WW welcomes letters to the editor via mail, e-mail or fax. Letters must be signed by the author and include the author's street address and phone number for verification. Preference will be given to letters of 250 words or less.   SLOW DAY AT THE MOULIN ROGUE It must have been a quiet week for the Roguemeister, forced to resurrect one of last year's most ill-chosen Rogues and try to dress it in new school-year togs [Rogue of the Week, WW, Sept. 27, 2000]. The Portland French School. Puh-LEEZE. First off, "alert newshounds" with a taste for accuracy will recall that in 1998 the school erected a fence around a small paved portion of the schoolyard, not a "fence and hedge" around its fields and playground, as the Roguemeister contends. The main "greenspace" on the property, between the school and Corbett Avenue, remained open then and is open today. A little fact-checking, peut-être? As for Marc Abrams' bluff talk and tough stance (which belies his own more effete private-university credentials), he has grandstanded this issue for more than a year now and, while his faux-populism may play well with certain school board constituencies, must take responsibility for fanning the flames of a neighborhood dispute that has always been a tempest in a teapot. The Portland French School is leasing the Terwilliger School from the school district and paying a market rate which is presumably welcome revenue from a property that had gone under-utilized for years. The school survived an unpleasant, at times painful, conflict with the neighborhood association during the land-use process. It has now added color, culture, activity and the joy of young children to a corner of the Corbett neighborhood where that use fits. The school doesn't deserve more cheap shots. In fact, a little fraternité would be nice for a change. Edward C. Wolf Northeast 18th Avenue WHEN CARTOONISTS DREAM Oh, that Callahan! What a crackup! He thinks the Portland School Board is really doing a terrible disservice to this country by not allowing armed-forces recruitment on school campuses [Callahan, Sept. 20, 2000]. Perhaps it has been much too long since he was 18, because I was this age myself just six years ago, and every branch of the military called my home number at least four times, despite my near-complete lack of interest. Reviewing Mr. Callahan's book He Won't Get Far on Foot, I did not notice anything about him doing a stint in the military--it seems that, before his injury, he spent much of his time drinking. Of course this is a prerequisite for the military, but it does not make one a soldier. I did the same thing for many years, and earned no medals. I believe it was on Sept. 17 that there was an article in The Oregonian about U.S. troops in Kosovo, detailing how they sometimes murder the people they were sent to protect, and another tale of an officer (a sergeant) raping and murdering a young girl. Is this the illustrious, respectable military career Callahan feels he missed out on, and needs to make sure no one else is deprived of such opportunity for absolute terror? When I saw him at the Phil Lesh/Bob Dylan show this summer, was he giving out Army pamphlets? Well, if one has dreams of being a government-sanctioned drug trafficker, there's always the Navy. José Carter North Missouri Avenue WHO YOU CALLIN' YUPPIE? Two years ago I bought a house in North Overlook, one of the hot gentrification areas you designated in your article of Sept. 20 ["The Face of Gentrification"]. We bought in this neighborhood primarily because we were priced out of the market in other areas of the city. In researching the area before I moved in, the demographic picture showed a neighborhood that was mixed but has never had a large minority population--it was an old Polish, working class area--and most of the established residents are elderly, who have been here since the 1940s and 1950s. That picture is changing rapidly as new, younger, perhaps more educated people move in, but certainly gay people, Hispanics and African-Americans are also moving into the neighborhood (and are probably just as well-educated or as professional as the straight whites who are here.) Affluent, educated whites are not the only people moving here, and minorities are not being forced out. I have Hispanic neighbors, and there are a number of newer black families throughout the neighborhood. I bought my home on a zero-down, V.A. loan--hardly the sign of affluence. The people I know who moved here did so for the same reasons we did--the area is relatively diverse, they couldn't afford anything else, the housing is well-maintained and the crime-rates are low. This so-called 'gentrification' you were trying to prove with your statistics simply is not a reality in this neighborhood. Gary Lorentzen North Sumner Street Chris Lydgate responds: According to the study cited in the article, the area of Overlook where Mr. Lorentzen lives is experiencing rising household income, an influx of professionals and college grads, rising property values, higher rent, higher residential mobility and an increase in affluent white homebuyers compared with Multnomah County as a whole. That doesn't mean that all the new inhabitants of Overlook are yuppies, nor does it mean they are all white, nor does it mean they are all straight. It just means that there is solid evidence that Overlook (along with several other North Portland neighborhoods) is gentrifying. While I admire Mr. Lorentzen's casual dismissal of statistics as a basis for measuring social change, I worry about the consequences: packs of unemployed statisticians roaming the streets in search of stray percentage points, while policymakers make decisions based on the entrails of sheep. MEET THE NEIGHBORS I read the "Alberta Rising?" article [WW, Sept. 6] on the way to my neighborhood association meeting and finished it fuming and disappointed. Mr. Dawdy could have benefited from attending the meeting himself and talking to residents--African-American women who have lived in the neighborhood since the '50s, white 20-somethings like my husband and myself, a middle-aged lesbian couple. We reviewed architectural plans for low-income plexes to be built across the street from my house and discussed the concerns of the neighborhood. People moving here are doing so because Alberta is one of the last truly diverse areas in Portland and one in which houses are still affordable. Many residents are committed to maintaining diversity and not running anyone out of their houses or any of the low-income options in abundance here (which you neglected to discuss). No one on our block complained when we bought and starting fixing up what had been a crack house with a lawn full of garbage. It's the hip thing to do to complain about gentrification. But it is more responsible to give a fair picture of the issue. If you'd contacted the local neighborhood associations or talked to a full range of residents, you would have come away with a much different story. The issue of gentrification and displacement is a valid one to raise, but those of us who are working to keep the Alberta neighborhood a diverse and safe place to live deserve a say as well. Brittney Corrigan-McElroy Northeast 10th Avenue NOT JUST SPECULATION As manager of the Bureau of Housing and Community Development's contract with Sabin CDC to undertake revitalization efforts on Alberta since 1995, I valued much of Philip Dawdy's article ["Alberta Rising?," WW, Sept. 6, 2000]. Efforts that publicize the dangers of displacement are always valuable. However, I was upset by what I saw as simplistic characterizations of Rosyln Hill and Eric Wentland as speculators. In the revitalization of neighborhoods that experience disinvestment, you need courageous developers and merchants to stem that tide, to put vacant neglected buildings into productive use. Alberta thankfully had a handful, Roslyn and Eric among them. Additionally, Alberta has a core of unsung volunteers who've labored on complementary activities that build community: youth projects designing street banners, trash cans and presenting the street's history; clean-up and anti-litter campaigns; graffiti removal on others' buildings; mentoring others on permit processes and the storefront improvement program; innumerable meetings on the street fair and streetscape design; establishing a merchants association to be responsible for projects begun under Sabin now that our funding has concluded. Roslyn and Eric have supported or led these efforts. Yes, personality disagreements exist. Yes, there are tensions with the success of Alberta's revitalization, and we should all be concerned with the displacement of long-term African-American residents. But to suggest that those who've invested when Alberta was still a battleground are "itching to make good on their bets" is inaccurate. My experience tells me they are passionate about maintaining Alberta's multicultural diversity, and committed to the community for the long-term. Howard Cutler Bureau of Housing and Community Development City of Portland