Stop Portland City Council from Ignoring Neighborhood Associations

Neighborhood Associations need to remain in Portland’s structure. The group formed to rewrite city code is NOT representative of Portland citizens.

After years of disinvestment in Portland's 90 neighborhood associations and the oversight and funding agency ONI, an audit was performed by the City in 2016 concerning the effectiveness of ONI, the office of neighborhood associations. The criticisms of and recommendations for improvement of the agency were an excuse for a code rewrite by the new director that fails to address the deficiencies in the agency and in the way the City relates to its citizens through the elected neighborhood association Boards of Directors. If approved, the code will empower the new office OCCV to determine how the City should interact with and obtain advice from its citizens continuing down the path of selective hearing and unaccountable city staff selected committees.

Thank you for the opportunity to sign this petition. I have little confidence in this City Council in many areas.

Mt Tabor Neighborhood Association and Friends of Mt Tabor Park are opposed to the code change.

Neighborhood associations are essential in promoting greater equity and inclusiveness in our city.

NAs need the support of OCCL, not secret meetings that exclude us from future participation in democracy

Ive been living in Portland all my life. Don't mess with our Neighborhood Associations. Im in Humboldt

City Council needs to slow down and present a coherent explanation of its proposed changes for public review and comment. Trust is low among the citizens of this city and its local governing body. Making changes - particularly unclear ones - to disenfranchise neighborhoods is yet another step in the wrong direction.

The city counsel is ruining our beautiful city. They should be listening to the people that elected them.

Hopefully we care about and share concerns with people across wide geographic boundaries but like people who congregate around other special interests, many of us care about and see close up what happens in our neighborhoods. Moving to Portland 40 years ago it was the neighborhood association, the engagement and civic voices I saw having a real impact that impressed me most - coming from the "machine" that ran Chicago. What the Portland government now seems to characterize negatively as self interest seems to me the useful application of first hand experience to describe and solve the problems that touch us closest to home - through Neighborhood Associations. It's discouraging to see Portland throwing baby out with the bath water.

I am SO unhappy with the direction you are taking our once progressive, and now just chaotic and badly managed, city. EMPOWERING NEIGHBORHOODS IS A PORTLAND HALLMARK! Now a big city mess with no local voice. WHY ARE YOU SO BENT ON DESTROYING THIS CITY?

Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water! NAs have done a lot for Portlanders.

Portland

I’ve been a member of Overlook Neighborhood Association for 19 years and want to see it continue to exist as a voice of the Neighborhood.

Neighborhood Associations need a lot of work because they are not representing entire Neighborhoods. I think the reform should begin at City Hall The Commissioner system is outdated and should be dismantled so that it has representatives that reside in all the neighborhoods. Especially the underserved neighborhoods. The Na’s should be required to represent the neighborhoods and the city should support the NA’s to do proper outreach in the Neighborhoods.

Neighborhood Associations provide the eyes, ears and critical thinking necessary to enable informed decisions by our city leaders.

Neighborhood associations are the method by which people who actually live and work in an area can have some formal input over what happens in that area. Our neighborhoods are already under attack both from developers whose only concern is grabbing up every bit of land they can to cram in more apartments and condos, and, increasingly, from those who have decided that single family homes and neighborhoods are no longer the core of our communities but rather the hallmark of the "entitled" and the "priveleged," and thus should not be preserved. I have lived in Portland my whole life, and hoped to stay here for the duration, but too many people seem to have lost sight of the value of real neighborhoods, green spaces, and community. Now more than ever, neighborhood associations and their role need to be protected, and if anything, they should be given even more say, not have their voices diluted and their message poluted by special interests and those who simply have no business pushing their agendas.

I have served on and lead my neighborhood association and we did many projects from playground equipment to traffic recommendations to make our neighborhood a good place to live.

Why destroy the right to share your opinion with your nearby neighbors and the City Council?

NAs are soo important to the city’s well-being and livability.