Roaches, Comedians, and a Rebel Grocer Saving Parkrose's Biggest Food Desert

I'm Today on CityCast Portland, we're talking about a lawsuit alleging a nearly year-long cockroach infestation at a home forward property. Plus, an insider's look at this year's Helium Comedy Club, Portland's funniest person competition, and we're also looking into how the Park Rose neighborhood is coming together to fight food insecurity. I'm your host, Claudia Meza, with me, our local comedian, Jay Flewelling, and founder of Stumptown Savings, Your Friendly Neighborhood Grocery Economy News. newsletter, Brian Fance. How's it going, you two? Happy to be here. It's good to be here with Jay. Jay, it's been a while. It's been too long. I know. Okay, fun fact, Jay is only... ever been on the show because of Brian. Like, we were looking for a comedian, and Brian was like, oh, you should contact Jay. I know, a funny guy. Yes, yes, yes, yes. I did know that. And if you need grocery needs, Brian's your guy. We've got you covered. The only two necessities in life, laughing and eating. I mean. Okay. So real quick, actually, our membership people wanted me to announce that they're trying to get rid of a bunch of swag that's been hanging around in storage. They're doing like a summer cleanout. So basically, if you become a member in the next couple of weeks, you're going to get either a pennant or a tote bag. I'm sure if you joined like right before we announced this, you can still ask for some merch just, you know, email them. But I was told that the tote bags are almost gone. There's like a dozen left or so. So just a heads up, if anyone listening who's been thinking about becoming a city cast Portland neighbor. was like, I really want that tote bag. I need a 300th tote. Yeah. Or make it worth my while. You know, like this is it. So head over to membership.com.fm slash Portland for all the info. It's like... 10 bucks a month or 120 a year. And you would be helping us out so, so much. Okay. Everyone loves a tote. Right? I lost one of my favorite totes and I'm really sad about it. I don't want to talk about it, but what do you lose a tote? I don't know, I know, but it happens. People lose totes all the time. This is, it's like a pen. Full of stuff. Toots should be like easy give, easy come. Like you just, yeah. Full of stuff. I love that you're like, it was empty, Brian. It's not like I love. Lost a bag of groceries or something. You just left it on the counter. Whatever. Okay. So our opening question is based on some reporting by Willam at Weeks Julian Balsley. They found a suit filed by a tenant against Home Forward over a cockroach infestation at one of the housing authorities' properties. If you're new around here, Home Forward manages federally funded programs like Section 8.

and public housing. And they've been rife with controversy. We head on their new director on last month to talk through all that. If you're curious, we can link to that episode in the show notes. But here's the latest. And this is really, really messed up, you guys. Patrick Plamenden, I don't know if I'm saying that last name correct. And I apologize, Patrick, if you're listening. Patrick Plamenden, who's 38, and is paralyzed from the chest down, depends on a wheelchair. And he alleges that Home Forward violated state standards by failing to properly inspect for and address a cockroach infestation that was occurring on multiple floors of the Humbolded Gardens Apartments in North Portland. Now, Patrick reported of sleeping in his chair pretty much every night and not being able to lay down in his bed for fear that these roaches would crawl all over him in his sleep again. He's paralyzed. He can't move quickly. Yeah. He says he noted the roaches when he was unpacking the first day. He moved in last year and he reported them. But dig this. This is like, mm. The only reason he was even moving into the Humboldt Gardens apartments was because the previous assigned apartment, which was in the Bud Clark Commons in northwest Portland, was also infested with roaches. And he was assured that his new home did not have any roaches. So the roaches got so bad. at Humboldt Gardens that even the city's Portland permitting and development agency stepped in and told home forward, hey, homie, you're going to have to hire a license pest control company and you have 30 days to figure this out. And Patrick says, that never happened. No. I... And so now he's suing home forward to force them to please get rid of the roaches. Good. As well as for economic damages, racking up to nearly 11,000. I'm assuming food. Oh, wow. That's low. That is low, by the way. And for psychological harms, that's up to $345,000. Now, pretty sure any jury in Portland. Thank you, Jay. Jay's so good at numbers. I just got to tell you, I know he's a comedian, but watch out. He's also a math way is. Yeah. So pretty sure any jury in Portland is going to give him that, though, or more. Could you just imagine him, like, wheeling into the court and telling you all this? Like, you're just like, give him whatever, you know, like... They better settle. That's all I'm saying. Dude, cockroaches in Portland, like, it has to be so bad. I mean, we're not talking about New Orleans. We're not talking about the South. Like, in Portland, yes. Address the problem. Get them, Patrick. Get them and make it hurt. It's not like he was like sugar ants. Like, sugar ants, like, sorry. We live. Those are here. They're everywhere. Yeah. We are part sugar ants at this point. This is just everywhere. But it is so rare to find or see a cockroach just scurrying around. You know what I mean? Like, it's just so rare. That is an infestation. Okay. All this brings me to my opening question, and I ask this not to make light of Patrick's horrifying situation, but because now I'm actually just curious if you two have ever had anything terrible or maybe surprisingly delightful in the infestation category. I don't know what a delightful infestation could be, honestly. I've never had an infest...

But I used to live in South Carolina, and they have huge cockroaches down there that fly, and everyone calls them palmetto bugs. And the first time you see one of those climbing up out of like a drain, it's terrifying. And then when it takes off across the room flying, yeah, you basically are just like burn the house down and leave. I lived in a very crappy duplex at one point that had two of these. If a cockroach flew into my face, I think I would have to die. Do you know what I mean? It's terrifying. It would be one of those like, I don't know what life is all about. I don't know if we come back. But if they were a video game, I'd be like, restart. Respond. Yeah, I would say goodbye to my friends and family. I'd be like, this is it. I'm done with this body. Yeah, this mortal coil is through. I'm done. Yeah, it's disgusting. It touched my face. Okay, whatever. I have been involved in infestation, which was pantry moths. And that's more common in poor than I would assume. And it's no one's fault. They come in our food. They come in the rice. They come in the flour. You can't blame yourself. And they can just go to town. And I was in a battle, a war. I did win the war. And it takes like at least six weeks of diligence of like taking everything out of your counters, wiping everything. down with a vinegar-based cleaning solution, putting everything in jars, Ziploc bags if you're in a pinch, but they can eat through plastic, so just take that. Oh, that's terrifying. Yeah, and you have to kill everyone you see because you don't know which ones are female, and you don't know which ones are going to be able to, like, lay a thousand eggs. That's gross. It's terrifying. I had something similar, so I once found some kind of bug in my Costco-sized bag of chia seeds, and they had babies. There was, like, webbing. Which I didn't know other bugs could make webbing. And it was like webbing all over the seeds. And I read somewhere that that might be their poop. And I was like, no. I almost cried. I didn't eat chia seeds for like nearly a year. Yeah, it's all grains, rice, flowers, oats, coffee beans. Like all of it is par for the course. Ugh, so gross. I love that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, guys, thank you both for your answers. Even with all the food loss, I still think that Bryans is the worst. And literally, Brian's was just like, I once saw a cockroach fly. And I was like, yeah, that is the worst infestation. Yes. It's awful. It's South Carolina, nightmare fuel all around, the entire state, nightmare fuel. All right. When we return, Jay is giving us the rundown of this year's. Portland's funniest person competition, which is the thing that's been happening for the past 15 years, you guys. So it's like, it's like a real thing. It can almost drive. Brian. Okay, Jay. First off, before you immerse this into this world, have you ever competed in Portland's funniest person competition? Yes, I have. I competed in the very first one in 2012, and I podiumed on my first show. Hell yeah, man. And fun fact, I beat out Shane Torres, who's one of our biggest and brightest winners, third year winner, and he did not podium, but then I couldn't do the show I pulled. And so they bumped Shane Torres up, and then he won, and then he got third in the entire competition. So that's my claim to fame with the contest. Wait, hold on.

Could you explain podium what that means? Because you keep saying words, and I don't understand. First, second, third. Oh, podium. Gotcha. Yeah, yeah, like the Olympics. Yeah. I don't know these things. So, get with it. Okay, okay. Okay, okay. Calm down. Okay, go on. Okay, well, so we started the winner, Ian Carmel, the best of us all, a genius. He went on to be the head writer on the late night show with James Corden. He's got an Oscar for writing or an Emmy. He's a writer. He's amazing. He is truly brilliant. Pretty sure it's an Emmy, not an Oscar. Just want to throw it. That out. Emmy TV. Yeah. He's really good. And also, I used to do shows back in the day where it was called Instant Comedy. And we would get audience suggestions of 10 things. The standups would go right. And then improv set. So we do a set intermission. And the standups come back and they had to deliver. Just new jokes. And he won every time. He is a genius at stand-up comedy. These are the best of us. And he won the first year. Second year, Nathan Brannon. He won. He was really funny. But then gave it all up and as a master gardener in eastern Washington now. Interesting. Third year, Shane Torres, amazing. Doing really well. But Jay's better. No. Well, for that one instance. Fourth year, Stephen Wilbur, the weirdest winner. Oh, I loved him. What happened to him? Well, there's a curse of like you win and you like either move on to like greater things or you win, you get all these shows, you move to L.A. It doesn't work out. You come back and you're just kind of around. So I know. But he's great. I love him. He's weird. He's fun. Fifth winner, Amy Miller, doing well, cancer survivor and doing well like podcasts and like L.A. stuff. Then Noriko Ott after her, Arlo Warehouser. after them, Alex Falcone was next and he's probably like their third best. Like he's gone onto the late night show. Yeah. He's got a bunch of TikToks. Yeah. Dude, his TikToks are so good. Is it a scam? I learned all about Tiny Tim. It's so funny. Check out the Tiny Tim. Of like why Tiny Tim's fucked up. And it's like, oh, a lot of medical people have written like articles about it and why money is what cured him. So then after Alex Falcone. Adam Posse. No context, by the way. No context. Just like writing a J thought through. Look at a... I mean, it cures everything, right? Yeah. Just to go back to Tiny Tim, it's like there's all this speculation of... Wait, Scrooge brings a turkey and he's fine. And it was like, Alex Falcone goes into like, yeah, it was malnourished. He needed food, all the kids of London at the time. I digress. Okay, okay, gotcha. Adam Posse. He wins after Alex Falkone and then is COVID. So he's the only winner to have served two terms. And we love that honor for him. Two terms. Okay. The next winner, 2021, Kelly Ryan. And this was a bit of an upset because nobody knew who she was. She was actually from California, moved up for the pandemic and lived in Vancouver, Washington. And so won. Oh, come on. Too many strikes. Immediately skip town is like gone. Where is she now? Don't know. Don't know. Don't care. After her, Shane Brannan, funniest tourist, that's good. He's great. And then after him was Cameron Nancy Pelosi, who was the youngest winner. And he, like, won when he was, like, 19 years old and was going to be going to read college. But then, like, got sort of soft canceled and then didn't do any of the shows and the accolades and the things to follow and just went to read college and, like, hid for a year. Why did he get soft canceled? He was dating the twin sister of the two years previous win.

Kelly Ryan. And Kelly Ryan was like, you're bad. And then he was like canceled. And then there's a rumor from an undisclosed source that like the sister knew that it was not real. I don't know. It's kind of a messy. I don't want to touch. Kelly Ryan of California, then Vancouver came and just ruined someone's career and then skip town. This is what a little birdie told me. Okay. Oh my God. This is all allegedly by the way. Legitly. I don't want Kelly Ryan suing. us because that would be the cherry on the top. And then she sued and shut down CityCast Portland. She still lives in Vancouver. After that is Ben Harkins totally deserved, totally funny. And then after that, Jim Jordan Kassner totally deserved, totally funny, been doing the work. And so then this year, it's like we're on to the year, you know, for this year. Thank you. I love that. Okay, guys, listeners, I need you to know that this is what Jay pitched. Jay was like, I want to talk about... this contest that happens that, like, is so niche. No normal person really knows about this. And I was like, sure, yeah, you're going to bring this to us within a context of us caring. And instead, he was just like, I'm going to go autistic. I'm going to name every year, every winner. Can you say that? And just go. And Claudia gets canceled. It's a history. Okay, I'm sorry. Okay, so where are we now, I guess? So where are we now? The three big winners, Ian Carmel, Shane Torres, Alex Falcon, they have gone on to greater things. But things to consider about this competition is there might be a curse in winning, and then you go, and then you don't make it, and then what do you do? There also is a curse for, like, taking the bullet. You know, how many comics you're randomly drawn placement in the shows, and if you're going first, it's really hard to overcome that obstacle. Yeah. Gotcha, yeah. The first round is audience vote. And Helium gives each performer. And it costs $25 to compete in the competition, 10 comps. And for so many people, there's 200 people usually that sign up for this competition. For most, a big majority, it's like the only time, the first time they've ever done stand-up. So they invite everyone. They have 10 comps. A million people co. And so there's a big gripe in the stand-up community of like all of these one-timers just beat me out because they brought too many people. And so that's always something to consider. Is it judged by laughs? It's judged by votes. first round and then it goes to judges. Oh, gotcha, gotcha. So if you pack the room, and this makes so much sense, okay, so I've attended one of the shows and because there's like 20 million of them. Because there's like, when there's 200 people, it takes a lot. And so I went to like maybe one or two and it was such a grab bag. There were like definitely some funny sets, but there were some people who, as you said, definitely their first time. They'll open with it. That was my first time. Sometimes it's like somebody goes on and they're like, this is the second time I've done stand up. The first was last year. You know, like. They only come. Yes. That's so frustrating. They pay. Did they know about open mics?

It's like they're not that motivated, but this brings me to my next thing to consider is the judges. So there's been a whole bunch of scandals with like the management has been the judges. Other comics who have one who have dated other comics are on there. There's comics that have beef with other comics who are judges. And Lance Bangs, our most famous Portlander, he has been a judge a million times. And he loves the weird. He loves the obscure. I'm sorry. Did you say Lance Bangs is our famous Portlander? Do you know how many people listening right now are going? I'm sorry. Who? Who? He's up there. He's up there? He's a creative. And it's a huge moment. No, no, I'm not dissing Lance Bay. I just think that's the most niche famous Portlander that you could give us. But go on. Well, this podcast is for the niche. Keep my audience. So I want to give a prediction for who's going to win this year, but then tell you the true winner of this competition year after year. So my prediction is David Twitey is going to win. He's incredible. It'll go along with like the Ben Harkins, the Jim Jordan Kassner. These are the standards. These are the people who've been doing the work. They're very established, very funny, and they're going on to bigger things. So David Twyty is going to take the win this year. That's my prediction. But the true winner year after year is Helium Comedy Club. They do it in the dead season on Dead Night. They're so smart. $25 a pop. Bring all your friends. They're the true winners. Swimming in that cash. Yeah. Well, everyone has to buy a drink when they're there. Don't you need like two drinks? I think it's a two drink minimum. It's two drink minimum. The building could be on fire and you will not evacuate until you have bought two days. Until you get that second drink. Yeah. You're stuck. You're going down. When are we going to find out who the winner is? The big finale show is I want to say like August. It's like late August. I should know. But I was studying the history, not like current. You're stuck in the past. Because you went so deep on the history. Oh, God. I'm sorry. Of listing years and names. Of listing years and names and then just remembering the hot goss around them. That was, you know. Okay. Listeners, if you have not gone, you must go check out one of these shows. It is going to be a grab bag. There will be somewhere like you will be embarrassed for them. But that's part of the fun. Also, you will be forced to buy two drinks. And so there's something fun about that too. Like, I don't know if that's your kink. That's kind of my kink. When someone's like, you have to have two drinks. And I'm like, no. Oh, okay. So, like, it's fun all around. It's a good time. Dude, the staff, they are so strong, and they will, like, call you out in the middle of the show. About what? About buying something. You got to buy. I'm good. And they're like, no, you will. I will stop this show. You signed a contract. Yes. Dude. Your soul is ours. Oh, man. Okay, well, let's take a quick break here. And when we come back, Brian looked into a grocery store that's attempting to bring some hope and much needed resources to one of Portland's biggest food deserts.

Brian, I know you reported on this for your newsletter. Who's getting, I'm sorry, who's getting arrested right now? Uh, not me. That's Jay. See, told you, it's not me. I'm not getting arrested. Okay, great. It could be, uh, me. Or Claudia, for that, that joke she made. She's getting canceled for it. You better cut that. They're coming for you. You think I'm going to get canceled? I don't think you could say that you just went autistic. Like, I just, like, A professional courtesy. He's just looking out for you. Yeah. That's so funny. As someone who's been diagnosed with autism, I'm just throwing that word around left and right. Like, I just do not. Does that help? You get a car. Does that really help? No way. Oh, is it like, it's my, it's my, I can call me that, but you can't. Yes. Yeah. Oh, my God. Okay, Brian. I know you reported on this for your newsletter, but also you live kind of close to outer southeast Portland, so you have firsthand experience on what's been going on over there. I mean, Montevilla... I think because of, you know, gentrification and the sprawl used to at one point was outer southeast Portland. And now it's just, yeah, now it's just like, oh, yeah, Montevilla. I mean, come on. Yeah. Yeah. But no, I'm on here, you know, I'm out here on the border. I am east of 82nd. So while I'm still District 3, not District 1, I actually spent a lot of time in District 1. And I'm very familiar with Park Rose in this area. So. All this drama started last year. Rumbling started coming that the longtime Park Rose grocery outlet was considering shutting its doors. Park Rose has had some issues. It's in East Portland neighborhood. The city hasn't historically paid a lot of attention to neighborhoods east of 205. It hasn't dedicated a lot of resources to them. Park Rose was definitely dealing with that. There were some high rates of like retail crime, you know, retail theft, stuff like that. It was happening at the Park Rose Grocery outlet. And then came news that the store was actually shutting. Grocery Outlet Corporate decided after 15 years they were pulling the plug on their location, on Sandy, right in downtown Park Grows, leaving that neighborhood without a grocery store and marking the second grocery store closure in northeast, outer northeast Portland in about a year. So about a year prior. the big gateway Fred Meyer had closed. Big blow to a part of Portland that already has far fewer grocery stores than the rest of the city. The entirety of District 1 has four full service grocery stores. Costco's not a full service grocery store. You can't go in there and get everything you need. There are only four, two of which are WinCos. So there's not a lot of competition in District 1. This made the food desert problem much worse than a part of Portland that already struggles with access to food, but also has lower rates of car ownership. So people aren't able to go to grocery stores outside of the neighborhood as easily. You're saying that this food desert, which has no grocery stores, also has the highest or the lowest level of car ownership, which is also. I don't know that it has the lowest, but it is among the lowest. Like there are a lot of people in.

Park rows in particular who are lower income, who rely on transit, who rely on walking to things in their neighborhood. And this is an area that is very car-centric. Gotcha. And that's what I'm saying. And that's also the area where, like, they're cutting trimet services and stuff. Jeez, Louise. Okay, sorry. I'm just like... These Portland's a weird, weird place where... They don't even have sidewalks. I don't understand. Okay, can I just go on a standard? Portland is, like, so performative in its equity and diversity and all this stuff. And here is, like, outer southeast Portland with clearly, like, one of the biggest... diverse populations, one of the most vulnerable populations all around could use a little help, and we're just arguing about everything but. Like, we could just. Yeah. I don't know. It would just be great if we just gave a bit more attention. Go on. Well, yes, but this is what's cool. And just quick fact check, it's actually outer northeast Portland. So this is north of Burnside out in East Portland, Park Rose. Yeah, yeah. What's really cool, though, Claudia, is the neighborhood isn't laying down. So. The former franchise owner of this Park Rose grocery outlet is actually trying to launch a truly independent grocery store in the exact same location. He is tenacious. He is 150% into this. I mean, this man is working like seven days a week, 15 hours a day right now to make this happen to bring a grocery store for the neighborhood, buy the neighborhood back to this community. Say his name. His name is Don McKeever. Wow, Jay. I would cancel you for that. No. Don is like so invested in this community. It's important to note that grocery outlet had actually been trying to exit Park Rose for years. It's a smaller location. It had some issues with retail theft. The lease was more expensive than what grocery outlet thought it was worth and had offered Don chances to move his franchise to other neighborhoods. And Don just kept saying no thanks. Like he's committed to this neighborhood. He started up several food pantries at local schools. While he was running grocery outlet, he instituted, you know, fair living wages for his employees. He made sure that there were benefits for his employees. At one time, I think he was employing more than 20 people at the store. Like, to him, this is more about being a part of the community and supporting the community and providing the community with resources. And so I think it's really cool that when abandoned by a corporation, because grocery outlet is a corporation, that he has decided. to stand up and fight back and do this on his own. And what's really interesting, oh, yeah, go ahead, Jay. Yes, Jay. Well, what's the name of, what is he launching? What's the name? It will be called Park Rose Grocery, and the goal is to launch sometime in the fall. It's expensive to launch a grocery store. This store needs basically a complete remodel. It needs cleaning. It needs painting. It needs a lot of work. One of the things that Dawn's really excited about... As far as like getting to launch his own truly independent grocery store, grocery outlet has some strict rules about what you can and can't do. Customers were always asking for a deli, for hot coffee, for more items for babies and toddlers. Grocery outlet says, no, you can't have that. You'll never find that in a grocery outlet store. Don wants to offer that. That is something he has actually heard from the communities, heard from community members. He's heard from customers. They need that.

There's nothing close by where you can get a lot of that. And so it's going to take some work to remodel this place. Starting a grocery store is expensive as hell anyway, running a grocery store's tight margins. Don is doing a lot of really cool things. So he's getting help from historic Park Rose. It's sort of like the business nonprofit in Park Rose. They're doing a lot of work, getting him grants, helping him connect with investors. He's got some grant funding from Prosper Portland, which is one of the city of Portland's economic development agencies. What's really cool is there is a fundraiser right now through Historic Park Rose where you can sort of invest directly in Park Rose grocery. And you get some perks for giving. Like, you know, if you give up to a certain amount, you get like a year-long discount at the grocery store. You get some other perks the more you give. But I think it's really neat that... Don is offering the community a chance to be a part of this. I mean, people are lining up to help do the remodeling work. Like, people want this store. they want to see it come back. It's important to note that this was like a, this was a community gathering spot for Park Rose. Like this was a place where people got to know others and they would see their neighbors. And I just think it's really cool that he's bringing it back. Yeah. I love that Jay keeps. I know Jay's being very polite and raising his hand. No one can see this, but Jay keeps raising his hand. I don't want to interrupt. But I have a question. Yeah. So how long did Don do this work? I mean, he invested in the community. And so it's like. Oh, grocery outlet's out. I'm still here. Yeah, Don wasn't the original owner of the Park Rose Grocer Outlet franchise. So he'd been there about four years. So he's still relatively new, though four years in that community, he's gotten to know all the power brokers in the community, all the people who have a stake in the community. And he is invested. Like, this is important for him. This isn't just a business opportunity. This is a chance to build something meaningful and long lasting for the community. Okay, I'm curious about what's going to happen with, this is like not in Portland, but I'm curious about how Zohran Mamdani's grocery stores will pan out. Now, if you don't know, Zohran Mamdani is opening five city-owned. publicly subsidized supermarkets in New York City intended to sell staple foods at like 30% below. Their typical retail prices. And each borough is going to get one. And they're privately operated but city funded. So the city won't have to take on any of the like the daily logistics of running it. But they were funded by like $70 million publicly funded. They're waiving the rent and the property taxes for the chosen municipal places. And like I'm just curious. how that's going to go. It'll be interesting to see because there's obviously a lot of pushback from the grocery industry, not just the big companies like the Kroger's and the Albertsons, but also the mom and pop grocers who aren't getting selected to run that. Because the grocery industry historically has painfully tight margins. I'm talking like a two to three percent margin on most items that does not leave a lot of wiggle room. That does not.

Totally. Generate a lot of opportunity to make money, high operating costs, stuff like that. So there's a lot of pushback on it. It'll be interesting to see how these go. It is catching on in other cities, though. Atlanta did it first. I know that there are talks of doing it in Chicago. Portland's taking a different approach. You know, the mayor has proposed offering grants of, I think, up to $500,000 to help launch new grocery stores, but that doesn't come close to covering the cost of what it actually takes to start a store from scratch. Interesting. Do we know how Atlanta is doing? Like how long ago did they start their program? Atlanta's was like, I want to say like a year ago, by all accounts, it's doing really well. It's in a neighborhood that is a food desert that's historically been underserved. And so far it seems to be to be working. I think the key will be like, is this something that cities can do on a bigger scale? Or do you target it into an area where the corporations have already decided it's not worth their time and they're not going to go in there? We have plenty of neighborhoods like that in Portland. Yeah. But this seems like such a interesting community-backed idea because, like, I think that's the kind of thinking that is going to help outer East Portland. As you were saying, no, that's outer Northeast. That's outer Southeast. No, it's outer East Portland encompasses everything. And it's just kind of a bummer how disinvested it is. Yeah, it hasn't just been the city that's ignored them. It's been corporations. It's been the business community by and large, you know, small businesses that are based out there do a lot. That's really where East Portland is going to kind of rise and find its footing is when they start to step in and take control and use the resources that are out there to build the community that they want. And this is an example of them doing that right now. That's awesome. Well, thank you for looking into that, Brian. Is there more like in the newsletter? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can, if you go to Stumptown Savings.com, you can read all about it, including what's next. How you can get involved if you want to support them either financially or with some sweat equity, that kind of stuff. And I dive into a little bit about like what's still up in the air. So importantly, they do not have a lease yet. That is one of the next big things that they need to lock down. Well, good luck to them. Jay, Brian, thank you so much for hanging out with us. I kind of love that that you both are on the show together because again, Jay's only here. Yeah. Because of Brian, are you guys like friends? We go back. Yeah. Really? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, we go back. We used to live in the same house as one another. Oh, were you? I love that you didn't say roommates. You like gave me the definition of a roommate. Well, we weren't roommates. Well, it's like unit one, unit two. Yeah. Oh, you lived in the same house, but you weren't roommates. Yeah. Jay was our property manager for our basement unit that we lived in. Oh, gotcha. Oh, so I see what you're saying now. Gotcha. Jay's watched our dogs before. Jay's, yeah. Jay has run into Brian at the Midpoint, one of my favorite breakfast joints. Yeah, that's right. Shout out. Yes, Midpoint. Man, get that meatloaf with that, like, Cajun gravy. Yeah, get that red gravy that's vegetarian. That red gravy. That's right. I always forget Jay's vegetarian, so he's not eating the meatloaf, but he can get that red gravy. Yes. Yeah, and they cater to vegetarians really well. They're so good. Yeah, big shout out to the midpoint. Okay, shout out to Midpoint. You guys, thank you so much for hanging out with me today. Appreciate you both. Absolutely. Thanks for having us on. Yeah, it was a pleasure.

That's all for today here on CityCast Portland. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed the show, share it with a friend, rate it. Leave us a good review. Do it right now, wherever you're listening. Leave us a... The maximum stars. And don't forget, you can support this show by becoming a citycast Portland neighbor. Again, you will get swag. We're trying to clean this closet out. Just visit membership.comcast.fm slash Portland. That's membership.comcast.fm slash Portland. We'll be back tomorrow morning with more from around the city. Until then, see you at Slims. Or I guess at Midway for that red gravy. Midpoint. That red vegetarian gravy. Yes, midpoint, southeast 52nd Avenue. Be there.