Take the loss and leave, Bud — your children are at risk and the city government is not going to get better any time soon.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] A single father from Oregon has said he begged city officials to deal with a growing homeless encampment outside his home for months - only to be fined for his garden hedge instead.
Rather than addressing Chris Bolton's concerns, City of Portland councilors abruptly turned their attention on him by criticizing his overgrown laurels.
Bolton, who lives on the corner of Southeast Clinton Street and 89th Avenue, repeatedly contacted the city about tents, trailers and RVs parking beside his yard.
The dense greenery which frames his garden appeared to serve as a barrier between his home and a stretch of neighborhood plagued by persistent disorder.
But in early December, a worker from the Portland Bureau of Transportation arrived at his property, not to address the encampment he had flagged again and again, but to warn him that his hedge had encroached too far into the public right-of-way.
The worker said the growth could interfere with the installation of a stop sign at the intersection.
Bolton says what followed was swift and relentless, with enforcement aimed not at the encampment, but at him. Within days, notices began arriving. Code enforcement officers cited him for violating property maintenance rules and warned of financial penalties.
A formal notice outlined the possibility of a $693 fine and even a lien against his home if the hedge was not brought into compliance quickly.
The escalation stunned Bolton, a self-employed single parent who said he had already spent months trying to get the city to address conditions outside his home.
Residents in the Powellhurst-Gilbert neighborhood said his experience reflects a broader pattern - one in which long-standing complaints about crime and disorder go largely unresolved, while minor code violations are enforced with urgency.
Over the years, neighbors say the area has struggled with a range of issues, including illegal dumping, drug activity, reckless driving and a steady rotation of abandoned or occupied vehicles.
The encampments are just one part of a wider breakdown that worsened during the pandemic.
City officials have acknowledged the corridor, just south of Division Street between Southeast 82nd and 92nd avenues, as a recurring trouble spot for lived-in and abandoned vehicles. Records show that at least 22 RVs and other vehicles were tagged for removal near Bolton's home between October 1 and March 31. Seven of those were ultimately towed. The remaining vehicles, officials said, had moved before crews returned - a pattern neighbors say is all too familiar, with encampments simply shifting block by block.
Bolton's attempts to get help were extensive. Public records, including emails and call logs, show he contacted more than a dozen city employees, departments and programs. At one point, six weeks passed before a constituent liaison from the City Council's District 1 office responded to his request for assistance. By his own estimate, Bolton spent more than 40 hours trying to resolve the situation, along with thousands of dollars and significant personal stress.
'A question I often asked myself was, "How in the world could anybody else deal with this?"' Bolton told The Oregonian.
'I never figured out what to do or who to call. It just seemed like I kept getting lost in people's inboxes - or they were simply passing the buck.'
City of Portland spokesperson Cody Bowman acknowledged shortcomings in how Bolton's case was handled, describing it as 'an example of where we can improve customer service.'
'We never want Portlanders to feel like they're navigating the city alone,' Bowman said.
Still, for residents, the response has done little to ease frustration. Data from Portland's Bureau of Emergency Communications shows 432 reported incidents within a three-block radius of Bolton's home over the past year.
Those reports include theft, assault, robbery, prostitution, vandalism, suspicious activity and even shootings. Thirty-two incidents occurred within roughly 165 feet of his property.
Neighbors said those numbers only tell part of the story, pointing to constant calls to 311, emails to city agencies and online reports that often go unanswered.
'You've got to have a Buddhist mentality when trying to get the city to respond to just about anything around here.'
Another resident, Stefanie Kraus, described taking extraordinary precautions when walking her child through the neighborhood.
'I used to carry a baseball bat and bear mace in my baby's stroller,' she said.
Bolton's own paper trail shows a steady escalation of concern.
In an October 5 email to the city's Public Environment Management Office, he described campers cutting into his hedge and digging into the ground - something he feared was being used for waste disposal.
'I have a tenant. I have a grade schooler. I don't want sewage seeping into my yard. Can you help?' he wrote.
Weeks passed without a response, he said, despite repeated calls to 311. On November 3, he sent another message, describing late-night arguments, generator noise and fumes drifting into his home. Still without a reply five days later, he wrote again expressing doubt that anything would be done.
'I know this is a fruitless exercise because you won't do anything about it,' he wrote.
He finally received a response on November 10, when a city coordinator apologized and said the site would be cleared within a week. Some tents did leave, but debris, trailers and trash remained when transportation officials arrived in early December - shifting the focus to Bolton's hedge.
Unable to fully access parts of it due to the encampment, Bolton says he was nevertheless expected to bring it into compliance immediately.
'I can't even get to parts of my hedge because of the trailers,' he wrote in a December email to city council offices.
'The irony of being threatened with a (lien) on my house if I don't cut down my hedge feels like something out of a Kafka novel.'
In the end, Bolton said he and a group of friends and neighbors took matters into their own hands, cutting back the hedge extensively to satisfy the city’s demands. But the experience, he says, has left a lasting impression - not just of a single dispute, but of a system that he and others believe struggles to respond consistently to the people it serves.
#1
"Service" is a totally ignored concept among Portland's officials. This is but one of many similar incidents that take place in this once beautiful city.
Posted by: Oregon Dave ||
05/03/2026 0:33 Comments ||
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#2
At some point , take up for yourself.
Posted by: chris ||
05/03/2026 1:09 Comments ||
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#4
I don’t think there is much that a regular person can do in Portland other than leave.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
05/03/2026 8:33 Comments ||
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#5
Maybe he should have anonymously passed out some MAGA and US Flag embossed "Homeless please help signs" then called and complained the Homeless encampment is a bunch of Pro-Conservatives. 😉
Of course it is. These things were designed to maximize the rack-off for favoured hangers-on, not to accomplish whatever wonderful thing the suckers were promised they would be getting.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] A $2.2 billion Obama–backed power plant in the California desert which taxpayers helped fund could now cost Americans even more in electricity to keep it running.
The Ivanpah Solar Power Plant, a sprawling 3,500–acre facility in the Mojave Desert near the California–Nevada border, was built with federal support during the stimulus push under Barack Obama's first administration.
The power plant was meant to help revive the American economy after the 2008 financial crisis, while also expanding renewable energy.
It features about 350,000 computer-controlled mirrors to go alongside three imposing 459-foot towers. The sun's power heats water in the towers' boilers and make steam, which then creates electricity.
Between $730 million and $780 million of a $1.6 billion government–backed loan tied to the project remained unpaid, according to federal data cited by Fox News Digital.
The US Treasury also provided a $539 million grant for the project, which covered roughly 30 percent of construction costs.
Both the Trump and Biden administrations have looked at shutting the plant down because of how it supposedly underperforms relative to its cost, but California regulators have blocked those efforts.
If the plant is closed, taxpayers could be left on the hook for hundreds of millions in losses tied to the loan. But if it remains open, consumers could face about $100 million more in annual electricity costs compared to newer technologies.
Heads you lose, tails you still lose. But the associated Friends of Obama win regardless, so that’s ok, right?
Federal researchers and monitoring reports have documented thousands of birds being killed after flying through the plant’s concentrated solar rays — a phenomenon known as "solar flux."
The plant also relies on natural gas to start up each day – producing tens of thousands of metric tons of carbon dioxide annually – an amount comparable to the energy use of thousands of homes, raising questions about how "clean" the facility really is.
Once promoted as a symbol of the future of renewable energy, Ivanpah is now drawing scrutiny over whether its environmental costs outweigh its benefits, with critics saying the project raises broader concerns about how "clean energy" is evaluated.
#4
"Obama", "money pit", "taxpayers foot the bill".
That pretty much defines that 8 years.
I do like the way the Feds have been trying to close it, but Cal won't let them. Great gig if you can get it.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
05/03/2026 13:02 Comments ||
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#5
Call halliburton, request a big hail storm for that area.
Posted by: chris ||
05/03/2026 13:16 Comments ||
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#6
The site would make a nice place for a bundle of small modular nuclear reactors.
Of course that would require the California Energy Commission to admit things they don't want to admit.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
05/03/2026 13:28 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
