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SLIDE THE CITY Giant Slip 'N Slide events canceled in Portland and Eugene Comment By Jim Hale The Oregonian MailTribune.com By Jim Hale The Oregonian Posted Aug. 12, 2015 at 5:32 PM Updated Aug 12, 2015 at 5:33 PM By Jim Hale The Oregonian Posted Aug. 12, 2015 at 5:32 PM Updated Aug 12, 2015 at 5:33 PM » Social News PORTLAND — The 1,000-foot Slip 'N Slide has toured cities around the world, but Portland and Eugene will not be among them. Slide the City, which has been touring its giant slide attraction all year, canceled two planned events in Oregon nearly seven months after it announced they would be "coming soon." A planned visit to Bend remains scheduled for Sept. 5, barring any further difficulties with local officials. Event organizers said they pulled the plug after months of trying to work with several cities around the region. In the end, it just wasn't meant to be. "With putting a slide on city streets, everything has to be kind of perfect," Slide the City co-founder John Malfatto explained. There has to be nearby access to water, obviously, but the street must also be the right grade, in good enough shape and in the right location. Most challenging of all, it must get the OK from city officials. The real snag in Portland was a city rule that prohibits for-profit events from staging large-scale events on public streets. John Brady, a spokesperson for the Portland Bureau of Transportation, said the city doesn't hand out permits for private events in the public right of way. "The main reason they did not receive their permit is because the public is charged," he explained. "The event has to be free and open to the public." Slide the City charges upwards of $50 for a ride on the big Slip 'N Slide, making it ineligible for a permit. In Eugene the issue was strictly about space, according to community events manager Colette Ramirez-Maddock. The city's streets are too narrow to fit both a giant Slip 'N Slide and a lane for emergency services to get through, she explained. All this trouble isn't unique to Oregon - Slide the City has been plagued by complications in cities across the country. The Washington State Department of Health shut down planned events in Seattle, Spokane and the Tri-Cities because of permitting issues earlier this year. City officials in Portland, Maine actually approved a Slide the City event for Aug. 1, but event organizers pulled out in July due to "short Maine summers." Earlier that month they canceled a stop in Flint, Michigan giving only nine days notice. The problem? "Low registration numbers." "I'm almost glad they canceled," Gerard Burnash, executive of the Flint Downtown Development Authority, told MLive at the time. "This tells me a lot about them. I would hate to have a horribly run event." Stories of cancellations, complaints and concerns persist, wherever the giant Slip 'N Slide goes. Last September the city of Los Angeles denied Slide the City a permit for its already sold-out event, citing local concern over water waste in the face of California's particularly devastating drought. Organizers assured that the approximately 15,000 to 20,000 gallons of water necessary for the event would be properly recycled and disposed of, but the city sided with the roughly 11,000 people who signed an online petition calling for its cancellation. As for Oregon, Slide the City is still interested in setting up its 1,000-foot attraction, just not by the end of this summer. "We definitely want to come to Portland and we're going to continue to work with the city to try to make that happen," Malfatto said. "If the city doesn't want it then we'll move on to another city." That city will most likely be across the river in Vancouver, he said. That was just one of several backup locations - which also included Lake Oswego - but it couldn't come together quick enough for 2015. "We're still optimistic about 2016," Malfatto said. By Jim Hale The Oregonian MailTribune.com By Jim Hale The Oregonian Posted Aug. 12, 2015 at 5:32 PM Updated Aug 12, 2015 at 5:33 PM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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