Please spread the word and take an active role in marketing these homes. Thank you.

Unfortunately vandals have attacked two of our young maple trees along Maywood Place last night, peeling all the bark from them. The experts have told the City these trees will be dead shortly.

The City of Maywood Park is offering a $3,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person/persons responsible for this senseless act.

Please call 503-329-9460 with any information.

Wild animals like coyotes and raccoons do not naturally depend upon humans for food. However, if they learn to expect a human food source (such as handouts or snacks left out for them), they can become aggressive toward humans and pets.

If you believe a wild animal has become–or has the potential to become–aggressive toward humans or pets, please contact the city at 503-255-9805. Otherwise, please just leave them alone and admire them from a distance.

Due to some sort of regulatory issue with Metro, yard debris vendors such as Heiberg have been required to collect and dump yard debris on a single schedule, which happens to be opposite of what we’re all accustomed to. That means our every-other-Thursday yard debris schedule has been shifted by one week. We’re still every other Thursday, but the schedule has shifted as of June 4. This new schedule has been updated on the Events Calendar. A revised printed schedule will also be inserted into the June Community Bulletin.

The next scheduled yard debris pick up is Thursday, June 18 and will continue every other Thursday. Thanks, everyone, for your cooperation.

Back in the 1960s, the quiet, tree-lined neighborhood of Maywood Park faced destruction. The Oregon State Highway Department, now a part of the Oregon Department of Transportation, had plans to build a new freeway right through the middle of the neighborhood, which is bordered to the north by Northeast Prescott Street and to the east by 102nd Avenue.

That new freeway, Interstate 205, was being planned to sit on a raised berm dozens of feet above the ground level.

Local residents saw the possible future of their tranquil neighborhood — dirt and noise from the freeway, reduced property values, the destruction of homes — and weren’t happy.

Maywood Park’s first mayor, Werner Zeller, helped lead the fight against the highway construction.

“They had visions of 30-foot-high cement walls running from 102nd to 106th,” he says. “The freeway was going to be 30 feet above grade at that point. Well, we saw those plans and said, ‘Like hell you’re going to build that!’ ”

So in 1967, in an effort to increase its political clout and stave off destruction, Maywood Park incorporated, becoming its own distinct municipality.

At the time, the area was outside of the Portland city limits. Over the next several years, the city of Maywood Park fought highway construction through state and federal courts.

Although Maywood Park eventually lost, the publicity and new public hearings forced a few concessions in the highway construction.

I-205 was built below grade to lessen the freeway noise, and a “sound berm”— a large wall —was built on the freeway’s border. In all, an estimated 80 houses were destroyed in the process.

Today, with I-205 as its western border, Maywood Park forms a triangular island within Portland. And because the boundaries of Portland have changed since Maywood Park was incorporated, it now is the only city within the city of Portland.

Current Mayor Mark Hardie, who was a teenager when the battle to save Maywood Park took place, says that he still remembers his mother going door-to-door collecting signatures to stop construction.

“They didn’t win the war, but they did win many of the major battles,” Hardie said. “The visual impact, the noise impact, the dirt, was minimized.”

In fact, Maywood Park is surprisingly quiet for a town adjacent to a freeway. A block in, the freeway noise is hardly noticeable. As one longtime resident described it, “It’s about like being down on the beach and hearing the roar of the ocean.”

Maywood Park is strictly residential, a quiet neighborhood home to about 850 people and sheltered by mature Douglas firs.

The town’s most parklike area is a bike path that runs along the I-205 wall; the rest of the city is made up of streets without sidewalks and speed bumps, and lined by well-kept 1930s and 1940s homes.

Partially because the city has no busy thoroughfares, it gets little attention. Hardie says that it’s easy for Portland residents to drive right by Maywood Park as if it doesn’t exist.

“Most people (in Portland) don’t know that Maywood Park is an incorporated area,” Hardie said. “Not that it matters, but people of Maywood are proud of the fact.”

The city is small enough to be run by volunteers, including Hardie. In fact, the city of Maywood Park has only a single paid employee, who combines two part-time jobs as treasurer and recorder.

Most typical municipal services, such as water, police and fire, are contracted out to the city of Portland and Multnomah County, and Maywood Park children go to school in nearby Parkrose.

Talk of unincorporating began about 20 years ago, when the city faced its first financial crisis — how to pay for 911 services.

As Hardie recalled it, the first bill was about $12,000, and the city suddenly had to figure out a way to raise the money.

Some people floated the idea of unincorporating and letting the city of Portland deal with it, but the citizens of Maywood Park resoundingly voted that idea down. Instead, Maywood Park instituted property taxes, which are still lower than Portland’s.

Because Maywood Park is a municipality distinct from Portland, it does offer some benefits. Property taxes are considerably lower, and when residents want to speak to the mayor, they can walk down the street and knock on his door.

“It’s not like being the mayor of Portland or Salem,” Hardie said. “It’s a lot lower key. I’m here, I guess, to help. If somebody doesn’t like the time the garbage trucks roll through in the morning, they call me.”

— Steve Wilson