SIGN THE PETITION! (to protect park and reservoirs)

To see and sign, click here:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1hagzRy2Ko3ZNdHNsZTUDkg6lnrCSPobARGBWfEveEuY/viewform?usp=send_form

Petition: Protect Mt. Tabor’s Historic Park and Historic Reservoirs

We the undersigned request authorities with Oregon’s State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) and with Portland’s Historic Landmarks Commission (HLC), help the community protect the nationally recognized historic resources on Mt. Tabor, which include the nationally registered Historic Mount Tabor Park and the nationally registered Mount Tabor Reservoir Historic District.

We the undersigned value this Historic Park and these Historic Reservoir features central to that park, for the American story they preserve and for the functional-beauty they bring to the lives of every Portlander.

We the undersigned fully support the comments and requests made to your respective bodies by the Mt. Tabor Neighborhood Association in November 2014, regarding the proposal to disconnect the historic reservoirs from Portland’s drinking water system.  We find this proposal will seriously impact the historic reservoir assets, as well as the historic park within which these reservoirs sit.

We the undersigned make the following requests to SHPO and to HLC:

1) Please provide rigorous process and outside oversight of the plan to disconnect the reservoirs from Portland’s drinking water system;

2) Please take all actions available to protect the historic character, aesthetic and record of use of the entire Tabor site;

3) Please mandate water as a feature central to any future-use of the historic site;

4) Please honor the preservation ethic of reversibility, by scrutinizing this disconnection plan for every avenue by which it could be made more affordably reversible;

6) Please use all measures available to ensure good preservation planning and preservation funding for this site going forward.

(The Mt. Tabor Neighborhood Association continues to maintain that this disconnection is unnecessary.  However, we have involved ourselves in the disconnection construction planning process to ensure that plan is respectful of the historic reservoirs and the historic park.  We find the disconnection proposal as written flawed.  MTNA comments to HLC are available here: http://www.mtna-landuse.blogspot.com/2014/11/hlc-comments.html .   MTNA’s comments to SHPO are available here: http://www.mtna-landuse.blogspot.com/2014/11/tabor-disconnect-letter-to-shpo.html .)