Tuesday, January 8, 2002

SUMMARY NOTES, GREAT - Guidelines Review Committee Meeting

City of Portland, Office of Neighborhood Involvement

Members Present:
Patricia Gardner, Co-Chair Pearl District Neighborhood Association
Moshe Lenske, Co-Chair Woodstock Neighborhood Association
Nancy Chapin Alliance of PDX Neighborhood Bus. Assocs.
Raymond Hites Lents Neighborhood Association
Brian Hoop Office of Neighborhood Involvement
Joleen Jensen-Classen Office of Neighborhood Involvement
David Lane Office of Neighborhood Involvement
Stanley Lewis Downtown Community Association
Jerry Powell Goose Hollow Foothills League N.A.
William Warren Central Northeast Neighbors
Cathy Crawford University Park Neighborhood Association
Leonard Gard Southwest Neighborhood, Inc.
Mark Sieber Neighbors West/Northwest
Ruth Spetter City Attorney's Office

Absent:
Michael O'Malley Irvington Community Association

Visitors:
Lee Perlman Reporter
Kathy Bambeck Bridlemile Neighborhood Association
Charles Shi

Decisions by this group are subject to change at future meetings.
Opportunities for public input at the end of meeting and future workshops.

Changes to Dec. 18, 2001 Minutes

• Add Charles Shi to attendance as visitor.
• Section on Neighborhood Associations, 3.96.030 is reordered. This will alter order of remaining text of chapter 3.96:
  

3.96.030 Neighborhood Associations


A. Minimum Standards for Neighborhood Associations
B. Functions of Neighborhood Associations


1. etc.

C. Responsibilities of Neighborhood Associations


3.96.040 Functions of District Coalition Boards
3.96.050 Responsibility of City Agencies, etc.

• Take out Alternative Service Delivery Structure description. Superseded by Neighborhood Support Office and description.
• Minutes approved for Dec. 18, 2001 meeting.

City Attorney opinions on key issues

• After being asked at the December 18 meeting to respond to several inquiries City Attorney Ruth Spetter gave her opinion.
• Are the "guidelines" binding with the force of law? The City Code has the force of law, which is adopted by ordinance. The Code references that there needs to be "guidelines" (the committee has decided to now call them "Standards.") These "guidelines" are updated and adopted as resolution by the City Council every four years. The "guidelines" only apply to neighborhood associations but not the general public.
• Does the City Code require other bureaus to conform to the neighborhood association language in Chapter 3.96? No, the City Code language in chapter 3.96 only applies to the Office of Neighborhood Involvement and neighborhood associations.
• Do State of Oregon public involvement requirements apply to neighborhood associations? e.g. SB 100 land use laws from the 70's. Not necessarily. They primarily apply to land use issues such as appeals of Land Use Rules (LUR's).
• Ruth is checking into whether italics or underlined statements carry extra weight in City Code language?

Functions of Neighborhood Associations, 3.96.040

• First sentence: Completed discussion on whether to use shall or may and concluded to use "may". "May" leaves it open to what activities groups can get involved with. Moshe will try to re-write introductory sentence due to grammatical errors.
• Section one: Suggestion to add: "Make recommendation(s) concerning a particular action, policy or other matter to any City agency or any topic affecting…" Change approved. Discussion on whether listing types of activities was useful. Listing them doesn't limit groups to those activities.
• Section four: Decision made to use the word "undertake" and leave the range of activities to be very broad. Discussion on whether we need to list activities that are beneficial to the neighborhood as in the original language that was taken out.
• Some feel that the City may have intended for groups to focus solely on immediate geographic or city related issues. There may be a political problem if associations are working on issues that are not related to neighborhood livability and veer off into fundraising efforts or unusual projects. The concern is that this may draw unwanted political attention. What happens if the City has an official policy in support of free trade (only an example) and a neighborhood association decides to raise money and fly members to an anti-free trade event.
• Some feel that it is critical to allow broad flexibility for the groups to define their own organizing issues. The historical roots of coalitions are to promote broad democratic participation without tying the hands of what they should and should not do. Some issue like light rail on the other side of town may be important to the members even though the train doesn't come through their geographic area. One rich neighborhood may want to organize to collect used bicycles for poor neighborhoods far away. A neighborhood may want to challenge LUBA on a procedural issue that has citywide impact but doesn't affect their geographic area.
• Suggestion made to include "to the benefit of the public interest" or "beneficial to the neighborhood association" but minimal support.
• Concern raised about broad language that will make it difficult for policy makers in the future to decide what is appropriate and not appropriate. But if a neighborhood association goes bad it's likely they will eventually break some "guidelines" rule. It's at that point that a group can be held accountable such as through a citizen led grievance committee that needs to be addressed in later parts of the "guidelines". If people get mad when the neighborhood association does something they don't agree it needs to be pointed out they can get involved and build support for their view.

• Motion made, seconded and approved: "Undertake projects and activities deemed appropriate by the neighborhood association." Friendly amendment to add at end: "to benefit the public interest through a public process." Not accepted.

• Motion to accept entire section of all five functions. Approved.

Proposed next agenda: Responsibilities of Neighborhood Associations, move it to before the functions. Also discussion on March workshop.

Public comment: No comments.

The Meeting adjourned at 10:00 AM.

The information contained in this document is preliminary and informal in nature and does not necessarily reflect the views or adopted policies of the City of Portland or the final outcomes of this project; the reader should exercise caution in its interpretation.