South Portland Business Association President, Attorney Richard Rizk, has been on top of the Southwest to South address change issue of late. This is an issue that affects many Southwest Portland businesses directly. Richard has been a voice for the people affected in this change. His goal, as always, is to make sure the people of Southwest Portland have their voices heard and opinions considered. This is important to stress before the city makes even larger decisions that affect people and businesses that live in Southwest Portland.
City Hall Meeting on May 31st
At last month’s City Hall hearing, on May 31st, Richard spoke on behalf of the South Portland Business Association (SPBA) as their President and as a business owner in Southwest Portland. His overarching stance on this topic is that Southwest Portland residents and business owners are in need of more details on this issue, as well as more time to consider this change before the city moves forward on its decision. “It’s important that the people of Portland are heard, considering that larger issues and decisions could be set forth in the future that are not as agreeable as this one is,” stated President Richard Rizk.
What are your Thoughts?
As of June 6th, the ordinance has been passed that will create a sixth sextant called South Portland. The project plans to be rolled out by May 2020 according to PBOT. Many people, including Richard, feel like this could be a good update for the city. “Rebranding this area as South Portland may be the best thing that ever happened to us. We could be the hottest up and coming place in Portland. With all of our waterfront land, we could be the ‘new Pearl’,” said President Richard Rizk at a recent SPBA meeting.
Come and be a voice in our community.
Another subtopic of this change is to remove the leading “zero” before addresses. The city claims that emergency personnel have had many delays attempting to provide service to people at addresses having a leading zero. The emergency personnel GPS systems have a very difficult time computing that leading “zero”. Therefore, it has proved difficult in finding actual emergency locations at times.
Earlier last week Richard met with Deputy Chief Russ, Officer Jones, and Adjunct Johnson. Watch the SPBA calendar for when Portland Fire and Rescue will be present to address issues of concern. This meeting/event is currently in the workings. Keep a look out!
If you would like to catch up on the details of these two topics you can read more here at KGW or PBOT.
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