They're playing tonight at the Clark County Amphitheater. I can never hear or write those last three words without feeling a huge sense of satisfaction that I'm not saying "the North Portland Amphitheater". During my time on the Planning Commission, I was one of the majority in a 4-3 vote recommending to City Council against plans to change the Portland International Raceway into a concert amphitheater. I'm still proud of that vote. I really don't want to be rude, but I have to ask you to please explain why it's better that an amphitheatre was built in what was (then) still a fairly rural section of Clark County, causing a sprawl explosion to an area only served by cars. Why would a concert venue served by light rail and in a more central location (reducing total trip lengths overall) not have been 100x better than one served only by cars, at one extreme end of the Portland/Vancouver metro area? Why is an auto race track a good thing? Is burning hundreds of gallons of fossil fuels per hour and creating tons of ozone and pollutants (and that's just the racers, not the fans) such a hot idea? I can't imagine why this was a decision to be proud of --- please inform.

Hi Amanda - Very nice to stumble on your posting. Aside from the fact that it's TOUGH to get out of the parking lot, I love the CCA and I thank you for helping bring it to the area. I would also say my favorite Rush tunes include Red Barchetta, The Trees and Subdivisions! I attended the show last night and posted a review at my blog at http://isorski.blogspot.com/. Enjoy. There is also a posting about Red Barchetta you might like if you scroll down to an earlier entry or just go here: http://isorski.blogspot.com/2007/07/red-barchetta-authors-meet_16.html Thanks!

Thanks for the link to your blog post, Isorki. It's not rude to question or disagree with my posts, George - thank you for asking for more information on why I'm glad the amphitheater is in Clark County instead of North Portland. My top three reasons: 1. I don't believe residential neighborhoods are good places for repeated, frequent open air concerts with varied kinds of amplified music. Once in a while, as in the Summer Concerts in various parks - great. When the amphitheater was offered to Portland and Clark County, it was projected to hold 40 concerts per year and draw 400,000 fans. Would you want that in your neighborhood, when you decided to live there based on the more monotonous drone of track racing? It seemed to me that putting it out in a more rural area, where once a week events would disturb far fewer people and probably not trouble wildlife excessively, was the better choice. Note: the question before the Portland Planning Commission was only whether to have it at PIR - the decision to build it elsewhere was a separate question for which I can claim no credit or blame. 2. Portland already has the Rose Garden and Memorial Coliseum for concerts - located right on the MAX line and near the downtown transit hub. The applicants didn't make the case that adding an amphitheater in North Portland would enhance rather than compete with offerings at existing facilities. And North Portland residents certainly argued persuasively they didn't want it. It was a rare case of neighbors and neighborhood interests overcoming the power of Big Business and power-brokers. (I guess that's two reasons for the price of one) 3. When approved and first in operation, the Ridgefield facility had a strict transportation plan that required most fans to go there by bus. When we saw Rush last time, transportation by luxury coach from downtown Portland was included in the ticket price, and was much more convenient than driving cars and paying to park. I thought it would help Portlanders who don't normally take the bus realize how comfortable and convenient it can be. Come to find out, this year the bus wasn't even offered. I don't know what the Conditions of Approval of the Clark County facility were, or whether they've expired or are no longer being enforced. The burden was on the approval body to make sure the transportation plan continued to be implemented for the duration of the facility. As first implemented, I thought the plan was an exemplary model for adding relatively cheap bus transit to move masses of people at the times and to the places they want to go. Turns out the amphitheater is attracting far fewer concerts/fans than projected. Perhaps worse than disrupting neighborhoods with noise and fans, is investing in a facility that does that and then struggles and/or fails. Perhaps it would be doing better if located in Portland, but I doubt it. It would still be competing with the Rose Garden in attracting acts and fans... and both would know that even during the summer, it can rain here, and that might affect bands and audiences. I never said the auto track at PIR is a good thing. It's there, and I understand many people enjoy it. I personally find car races even less interesting than cricket matches (both either live or on TV), although the times we've been to PIR have been enlivened by our kids dropping their shoes through the bleachers, being scared by the loud noises, and suchlike. In any case, the proposal for turning PIR into an amphitheater wasn't framed in terms of "let's find a better use for this noisy, polluting track". It was pushed mostly as "this will make more money, and the neighbors are already putting up with the racetrack so their concerns don't matter either way".

P.S. George, you write, "causing a sprawl explosion". Has it? Is there more development springing up around the amphitheater, and if so, why? It seems like such a sporadically-used facility wouldn't prompt development of either workforce housing or fans wanting to live close to it. Were roads significantly improved on the routes to reach it? Who paid for that, if so?