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Mayor’s legacy lives on

PORTLAND, Ore. — At the risk of being hooted out of the blogging world, I feel the need to extol the legacy that a once-promising politician left behind in the city he led as its mayor.

Neil Goldschmidt took office at City Hall as a young whipper-snapper in 1972. I think he was 32 years of age, a young man elected to lead a city that at the time had about 375,000 residents.

He then proceeded to map out an agenda aimed at creating a vibrant downtown district and enhancing the city’s mass transit system.

Goldschmidt vetoed what was called the Mount Hood Freeway project, which was planned as a highway system from southeast Portland east to Mount Hood, about 50 miles away. The mayor said he didn’t want an endless series of strip malls developed along that corridor.

Instead, he persuaded the city council to focus its interests on downtown and on mass transit. He succeeded.

What has occurred in the 50 years since then is the city’s downtown district became a showpiece. The city’s bus and light-rail systems are the envy of other cities.

Oh, but wait. Goldschmidt then became transportation secretary in the Carter administration before being elected governor of Oregon. Then it hit the fan, as he was exposed as a pedophile after a newspaper investigation revealed he seduced a teenager while he was serving as mayor; reporting revealed he had sex multiple times with an underage girl.

His public service career ended on the spot. He resigned from every board on which he served. The State Capitol staff took down his governor’s portrait from the gallery of former governors and stashed it out of sight.

Goldschmidt went from municipal pioneer to pariah overnight.

He’s gone from public view, but the legacy he built remains. His reputation never will be restored. I don’t necessarily want, though, for the city treasure he discovered to be buried.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Mountains aren’t ‘out’

PORTLAND, Ore. — Those who live in this part of the world have a saying that seems to be unique to them.

When the sun is out and the clouds are gone, they will say, “The Mountain is out.” Meaning, of course, Mount Hood, the 11,245-foot sentinel that towers about 50 miles to the east of Portland along the Cascade Range.

I’ve been here for a couple of days and the Mountain isn’t out. It is hiding under a thick shroud of clouds that continues to douse the region with rainfall. Furthermore, there is no apparent window for when Mount Hood will present itself in all its snowy splendor.

Mount Hood isn’t the only such landmark to grace the horizon. Portlanders also get to gander at Mount St. Helens, the active volcano that, on May 18, 1980, blew about 1,300 feet off its summit in a spectacular explosion that killed 60 or so people, some of whom refused to heed warnings to vacate their property.

Mount St. Helens is shrouded, too.

These are the kinds of sights that those who visit this gorgeous part of the country come here to see. These days? They’re all, shall we say, “sh** outta luck.”

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

environmental news

Kilauea produces thrills and fright

Most of those of us who live in the 48 contiguous United States of America don’t have to worry about the forces of nature that are putting the folks of Hawaii in such peril at the moment.

Kilauea is erupting on the island of Hawaii. It’s showing no sign of letting up. It’s covering streets and highways with lava. I haven’t heard of any loss of life. The volcano has become — for years, apparently — part of people’s daily existence. It is getting worse.

My heart goes out to those in harm’s way.

I have been reading some material in the New York Times and other publications about comparisons between what is happening in Hawaii and what could happen along other volcanic mountain chains in the United States.

I was particularly struck by the speculation surrounding the Cascade Range, which traverses north and south from British Columbia, through Washington, Oregon and into California.

Of all the things one never expects to see in their lifetime, a volcanic eruption was one of them. That all changed for me in the spring of 1980, when Mount St. Helens, a peak that once stood about 9,700 above sea level in southwest Washington, exploded in spectacular fashion. The volcanic explosion occurred on May 18, 1980, killing about 70 individuals. It was the story of the decade for those of us living in the Pacific Northwest.

I was living in the city of my birth, Portland, Ore., about 50 miles south of the peak, which now stands at about 8,400 feet, given that so much of its peak was blown apart by the titanic blast.

Mount St. Helens’s eruption produced a vast crop of armchair vulcanologists who became “experts” based on what they heard, read and possibly felt in their bones about what might happen to any of the other volcanic peaks along the Cascade Range.

Mount Hood stands like a sentinel to the east of Portland. It’s a glorious peak that stands 11,250 feet along the horizon. Will it blow apart? That’s been the subject of some discussion since Mount St. Helens blew apart. If it does, I’ll tell you it will create serious damage along its southern face, which was shaped by its latest eruption, which occurred, oh, a long time ago. The mountain is considered “dormant,” as it seeps gas out of the caldera near its summit.

So, it is with some interest that many of us are watching the drama unfold in Hawaii. We’ve lived through it, too.

national news

Some things you think you'd never see

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When I was growing up, if anyone ever thought to ask me if there was something I’d like to witness but would never get the chance, I might have said “a volcanic eruption.”

I grew up in Portland, Ore., about 50 or so miles west of a chain of volcanic peaks along the Cascade Range. Most of the peaks were considered to be in various stages of dormancy. Some of them are extinct. They’ll never erupt again.

One of them, though, just northeast of our city, was considered “most likely” to erupt. Who would have thought we’d actually witness it.

Thirty-five years ago, on May 18, 1980, good ol’ Mount St. Helens blew apart in a cataclysmic blast no one likely ever thought they’d witness.

It was a Sunday. It was overcast in Portland that morning, so we didn’t actually witness the ash cloud blown 50,000 feet into the air over Washington state. Aerial photographers took plenty of pictures, though. It was a huge day in the lives of those of us who grew up looking eastward along the Cascades.

Portland’s signature actually is Mount Hood, the highest peak in Oregon. To the north of Mount Hood is Mount St. Helens.

Prior to the blast, Mount St. Helens cut an impressive and pristine figure against the sky. It looked almost geometrically perfect. Some folks called it the “Mount Fuji of the Americas,” as it bore some vague resemblance to Japan’s famous — and perfectly shaped — peak.

The cataclysm took care of Mount St. Helens’s appearance. It blew about 1,500 feet of dirt and rock off the top of the mountain, scattering it as part of that pyroclastic flow of hot gas and ash that ripped through the Douglas fir forest, filling Spirit Lake with fallen timber.

The mountain had been rumbling for a couple of months prior to the blast. I had the thrill of a lifetime when I flew over the summit in a private aircraft to take pictures of the crater’s early beginning. One of my colleagues at the paper where I worked drove that day in March to interview individuals who were monitoring the mountain’s activity for the U.S. Geological Service.

My colleague, Dave Peters, caught up with a young geologist named David Johnston, visited with him about what he was witnessing as the mountain started rumbling. Dave returned and filed a fascinating feature about Johnston and others he met that day.

Johnston would die in the blast a few weeks later as he was perched on a ridge that would be renamed in his memory. As the once-gorgeous peak blew apart, Johnston yelled into his radio to the USGS headquarters: Vancouver, Vancouver … this is it!

And then, just like that, he was gone.

That amazing day is etched in the memories of those of us who were aware of the volcanoes that dotted our skyline to our east.

I doubt any of us ever thought we’d witness what we saw on that Sunday morning 35 years ago.

Who knew?