The Central Question: After years of work, Willie Levenson sees advocacy turn to action (original) (raw)
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Willie Levenson is a zealot for the Willamette River.
And during the past few years, he has gotten a crash course on how to get things done at Portland City Hall.
Two and a half years ago, Levenson stood under the east end of the Hawthorne Bridge with then-mayoral candidate Charlie Hales to make his argument: The east bank should have a public beach, and tons of concrete blocks obscuring the bank should be cleared away.
It was an ambitious sell, but Hales got it, Levenson recalled on a recent balmy Friday afternoon. He understood the city needed to get behind the growing movement led by Levenson and others to offer more access and services - including a public beach downtown - on the river.
In the time since, Levenson said, he got to work. He and other organizers of the nonprofit Human Access Project, best known for its annual Big Float in downtown, started to make the uninviting property more appealing. Along with volunteers and inmate crews, they collectively removed 18 tons of concrete, getting permission from a variety of state, local and federal agencies.
Levenson, 44, acknowledged that he learned advocacy work "on the fly" with help in the past year from former Portland Commissioner Mike Lindberg.
Still, the co-owner of Portland's Popina Swimwear began to wonder whether Hales would come through.
Then Hales set aside $300,000 in the city budget to help plan the beach Levenson pushed for.
Hales, he said, stepped beyond the rhetoric of "good intentions" to action. "It was available to people before him, and they decided not to do it," Levenson said.
Travis Williams, executive director of nonprofit Willamette River keeper, said he's noticed the call for more river access picking up steam. "The focus on access is more prominent than I have ever seen it in the last 15 years," he said.
In an email, he added: "We need more and better fishing, canoeing, rowing, kayaking access in addition to swimming." He'd also like to see a beach near the Ross Island Bridge, saying, "it would bring more folks to that area, has better water than downtown, and great bike access."
Hales said people such as Levenson demanded more access to the river, and Portland is responding. He said he wants to do more, mentioning the need to replace a rented boat-storage facility that will lose its lease in four years: "Having an excellent public boat house is part of being an excellent city."
Levenson said the money is a good start, but he's got more work to do.
The Big Float festival, where hundreds of Portlanders get into the river, celebrates its fifth anniversary on July 26, and Levenson expects it to be the biggest yet.
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He also landed a high-profile grand marshal: Charlie Hales.
-- Andrew Theen
atheen@oregonian.com
503-294-4026
@cityhallwatch
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