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PORTLAND, OREGON
SITE OF THE 1999 LPA NATIONAL CONFERENCE! July 2-10, 1999 |
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PORTLAND, OREGON
SITE OF THE 1999 LPA NATIONAL CONFERENCE! July 2-10, 1999 |
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You can now make room reservations for the LPA 1999 National Conference -
the Marriott's toll free number is 1-800-228-9290. The Conference Rate is
$87.00/night +tax. The hotel will waive the valet parking fee to
conference attendees providing an "official conference name tag." The
first night's room deposit is required at the time you make the
reservation. Deposit is NON-Refundable TEN (10) days prior to date of
arrival. Cut off date is Friday, June 10, 1999.
Portland Marriott 1401 SW Naito Parkway Portland OR (503)226-7600 |
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The conference room rate will be honored 5 days before and 5 days after the
official conference dates. Valet parking fee will be waived only during
official conference dates. The official airlines of the LPA 1999 National Conference is United Airlines. U.A. will be giving a 5-10% discount, depending how early you book your tickets. 400 rooms are blocked for peak nights.
**NEW INFORMATION!!** Due to a sell out of rooms at the Marriott we have blocked additional rooms at the Downtown Doubletree Hotel in Portland OR. You can make reservations by calling the Doubletree directly at 503-221-0450 or by calling their Central Reservations Department at 1-800-222-TREE. They will have a shuttle that will run July 3 - 9, departing from the Doubletree at 8:00 am, 10:00 am, 12:00 pm, 3:00 pm, 6:00 pm, 8:00 pm, and 10:00 pm. The hotel's check out time is noon and the check in time is 4:00 pm. Luggage storage is available for early arrival or late departure. You need to make your reservations - these rooms will only be held until May 21, 1999. After that they will be released for general sale. The Doubletree offers complimentary airport shuttle service, every 30 minutes, from 5:10 am to 10:40 pm. The hotel provides 250 on-site parking spaces. Parking is based on a space-available basis only. If you plan on coming to Portland and need a hotel reservation don't delay!
Please contact Joe Alexander of District 11 or go to the new District 11's travel information page; if you have any concerns for airline transportation. He can find very reasonable prices for airfare to Portland this July. United and Southwest Airlines are the official airlines for the 1999 conference. |
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This was taken from the LPA listserv, from Rob Jacobsen of Longview, Washington. The Jacobsen's have been long-time active members of LPA and are the Co-Chairpersons of this Conference. |
| We were approached by LPA President, Leroy Bankowski in late February to
look into the possibility of hosting the 1999 conference in light of
another bid running into problems. Other sites were looked into before
Leroy called us, including New York/New Jersey area and New Orleans.
Lacking a suitable option in those locations, Leroy called us to look at
possible sites in the Portland or Seattle areas. Seattle was ruled out
almost immediately due to the very high room tax they have in order to pay
for a new stadium. After some checking we found that there were four
hotels in the Portland, Oregon area that are large enough to hold the
conference. We checked with each of them. One already had two other
groups penciled in for the early July dates we were looking at. We
gathered a groups of chapter, district and DAAA officers or former officers
together to visit the three remaining hotels in early March. After touring
all three, only one offered a good price with a good facility.
The proposed site is the Portland Marriott located in the heart of downtown Portland. The hotel is on Front Ave. across the street from Tom McCall Water Front Park and the Willamette River. It is about 20 minutes from Portland International Airport by free hotel shuttle. The hotel is preparing for a total facelift beginning later this year, which should be completed by this time next year. This will make the hotel practically brand new in time for our conference. Being downtown, there are some 30 places to eat within walking distance of the hotel. Public transportation in the downtown core is free and is fully accessible. | |
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Portland prides itself on being a very
accessible city. Potential DAAA sites in the immediate area of the hotel
are numerous, with Portland State University, Multnomah Athletic Club,
Lincoln High School and a former YMCA all within a matter of blocks of the
hotel. For those arriving on the weekend before the conference formally
starts, there is a Blues Festival in the park across the street. We are
also looking at the possibility of a bus tour to Mt. St. Helens, which
would be an all day trip to Johnston Ridge Observatory, where geologist
David Johnston met his end with the words "Vancouver, Vancouver, This is
it!" A truly awesome view of the devastation caused by the eruption of the
mountain on May 18, 1980.
Some of the other possible fun things to do include a river cruise on either the Willamette or Columbia Rivers, possibly even a dinner cruise. We have the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry just across the river where among many other things, you can tour the submarine Blueback. Another nearby attraction is the Metro Washington Park Zoo. |
 | Folks have commented on their desire to be in the host city rather than out near the airport will get their wish in this bid. The
hotel has a tiered arrangement with its meeting rooms on one level, the
lobby on the next level up and the restaurants on the next level up. These
three levels are accessed by both elevators and escalators, which cuts down
on long walks down endless hotel hallways.
We realize that having a second conference on the west coast in a row will not be popular, but its too late to start from scratch on another location. The board looked for others sites, but none could be found in the very limited time available. As folks who have put on a national before can tell you, it is more typical to take 2-3 years to plan and submit a bid. We have only have less than a year to pull this together. This will be Portland's first conference since 1977. We and our whole committee have put a lot of other projects on hold in order to help out LPA in this crisis. We have a top notch group on our core committee and look forward to seeing everyone in Portland in 1999. |
| 1999 Core Committee Members | ||
| Betty & Rob Jacobsen | Bill Bradford | Co-Chairpersons |
| Frank & Elisa Reckendorf | Peter & Freida Valuckas | |
| Peter Reckendorf | Irene Yuan | |
| Matt & Amy Roloff | Rob & Nancy Tille | |
| Vicki Zielinski | Vickie Montizingo |