Portland leaders: It's time to fix this

Free Store's impact on Old Town not reflected in TikTok video

Mayor Wilson, Chief Day, Council President Pirtle-Guiney and Councilors Clark, Green and Zimmerman,

I'm writing to get everyone on the same page about what is happening in Old Town.

I chair the Old Town Community Association, and I own The Society Hotel. The OTCA is a joint neighborhood and business association, representing residents, businesses, nonprofits, cultural and educational institutions. In short, we represent every constituency in Old Town. Over the last few months, I have been getting calls from Lan Su Gardens about NW Flanders being taken over with tent, and making it impassable to vehicle traffic. Over time, residents started to notice and get upset, feeling once again Old Town was getting treated as the neighborhood where no rules apply.

We checked with the Portland Bureau of Transporation and no permits were obtained to close the streets (we also know we would get a notice if there were to be a street closure).

A resident went over and asked the group in November of 2024 if they had a permit to close the street, and he was told to "go home you f*$king NIMBY as*$%le." That same person told them they were coming every Thursday and Sunday. Attached is a picture of NW Flanders on just one of the nights of these street takeovers. The other photos are when they moved into a Prosper Portland owned parking lot without permission, and none of the Blanchet House staff or volunteers could get their cars out.

Law enforcement first went to talk to them in the fall of 2024, and determined the group was going to be aggressive with any sort of enforcement. Residents and the cultural institutions continued to complain about this group, and the lawlessness that continued to perpetuate in Old Town, even with organized groups, and so last week law enforcement attempted to address the issue of no permits. At one point, the masked mob latched onto one of the female officers, found her information online and doxxed her, even posting the names of her children and their school, writing "I hope they will be safe tomorrow."

This week, we as a community wanted to show up and show our support for law and order, and asked the group ourselves to get permits if they are going to close off access to our streets and sidewalks. We were met with screaming slurs, calling us "racists," and asking if we had even "paid reparations." Our message was consistent and clear — we just want the rule of law to be consistently abided by and enforced. They asked why we called the cops, and I told them, "We didn't - the police are the only enforcement arm for unpermitted street and sidewalk closures." Their message was that we are racist NIMBYs:

At one point one of the people from the group went to Dan Lenzen's business, Dixie Tavern, and threatened to shoot up the entire place:

I am now dealing with a barrage of 1-star reviews on my business page of people calling me a racist who doesn't care about our homeless community. The resident community that showed up were elderly, all in their 60s and 70s, several were disabled, and the same vitriol and disrespect was spit in their faces as well. But I will say not a single person from the Old Town community was rude, cruel or inappropriate. I was there the entire time. You can watch videos attached from the evening. Tell me how you would feel if this happened to you in your neighborhood?

The baseline behavior of this group is just shy of domestic terrorism. I'm disappointed that this group is being treated with any sort of credibility, when every community they show up in (they are also terrorizing Lair Hill), the community is raising the alarm bells at their behavior and treatment of the community, and the mess that is left behind when they leave. When law abiding, civil citizens are being treated as equally credible as an organization and people who will gladly threaten the lives of children, call the elderly slurs, and threaten to shoot up small businesses, all so they can continue to flout the law, and be disrespectful to the community of which they are visitors, we have lost the thread, and that is why Portlanders are leaving in droves. And I have to say, as someone that has fought incredibly hard to save this city, I'm about to my breaking point.

I will remind our elected officials on this thread that our form of government has changed -- the administrative and operational work of our City is now directed by the Mayor and City Administrator. The work of City Councilors in a representative government is to represent the interests of the people in your district. Not one of these individuals is from District 4 — but all of us that showed up yesterday live and/or work in District 4. We expect our representatives to stand up for what we are asking and legislate accordingly. We are past the time of competing ideologies. Please listen to what your constituents are saying.

We did not just invent cities, but we act like no rule of law exists, or that every law we enforce is somehow political, and so we consider if we will do it. This inconsistency has created two classes of citizens, where all rules are enforced for the civil, and rules do not apply if you are uncivilized — simply call anyone a racist... that's all it takes to put leadership on its heels. For too long we have let childish behavior run the city. It is time for this to stop.

Jessie Burke

Chair, Old Town Community Association