The latest attempt to reshape Portland's power structure appears to be over before it even really begins.

Three east Portlanders who wanted voters to change the city's 103-year-old form of government -- adding district elections, instead of citywide votes for mayor and four commissioners -- have all but admitted defeat.

Their "Portland Community Equality Act" ballot measure needs 31,345 signatures by July 8 to make the November ballot. As of Monday, proponents had collected about 1,200.

"It's probably going to fail," chief petitioner Collene Swenson said, "unless there's some kind of miracle person out there collecting signatures."

The proposed charter amendment calls for a nine-member city council in which seven are elected from geographic districts, with two elected citywide. The mayor would not be part of the council and would hold all "executive and administrative authority," according to the proposal.

This structure ensures representatives are "beholden to the people in the area they live in," Swenson said. Under the current system, she said, the needs of farther-out areas such as east Portland are ignored by City Hall.

In 2014, The Oregonian/OregonLive found that 25 of 49 city commissioners were elected while living in central city neighborhoods that fell within a seven-square-mile box. And only one city commissioner in the past 30 years has been elected from a neighborhood east of 82nd Avenue.

Compared to those living near the city's center, east Portlanders have a disproportionate lack of developed park space, adequate sidewalks and grocery stores.

Even public water fountains favor downtown - just two of Portland's iconic bubblers, among more than 100, can be found in deep east Portland. One sits at Powell Butte, with the other at the Hazelwood Conservation Garden at NE 117th Avenue and Holladay.

While collecting signatures, Swenson said it wasn't just her neighbors in east Portland who felt overlooked - though she got 350 signatures there alone.

"You can go to St. Johns or the North Park Blocks," she said, "and most people I talked to agreed they don't listen to us."

The Portland branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People endorsed the ballot initiative, with the organization's president calling the current structure a "barrier to people of color, low-income people and women."

"This measure would diversify our pool of candidates," Jo Ann Hardesty said. "It's a no-brainer that district representation would be better."

But Hardesty said she's not surprised proponents haven't secured the signatures they need.

"They're just community members tired of business of usual. They didn't know what it was going to take," she said. "But it was worth the conversations we've been having with the public about who is represented and who isn't. There'll be opportunities over the next couple of years to create the kind of government structure that works."

The petitioners lacked the kind of large organization or volunteer base needed to reach more people.

Swenson said about 100 people had gone out to gather signatures, meaning each would need to collect at least 314.

"We're not political organizers, we're not a non-profit. We're all normal voters that have jobs," said Swenson, an insurance adjuster. "We don't have 24 hours a day, seven days a week to go door-to-door. We don't have grants or hundreds of thousands of dollars. We're just not connected that way."

Portland voters have nixed eight proposals to alter the city's government starting in 1917, often siding with the status quo in huge numbers.

But public opinion in Portland may be changing, according to a recent poll commissioned by Oregon Public Broadcasting.

In a survey of about 400 likely voters, 54 percent said they would support changing to district elections for commissioners. Among young people and voters east of Interstate 205, support was higher.

DHM Research, which conducted OPB's poll, told The Oregonian/OregonLive it asked a similar question in 2002. That time, 32 percent said they'd vote in favor of a "nine-member Council (seven elected by district) and managed by a Mayor with veto authority."

"But there's a difference between people being open to a question like this on a survey," said John Horvick, the firm's political director, "and having a group that's able to get organized and work through the nuances and the challenges and the opposition campaigns in the real world."

Portland is the only big city in America with a commission-style government. It's joined only by Columbus, Ohio, in electing leaders strictly through citywide votes.

Swenson said she's done living in a city where elected officials "don't answer to us." She is planning to move to Camas, Washington, on July 15 - a place with district representation.

"The form of government is discriminatory," she said. "Do you flee or do you try to change it? I tried to change it, but now I'm fleeing."

But she's waiting to make her move until after July 8, she said, "because who knows."

- Talia Richman

trichman@oregonian.com

@TaliRichman