By Kayse Jama

Jama is executive director of Unite Oregon, a statewide community organization working to empower people of color, immigrants, refugees, and rural Oregonians.

Portland City Council is considering changes to the city code which governs neighborhood associations, district coalitions and the city’s public engagement programs under the Office of Community and Civic Life. Unite Oregon strongly supports these code changes, and we urge City Council to approve them.

Led by people of color, immigrants and refugees, rural communities, and people experiencing poverty, Unite Oregon works across the state to build a unified intercultural movement for justice. Our perspective on this issue is informed by our long history of partnership with the city on public engagement processes for issues ranging from housing and land use to transportation and police reform. We are a proud participant in the city’s Diversity and Civic Leadership Program, which has helped develop hundreds of new community leaders over the years.

For over a decade, we have worked with city bureaus to ensure that immigrants, refugees and people of color have a meaningful say in the policies that impact them. That experience has taught us an important lesson: Under the current city code governing public engagement, our communities have had to speak twice as loudly for our voices to be heard. That is simply unacceptable.

Under the present city code, only three kinds of entities are given formal recognition and acknowledgment for the purposes of public engagement: neighborhood associations, district coalitions and business district associations. While all three of these types of bodies are important parts of civic life in Portland, the fact is that they have not specifically elevated the voices and issues of marginalized communities, such as immigrants, refugees, people of color, people with disabilities and so on. But because organizations — like Unite Oregon — which do lift up these communities are not formally recognized in Chapter 3.96, we have not been afforded the same opportunities to participate in public engagement processes.

This formal acknowledgment has real costs, and not only in public engagement. For example, a benefit extended to neighborhood associations as one of the three recognized entities includes exemption from lobbying registration and reporting requirements.

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It is time to re-examine these practices and privileges around civic engagement. These amendments to Chapter 3.96 of the city code would name all Portlanders for the purposes of public engagement and establish racial and social inclusion as intended outcomes. In addition to allowing us to address the problem of under-representation of diverse voices, it gives us the ability to expand the list of public engagement partners in the future, as our city grows and evolves.

These amendments will allow the city to continue to work with organizations which represent neighborhoods, business associations, and district coalitions, while ensuring that we invest in and lift up diverse, under-heard voices in our public processes. It advances the city’s commitment to equity and inclusion, and will lead to better engagement — and thus, better policymaking — for years to come. Unite Oregon urges City Council to pass this critical reform to Portland City Code Chapter 3.96.