October 2009
neWS
The Southwest Portland Post • 3
Southwest neighborhood coalition seeks greater outreach
By Lee Perlman
The Southwest Portland Post
Southwest Portland’s committed
volunteers have accomplished won-
ders, but some worry that their ranks
are growing thin. Southwest Neigh-
borhoods, Inc. (SWNI) board chair
Brian Russell voiced this concern at
the September 23 meeting.
“We’ve become a core of people
who do all the work,” Russell said.
“We need to do more to get people to
follow behind. There are people who
come out once a year for an ivy pull;
we need to get them out two or three
times a year.”
Neighborhood leaders also have to
recruit potential successors to them-
selves, he said.
It quickly became evident that
Russell had struck a common cord,
and SWNI executive Director Sylvia
Bogert said it was “a city-wide issue.
People are willing to volunteer, but
when asked to take ongoing respon-
sibility they pull back.”
Jim Thayer of the Southwest Hills
Residential League (SWIRL) said
his organization is “run by four or
five people.” They have recently
held events that brought out large
crowds, “but did even one of them
offer to join SWIRL? No. If you’re
the chair, the only way to leave is to
resign or die.” He added, “Looking
well
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around this table, I’d ask, where is
our diversity?”
Traditionally, major issues and per-
ceived threats tend to bring people
out to neighborhood meetings in
large numbers. However, SWNI land
use chair John Gibbon said, “The big
land use projects are basically gone in
southwest Portland.”
Jim McLaughlin of West Portland
Park suggested facetiously that the
group engineer a proposal to install
a nuclear power plant at Jackson
Middle School as a recruiting tech-
nique.
Some people present suggested
that local public schools, and the
issues surrounding them, represent
good grounds for recruiting, and
board member Janet Hawkins said
that school families represent more
diversity than SWNI has. Russell dis-
agreed, saying, “School PTA meetings
are a lot like ours.”
Thayer agreed, saying, “When we
tried contacting school families, we
had a real hard time connecting. These
people are focused on their kids.”
SWNI treasurer Tom Schuper com-
mented, “Did you stay in the PTA
after your kid left school?” He has
served on the City Bureau Advisory
Committee and said it was “nice,
because the commitment had an end
date. It’s bite sized.”
In addition to the more global dis-
cussion of participation in general,
there were specific thoughts about
increasing public involvement in the
SWNI board.
Thayer suggested moving the
monthly SWNI board meeting from
the Multnomah Center, where the
Southwest Neighborhood Office is lo-
cated, to other locations. “Why don’t
we move into everyone else’s living
room?” he asked. “This is much more
comfortable, but it’s a way to get out
and mingle.”
McLaughlin suggested changing
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the meeting time from Wednesday
evening to a Saturday morning when,
he suggested, more people will be
able to attend.
The SWNI board expressed interest
in three possible approaches: Having
a yearly “guest night” at which the
public at large would be invited to
come and the agenda would be geared
to familiarizing them with operations
and issues; having the meetings move
to different locations once or twice
a year; and having board retreats in
outlying locations.