Blogtown, PDX

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Politics The Return of Ed Garren

Posted by Amy J. Ruiz on Thu, May 29 at 8:54 AM

I haven’t heard much from Ed Garren lately—in fact, not a word since he sent in a critical letter following a ‘fact check’ piece I wrote early this month.

Now that the election dust has settled (Nick Fish won in that race), Garren is offering policy advice to the council about where to site transitional housing. From an open letter he sent today:

I have repeatedly seen news stories about the location of housing for returning offenders being located in places that cause controversy in residential neighborhoods.
As a professional who has worked in offender rehabilitation for much of my career, I can understand the concerns of neighbors and neighborhoods and offer a suggestion. Locate these facilities in industrial areas. Current zoning laws do not allow any residential occupancy in industrial areas. A simple exception in policy could allow certain types of transitional housing to be located in industrial zones. I have worked for many agencies that were able to do this (in other places, not here) and it was a good solution. It keeps returning offenders at a reasonable distance from schools and parks, yet allows them an opportunity to demonstrate that they are ready to return to life outside of incarceration. Also, the agency wins because rents are generally cheaper in these areas as well.

I hope the new leadership in the City will consider this as a solution to the current controversies created by locating such facilities in residential neighborhoods.

Ed Garren, MA, LMFT
www.edgarren.us

(Since the election, I’ve also found myself on candidate Fred Stewart’s near-daily email list, where today, for example, he forwarded “some tricks to get more of your money’s worth for every gallon” of gas pumped at the filling station.)

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Comments

... and what sort of tricks are those?

Posted by Ben | May 29, 2008 9:21 AM

Verbatim highlights from the email, purportedly written by someone whose "line of work is in petroleum for about 31 years now":

• Only buy or fill up your car or truck in the early morning when the ground temperature is still cold... The colder the ground the more dense the gasoline, when it gets warmer gasoline expands, so buying in the afternoon or in the evening....your gallon is not exactly a gallon.

• When you're filling up do not squeeze the trigger of the nozzle to a fast mode. If you look you will see that the
trigger has three (3) stages: low, middle, and high. In slow mode you should be pumping on low speed, thereby minimizing the vapors that are created while you are pumping.

• One of the most important tips is to fill up when your gas tank is HALF FULL or HALF EMPTY. The reason for this is, the more gas you have in your tank the less air occupying its empty space. Gasoline evaporates faster than you can imagine.

• Another reminder, if there is a gasoline truck pumping into the storage tanks when you stop to buy gas, DO NOT fill up--most likely the gasoline is being stirred up as the gas is being delivered, and you might pick up some f the dirt that normally settles on the bottom.

Posted by Amy J. Ruiz | May 29, 2008 9:34 AM

Most of which have been debunked:
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/household/gastips.asp

Posted by martin | May 29, 2008 9:40 AM

Ed,

My house is in an Industrial, the IG1 Zone to be exact. There are many houses that were built before the area was rezoned as industrial and therefore have non-conforming- yet very real- residential useages. You are incorrect in stating that "current zoning laws do[es] not allow any residential occupancy in industrial areas. I live there and at the risk of being labeled a NIMBY, I would like to point out that those of us with 100 year old houses in industrial zones should be given the same consideration as other neighborhoods on this issue.

Posted by AD | May 29, 2008 10:38 AM

As Martin pointed out, most of Fred's gas tips have been debunked. Here are some actual tips:

1) Maintain proper tire inflation. Under-inflated tires will kill your gas mileage.

2) Follow the MFR's maintenance schedule for things like your air and fuel filters and your motor oil. A dirty air filter, particularly, will reduce gas mileage.

3) SLOW DOWN and drive conservatively. Rabbit starts and rapid acceleration waste a lot of gas.

4) Use your cruise control system when you can. That little computer brain is better than yours when it comes to fuel management.

Posted by Dave Lister | May 29, 2008 4:31 PM