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City Center Parking

City Center Parking has been in the parking business since 1955. We currently operate 200 parking facilities. These include such notable parking systems as the Portland Trailblazer?s 3,000-stall Oregon Arena Project, the 900-stall Oregon Convention Center and the 3,000-stall State of Oregon Fairgrounds parking facility in Salem.
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Oct 21, 2009Damn Portlanders
I am having a huge problem with this company and I wonder if anyone here has had the same problem and fought them successfully.

Last week, I parked on top of R.E.I. at 15th and Johnson like I do every Tue/Thurs for school. I used my credit card to pay the $5.25 for all day parking. No receipt. I thought maybe my card didn't go through. I then paid again, and realized the machine definitely was not printing tickets. Now having paid a total of $10.50 for parking, I wrote a quick note about the machine not working and stuck it on my dashboard (next to about ten other old receipts for the same lot).

I came back to my car later that night and saw a ticket for $26. Upsetting, but no big deal. Surely they will waive it when I show them my bank statement with the double charge. Wrong. I contacted City Center Parking about the problem and a week later, my account was refunded the extra $5.25. They waived the $2.50 'parking fee' portion of the penalty, but said the ticket still stands at $24 through Pacific Audit Solutions.

Just called Pacific Audit Solutions and from the woman's attitude, I can tell they make a LOT of money off their little scam. She told me "it's not going away. It doesn't matter who you talk to. You didn't follow the warning signs. You need to pay up". I tried to be as nice and calm as possible, to no avail. By the end of the phone call I was so furious I was shaking.

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Jan 28, 2009Portland City Pages on Yahoo! Local
"This is the worst place to park your car in PORTLAND, unless of course..." by very angry customers
May 18, 2009Jack Bog's Blog
Here's that list we asked about this morning -- those civic-minded business people who gave the money at the last minute to save the Washington Park free summer concerts this year:
Washington Park Summer Festival Donors Sondland Durant Foundation Hotel deLuxe Hotel Lucia Bank of America Craig Boretz Starlett & Stephen Brown, NW Securities Advisors LLC City Center Parking/Greg Goodman Dewey Dental FutureWorks Consulting Kaiser Permanente Key Bank Laborers' Local 483 The Irving Levin and Stephanie Fowler Fund of The Oregon Community Foundation The Mark Spencer Hotel Jay Martin Ms. Willi Martinsen Marylhurst University Melvin Mark Companies Miller Nash LLP Susan Newman & Phil Goldsmith NW Natural OSU Foundation Pacific Power PGE Wendy Popkin, Popkin Solutions Portland Trail Blazers Qwest Reser's Fine Foods Safeway Luisa Simone & Robert Obrinsky Star Park/Schlesinger Companies Stoel Rives TransCanada US Bank Wells Fargo
Way to go, people.
Aug 2, 2009The ZehnKatzen Times
2181.David Loftus is a local writer and performer who, while I've not seen him in performace, I've read his writings sometimes in The Big O and found them most nifty. Also, he's a habitue of the Harlan Ellison message boards, where he writes with a dry yet gentle wit.

Not too long ago, he noticed that someone had, in a strip between a pay-parking lot and the sidewalk near his downtown home that had been a collection point for urban detritus like "weeds, trash, and dog poop", some enterprising fellow downtowner had actually started to grow garden plants. Like tomatoes ? chili peppers ? eggplant. Food plants.

The tenablilty of the impromptu garden seemed doubtful, so he decided to give them a bit of a hand. Thus, guerilla gardening:

I decided to help 'em out. I borrowed a key from my building's maintenance guy and filled a pair of my own buckets, repeatedly, at one of the exterior spigots along the outer walls of our building, and repeatedly walked diagonally across an intersection to get to the parched greenery. It took five trips, with 2-1/4 gallon buckets, to water them all -- maybe a total of 22 gallons.

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Aug 5, 2009The ZehnKatzen Times
2185.The exploit in guerilla gardening ending, not with a bang, but a sense of resignation by the employee sent to remove the garden.

As David Loftus details here, he was on the scene at 8 AM on Monday, and by 8:15 AM, the garden was gone, removed by an employee of City Center Parking/Downtown Development Group that comported themselves with something resembling a sense of honor.

The plot was apparently planted by some college sociology class that was trying to make a point in some way somehow. How they were going to do that by planting a boulevard-strip garden and stepping back to let whatever happen, happen kind of escapes me, but remember, I'm a prole. Sometimes I just don't "get" these sorts of things.

David took a few pictures and handled it with utmost aplomb.

Why do it, even though the removeal of the garden was essentially a fait accompli? Well, as David says at the end of his article:

To paraphrase Tertullian's line about faith, I acted because it was futile.

In a world full of powerful interests hoping to make us all into consumers and spectators, it's essential to act and speak.

Otherwise, you're not learning and growing; you're just opening your mouth for someone else's spoons.


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Mar 11, 2008Portland Architecture
Greg Goodman, whose City Center Parking company owns several undeveloped surface parking lots in the downtown area, has made a request to the Historic Landmarks Commission for permission to demolish a building he owns listed on the National Register of...
Sep 4, 2009Good Stuff NW

Picking appropriate dining partners can be a tricky business. Are they adventurous, or do they blanch when they see sweetbreads on the menu? Are paper towels instead of cloth napkins a deal-breaker? Do they have a sudden change of plans when you suggest anything on the east side of the river?

When my friend Ivy Manning suggested that we track down Koi Fusion...
Jun 12, 2009Neighborhood Notes

06/12/2009

More summer fun is on the way. The 2009 Washington Park Summer Festival Schedule just hit our inbox...
Portland Parks & Recreation (PP&R) has just announced the 2009 schedule of dates and performers for the popular Washington Park Summer Festival, August 2-15. Featuring a diverse array of music and dance, from world beat to classical, the free series draws thousands each year to the Washington Park Amphitheater.

The Festival depends upon private support to offset the production costs for the free performances. When lack of funding for the Festival jeopardized the 2009 season, Gordon Sondland, the CEO of Hotel deLuxe and Hotel Lucia pledged $50,000. Over 25 additional businesses and individuals contributed to the challenge from Sondland to match the Hotel deLuxe's and Hotel Lucia's initial donation and save the Festival's 2009 season. The successful fundraising effort has enabled PP&R to present the Festival during the first two weeks of August, continuing the 60-year tradition, free of charge for the community to enjoy.

All performances begin at 6 p.m. in the Washington Park Amphitheater, adjacent to the International Rose Test Garden. Picnics are welcome and there will be food vendors on site. Alcoholic beverages for personal consumption are permitted in the park only during the concerts.

To avoid parking hassles, ride TriMet...