terms of athletic events (only 2 city supported athletic events per month)—it would be good to have Triathlon be one (PDOT coordination alone worth weight in gold)…there are already 2 city supported events in September (and Pints to Pasta is one of them)…those who have been previously supported have rights of first refusal in terms of having city support

Oregon Trout doesn’t want to be involved with Riverfest if Triathlon not a part

City is not prepared to entertain new events in September; they’ve indicated that unless Riverfest doesn’t happen with Triathlon, they’re not ready to allow Riverfest…

P2P doesn’t’ really use Waterfront Park, and besides, it’s usually on a Saturday not on a Triathlon Sunday, so it’s not a venue issue, but a one-too-many-activities-in-one-month problem…