Stop Portland City Council from Ignoring Neighborhood Associations

People should not surrender citizen power to the city. Share more power with other groups, not dismantle this system.

Stop corporate insiders from giving donations to City politicians too. Stop trying to undermine the people of Portland.

Now, more than ever, we need strong Neighborhood Associations to deal with all kinds of issues. Let's keep them strong and meaningful!

I agree with the the comment that at the very least this calls for a lot more discussion.

Our failing city government, with at-large commissioners, does not provide for representation for the different areas of this city. Until that can be changed, we should keep the current relationship between the neighborhood associations and the city government intact.

SW Portland resident.

NA provide effective access to government for all people at the lowest level. We must save and support them as a mechanism to exercise both our voices and our rights/responsibilities as residents of Portland.

The Neighborhood Associations are the key to safety and improvements to our parks and neighbors! We donate money to the neighborhood school and to beautiful the neighborhood. Please support these organizations that empower people in our community to connect and get involved!

Our neighborhood associations are what makes this city great. Keep them intact. Listen to what they say. They represent the people of Portland.

The neighborhood associations and their current level of influence are vital to citizen participation - this is clearly a message the council is not advocating by initiating these changes that will benefit the developers trying to ramrod changes to existing zoning to secure their obscene profit level which is not helping the housing crisis, but is undoubtedly helping those council members taking donations from the developers. It will also enable the council to more easily hide changes they propose in city budgets, land use, parks, community centers, and transportation. The Neighborhood Associations provide viewpoints to the council that they may not want to hear, but that is the very basis of democracy - differing opinions can enlighten and create compromise. Without this power of the people who have to live with the decisions of council members (who do not individually represent a particular area of the city as they really should- and hopefully someday the current non- representational style of city government will be ruled unconstitutional ), we will have no official voice at all. In effect, what Eudaly and team want to have is a noblesse oblige situation where they give only token voice to the citizens because they think they know what is best for the peasants. The neighborhood associations have always been open to anyone, for many years as a renter I participated in SMILE, and continued when we were able to buy a home. Anyone who identifies with any group can attend a Neighborhood Association meeting - Eudaly and the other council members should abandon these changes. If they vote for it, the citizens of this city need to abolish the current form of government, and at the very least vote any of them out who support the change.

Think this needs more time for discussion at the very least.

Neighborhood association is one of few means that poorer neighborhoods have to influence city policy.

The neighborhoods make people invested in their areas and make Portland wonderful.

The volunteers that work with the PDNA make an invaluable contribution to our community. The Pearl district is cleaner and safer thanks to these volunteers.

Keep the neighborhood associations as a check on power of elitist city council that doesn’t care about the east side of the city.

This is just a part of the Eudaly agenda against property owners, thug-like tactics to penalize people who have worked hard to succeed and own property. It's the culture war, us vs. them, mindset that is so scary. No telling where this will all lead. We have already begun to divest ourselves from our rental properties after Eudaly's rent control ordinances basically turned our rentals into public housing and we learned that we no longer have the right to screen prospective tenants for criminal backgrounds or evictions. Now, she is going after our neighborhood associations. This is literally getting too close to home.

If you want a bigger 'tent', then do not get rid of the 'tent'. Citizen oversight is a staple of what Portland is.

The ‘City That Works’ has done so only for the rich for generations of Oregonians. Now that our state is a popular destination for New Yorkers, Californians, Midwesterners and others, our citizens are called on to continue to subsidize rich entities who build ever-pricier McMansions and high-rises. The ONLY way citizens can provide ANY input whatsoever is within our Neighborhood Associations. From experience, City Leaders still ignore us as best they can, but well-organized Associations can sometimes gain traction against those who line our corrupted city officials’ pockets. Associations are our only chance to make things right, to ensure some semblance of equity — no matter how small — and to be heard. The citys’ rationale for closing NAs down is that we are exclusive and we do not include those who are not homeowners. The hypocrisy is that our City does everything possible to ignore all but the rich; Officials don’t give a crud about ANY others! The NA I know, the Woodstock NA, NEVER excludes homeless people, renters, students, or any others. All are welcome. The City invited ONLY developers and other rich entities. So — NO, you will NOT shut down my Neighborhood Association!

Neighborhood associations allow citizen to have a voice in local government to often dominated by developers and big money.

Portland should embrace the diversity of its neighborhood associations; weakening them is a terrible mistake. They help the government be more representative and responsive.