We’ve got two events next week where you can learn more about the bond, an October coffee with The Intertwine Alliance where we’ll share about a potential levy renewal and one committee opportunity where you can help create a new way to fund community-led projects.
Bondwide
Contact: Beth Cohen, [email protected]
Committee recruitment
The Nature in Neighborhoods capital grants program is recruiting community members to create a committee to guide an exciting new pilot project.
The capital grants pilot will use a unique funding approach called participatory budgeting that gives community members a direct voice in choosing which projects to recommend for funding in their communities. Members of the design and review committee will help design the program and ultimately recommend up to $4 million in grant funding.
Metro is recruiting seven to 11 community members who reflect the racial, ethnic and economic diversity of the region to help design the Nature in Neighborhoods capital grants pilot, a project that’s part of the 2019 parks and nature bond measure.
The Nature in Neighborhoods capital grants pilot will support community-led projects that benefit historically marginalized communities, protect and improve water quality and fish and wildlife habitat, support climate resilience and increase people’s experience of nature at the community scale.
We hope you apply!
Info sessions
Next Tuesday and Thursday we are holding two info sessions to give you the latest on the bond measure. We’ll focus on two of the six bond program areas: protect and restore land and the region’s biking and walking trail network.
The protect and restore land program staff will share the work they’ve done over the summer to complete ecological assessments on the bond’s 24 target areas. These are collections of connected habitats across the region, from the Sandy River to the Coast Range, and from Forest Park to the oaklands south of Oregon City. The ecological assessments, along with input from Indigenous community members, the region’s conservationists and the wider public, will guide Metro staff as they acquire properties in these areas. We’ll share the work we’ve done so far and what we have coming up to get this vital program running at full speed.
For trails, we’ll share what we learned from two community engagement events in April. The events brought together Black, Indigenous and people of color from across greater Portland to weigh in on how we should prioritize acquiring land to link together disconnected sections of regional trails. With more than 100 participants, we learned a lot and we’ll share how that input is influencing our trail gap prioritization tool. We’ll also share next steps and the opportunities for the general public to offer their insights into the program.
We hope you’ll join us for one of the two sessions. The same information will be presented at both meetings. If you have participated in a stakeholder interview for the protect and restore program this summer, the information shared at these sessions may be similar to what you’ve heard.
Please visit one of the links below to RSVP. If you need interpretation, closed captioning, or any other accessibility services, please let us know when you RSVP or email [email protected].
Tuesday, September 28, 4 to 6 p.m.
Thursday, September 30, 10 a.m. to noon
The Intertwine Alliance coffee
Our friends at The Intertwine Alliance are holding monthly virtual coffees for its partners to build connections and consensus around its work. At the October 26 coffee, Metro staff will share about the role of the current levy in funding continued maintenance and restoration of priority habitat, operations of Metro parks, improvement of public access at Metro destinations, and the continuation of community investments through grants, education, and volunteer programming and work on a potential parks and nature levy renewal for Metro Council consideration in 2022.
Find out more about the event and register here
Oct. 26, 10 to 11 a.m.
Registration required
Oversight committee
The Natural Areas and Capital Program Performance Oversight Committee met on September 15. The focus of the meeting was on approving committee bylaws, meeting protocol and group agreements for sharing space with each other.
After some really thoughtful discussion, the committee coalesced around some initial group agreements and approved a set of committee bylaws consistent with bylaws for other oversight committees at Metro. In the near future, you can find the meeting recording, summary and supporting documents at this link.
Program updates
Local parks and nature projects (local share)
Contact: Alex Gilbertson, [email protected]
$92 million
The theme of September’s local share community roundtable was building culturally specific engagement and partnerships. Park providers from across the region joined William Miller of Miller Strategies and Lillyanne Pham of Historic Parkrose to discuss how to reach out to and work with Indigenous communities and youth of color.
Pham and Miller shared their expertise with 22 representatives from 14 park providers and discussed best practices to plan meaningful community engagement with historically marginalized communities. The key conclusion is that working with diverse communities requires diverse strategies! A recording of this roundtable, as well as recordings of previous roundtables, can be found on the local share webpage.
At the next community roundtable in October, consultants Dialogues in Action will share how to create achievable outcomes and evaluations.