From: keithl@klic.rain.com (Keith Lofstrom)
Subject: Re: Imbrie Farmhouse (CPR) in danger again
Organization: Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits
Distribution: pdx
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1992 06:46:11 GMT

In article <1992Aug29.160434.25830@sequent.com> jjb@sequent.com (Jeff Berkowitz) writes:
>I just heard on KXL that the developer who owns the land beneath
>the Imbrie Farmhouse, a.k.a. Cornelius Pass Roadhouse, has renewed
>his application to "develop" the property.
>
>Personally, I think the property is already "developed"; it has the
>CPR on it.  The area needs the CPR a lot more than it needs another
>apartment building or whatever this developer guy wants to put on it.
>
>Time to Get Involved.  Unlike most of the Big Issues in the world,
>this might (or might not, true) be something You Can Effect.

When I was a child, growing up in Beaverton, there were a lot of vacant fields,
and a little grass strip airport where the Beaverton Mall (and that new
McMenamin's restaurant) is located.  I used to sit in the grassy field,
approximately where the Radio Shack is now, and watch the little prop planes
go climbing out from behind the weatherbeaten red hangars that lined the
west side of Cedar Hills Boulevard.  I used to walk over a little dirt road
and across a few boards over Beaverton Creek to get to Canyon Road and
Beaverton.  That little dirt road is now Hall Boulevard.

I miss the empty fields, and the dirt roads, and the airstrip, but I also
use Beaverton Mall, and Radio Shack, and Hall Boulevard.  The apartment
buildings built here have covered up some nice open spaces, but they also
house some people I care about personally.  Life is change.  Old things give
way to new things.  I am sorry to lose the old things, and usually the new
things that replace them are of less value to me personally, but among all
the new things are things that I value quite a lot.  My new wife was born in
Pennsylvania, and is "one more immigrant" into Oregon;  I personally am very
glad we found the room for her when she came here 20 years ago.  When the rest
of you newbies behave yourselves, I'm glad you came, too. ;-)


Imagine that the Hillsboro City Council decided the following:

  "We think the Imbrie Farmhouse must be preserved as a historic landmark.
  We think it unfair, however, that the developer, Mr. Joe Shmoe, has to
  lose the full value of his property, just because this group standing here
  against the proposal doesn't want the development.  Therefore, we are
  going to make one of this group pay for the land, and enjoin them from
  selling it."  The council president reaches into a hat, and pulls out
  a name ...  "Well, Mr. Berkowitz, it looks like you are the luck winner.
  I guess you will have to sell your house, your car, your savings, and all
  your relative's assets, too;  that's all right, you REALLY WANTED this,
  didn't you?"

Of course, you don't want it THAT much.  Economists have an idea called
"revealed preference" - that's what a person will REALLY do, versus what
they say they will do.  It's not that people are hypocrites; it's just
that saying something is a lot cheaper than doing something.  It's easy to
say something, and really, really, mean it - if the saying and the sincerity
was all you had to do.  Hell, if saying "I want to save the Imbrie Farmhouse",
and being really sure of it, was all it cost anybody to save it, I would be
at the head of the line.  But the real cost of saving it - paying for that
very valuable land it sits on - is more than I will ever want to spend.  It
is just plain childish for me to demand somebody else to pay for my verbal
preferences.  Unfortunately, modern politics is making it increasingly easy
for the "sayers" to dominate the "doers".  The problem is, as the current
state of the economy demonstrates, you can't eat words.  If we are going to
get out of this mess, we are going to have to fortify all the demands we
are making with a bit of old fashioned, sweaty effort.

If you our some organization wants to get together enough money to BUY that
property, at a fair market price (where fair is equivalent to the acre cost
of the land under that new mall on 185th, near a roughly equivalent freeway
interchange),  I would be willing to kick in $20.  That's about 5 times what
the Imbrie farmhouse is worth to me personally, but hey, I'm an old softie.
I think if somebody worked hard enough, they could collect $20 from enough
people to pay for it. I don't think anybody cares that much.  Prove me wrong.
PLEASE.  With actions, not with cheap words.

-- 
Keith Lofstrom         keithl@klic.rain.com       Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Power ICs