Robert Corrigan This is Me

Education

 Web References

1. 1. About Us

   www.friendsofmhmra.org/about_u - [Cached]

   Published on: 3/8/2008   Last Visited: 3/8/2008

   Robert Corrigan, J.D., Director

2. 2. Old roses turn over a new leaf (or else)

   www.portlandtribune.com/news/s - [Cached]

   Published on: 11/24/2006   Last Visited: 11/24/2006

   In a groundbreaking agreement, city tries to save Ladd’s shrubs | As far as Robin Corrigan is concerned, the trouble started when “Fluffy Ruffle” was lost. Not just lost, but ripped out by her roots, …
   ...
   As far as Robin Corrigan is concerned, the trouble started when "Fluffy Ruffle" was lost. Not just lost, but ripped out by her roots, according to Corrigan.
   
   Now "Fluffy" was no dewy-eyed lass. She'd been around, well, nobody's sure exactly how long she'd been around, but some say since the 1930s, at least.
   
   Not anymore.
   
   " 'Fluffy Ruffle' is out of here," Corrigan said.
   
   If you've ever wondered if people in Portland truly care about their roses, consider the thorny issue that has been taking root at the Ladd's Addition Rose Garden.
   
   Corrigan is president of the Friends of Ladd's Addition Garden, an organization that helps the city maintain the four rose gardens in the Southeast Portland neighborhood. The group's 40 or so volunteers come out Saturday mornings throughout the growing season for deadheading sessions.
   
   The Ladd's Addition gardens contain more than 3,000 plants, and Corrigan said they feed her sense of neighborhood as well as her sense of history. So when she and others began to notice that some of the old rose bushes, including "Fluffy Ruffle," were being taken out by Portland Parks & Recreation gardeners in favor of younger, more vigorous roses, they figured they had to nip that strategy in the bud.
   
   "The garden is a kind of rose museum where you could still find some of these varieties that may not be super sexy or really abundant," Corrigan said.
   ...
   Naturally, even Corrigan could see the logic. But she wasn't convinced, given that the parks bureau maintains three rose gardens.
   
   "There are so many different types of roses grown in Washington Park and Peninsula Park," Corrigan said. "Why can't Ladd's Addition keep some of these old ones? It fits this neighborhood. It's a historic district" - plotted, not potted, in 1891. "The idea to replace something just because it's tired out is not a good enough argument for us."
   
   "Fluffy Ruffle," Corrigan said, was replaced a few years ago with a variety of rose called "Barbra Streisand" - "a very uninspired rose, in my opinion," Corrigan said.
   
   And Corrigan said she was told that older roses called "Sister Theresa" and "President Herbert Hoover" in the south garden were next in line for removal, as well as "Dainty Bess."
   
   "In the scheme of the world it's probably not very important," Corrigan said.
   ...
   Last week, Betsy Redfearn, the parks maintenance supervisor newly responsible for the district that contains Ladd's Addition, met with Corrigan, and the two seem to have found common ground.
   ...
   Corrigan said she understands and is grateful that Redfearn rose to the occasion.
   
   "She's not a bureaucrat," Corrigan said. "She's a gardener."

3. 3. www.portlandtribune.com

   www.portlandtribune.com/news/s - [Cached]

   Last Visited: 9/20/2007

   "Too many things were pushed through too fast," said Robin Corrigan, an active Cleveland High School parent. "Now the school board has a lot of irons in the fire that need to be tended to. , What I'd like to see them do is put some of these things on the back burner and just move along on those things that are most pressing."
   
   While school funding has been the most urgent issue in the past, this time it's an abundance of policy issues and unfinished adoptions to tend to: reconfigured schools, new materials, textbooks and core curriculum.
   
   "In my memory, it's never been this many big issues at one time," Corrigan said, "and (serving on the board has) certainly never meant taking on the big issues without some kind of leadership."