My friends and colleagues and to those who after all this time just manage to speak to me at all:

I want to thank those of you who wrote letters of support for the Studio during our dance with the City of Portland over code issues. We won some battles and lost some others, but your help, your assistance during these times and your letters were invaluable. If not for their actual worth in the court of City code, then certainly in their worth for me personally. To know how you supported the work of the Studio meant a lot. You’re all busy folks and taking time out of your schedule to write a letter was a huge thing. I thank you again.

Let me cut to the chase and then fill in. We have our Certificate of Occupancy from the City of Portland, finally. We can now open our doors as a manufacturing facility in the City. Yes, we are a manufacturer still in their eyes. [Now the State just contacted us and wants to call us a trade school, but that’s another letter for another day.]

The story played out like this: we collected your letters and put them on a hidden page on our website. Conversations with Commissioner Randy Leonard’s office proved fruitless. His Small Business/ BDS liaison, Sara Petrocine, was unwilling to help us convince the city that we were not a manufacturer. That we were instead a school, a place for adult education in a dying craft. Although I referred often to your letters of support and quoted many of them, I never pulled them out as my banner or as my club.

However as a result of that effort and with your letters behind me, the Plans Examiner was willing to accept the fact that the basement was indeed used for storage. Suzanne Vara, former Small Business Liaison, may have been working behind the scenes as well. Because of these factors, the requirement for a second exit in the machine room was rescinded. This was a huge victory because of the space it would have eaten up with a door and a stairway inside of our machine room. There is already a roll up door providing egress.

The front entrance was a bit trickier. The City had us remove the existing 16″ thick concrete ramp into the roll up door entrance effectively removing our wheelchair ramp. They also had us remove the front door and put a new door into the Studio with steps inside the building. Then they wanted an ADA ramp put back in based on the Federally mandated standards requiring that 25% of our remodeling budget go to ADA improvements. Since the remodeling was the City’s idea and not mine and they were making us get up to manufacturing/ warehouse standards, this seemed a bit odd to me. At one point, I was quite ready to throw in the towel and give up. Find out what my choices were and quit this fight.

But we worked the numbers hard. Massage was called for to meet the letters of the law and so we massaged. The design was worked over carefully. Our plans were approved by the City, a remodeling permit was issued, and we began to redo our front entrance over this past fall and winter.

With a successful inspection, our COO was issued and we are now street legal. Wiser, oh yes, for the effort. You know us Catholic school boys have always had a hard time not stepping forward to take our hard medicine. But what the City dishes out is something else again in my opinion. I learned a great deal from the experience. Come by for a tour someday and I’ll fill you in on what.

Just know that I really appreciate your help. We made it through and we can move forward with the work of the Studio offering the best instruction in woodworking that we can provide, a haven for woodworkers of all stripes, and a place of inspiration for all of us to do our best work. Thank you. Gary

Gary Rogowski
Director
The Northwest Woodworking Studio
1002 SE 8th Avenue, Portland, OR 97214
503-284-1644
www.NorthwestWoodworking.com