A little over a week ago, the amazing, inspiring, heroic folks running the All4Oregon vaccine site at the Oregon Convention Center vaccinated their 500,000th person. Absolutely mind-boggling. If you got your shot there, you know that its small army (which is made up in large part of Oregon National Guard soldiers and airmen and Coast Guard members) runs that place with efficiency and incredible care.
We were so proud that Metro could host the clinic, and our colleagues at the Oregon Convention Center have been absolute rock stars in the face of COVID, mass layoffs and the call to make their workplace safe for our community under the hardest circumstances.
Bond-wide
Oversight committee
Contact: General bond comments and questions: Beth Cohen, [email protected]
The natural areas oversight committee met for the second time Monday, May 24. The committee continued to learn about Metro’s parks and natural areas and lay foundations for the work ahead. A key focus of this meeting was to build a deeper understanding of the bond’s six programs and the committee’s role providing oversight and accountability to the bond refinement work as it unfolds.
The meeting minutes and recording will soon be posted on our website. The next committee meeting will be at the end of July and details will also be shared there.
Program updates
Local parks and nature projects (local share)
Contact: Local parks and nature projects, Marcia Sinclair, [email protected]
$92 million
Metro staff are putting the last touches on the local share materials park providers will use to submit priority projects. Priority projects can be submitted as early as June.
Park providers have been engaging with and preparing to engage with their communities on priority projects for local share funds and we’re eager to continue conversations about moving towards intergovernmental agreement and project implementation when our partners are ready.
The local share program has a new home on the Metro website. You can find the local share handbook there now, and we’ll continue to update it with resources for park providers.
Walking and biking trails
Contacts: Walking and biking trails, Robert Spurlock, [email protected]
Community involvement: Humberto Marquez Mendez, [email protected]
$40 million
The walking and biking trails team hosted its first community engagement events since refinement kicked off. Humberto Marquez Mendez, who runs community engagement for the bond, worked with more than two dozen community organizations to invite Black, Indigenous and other people of color to the events. More than 110 people showed up to the two virtual events in late April, and we had help from two Spanish interpreters from IRCO, the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization.
The turnout was beyond what we expected, and while we had to navigate tech issues, it was clear that virtual meetings are more than capable of fostering meaningful community engagement. The trails team presented an overview of the program, which buys property to connect sections of trails or extend trails along their planned routes. The team then asked participants to give their insights into what they want prioritized when we are buying those properties, things like safety, connections to work or access to nature.
The trails team is compiling and analyzing the feedback we got, and we hope to share that information with the community members who participated and with you later in June. We will also share other ways for you to shape the trails program. The insights we heard will be used to build a prioritization tool that will help trails planners focus their efforts and bond dollars on buying properties that best fulfill what matters most to community members.