LEFT OUT
Groundbreaking shows who’s in, who’s out And who speaks for the Northwest neighborhood?
An official groundbreaking ceremony is not big news—unless, perhaps, one looks at who isn’t there.
Two Multnomah County commissioners, the library’s chief executive and a social agency head speechified and shoveled specially curated dirt at the site of the proposed Northwest Library last month. About 50 people, many of them county employees on the clock, attended.
Instructions that the public was not invited were sent to the news media. The Northwest District Association, which had worked with project managers and architects for more than a year to improve the remodeling design, was not represented.
The neighborhood slot on the dais went to a local social agency executive for his role in a focus group to make the facility accommodating to his agency’s client base; primarily those dealing with mental illness and homelessness.
Had library officials sought a balanced local view on the thorny security concerns surrounding homeless people in libraries, NWDA was the logical choice. The neighborhood association had discussed that issue thoroughly, balancing the needs of readers with those whose behavior and condition may make other library users and staff feel uncomfortable or unsafe.
As the city’s sanctioned avenue for citizen participation, neighborhood associations are open to all and committed to speaking for the entire community. But to Multnomah County and managers of the Library Capital Bond Project, focus groups were the favored reflection of community will. In their thinking, NWDA misses certain population groups.
Participants in the four focus groups—labeled as seniors, social services, families and Lincoln High School—shared thoughts on what libraries mean to them. The sessions were conducted by Hennebery Eddy Architects, also the designers of the project.
“What are your favorite things about libraries?” and “What qualities in a space make you feel comfortable and safe?” were typical questions. Participants were also asked for their color preferences for the decor.
Meanwhile, the NWDA Planning Committee was tackling the big picture: How will the library branch serve the wider needs of the neighborhood? How will it fit into the surrounding blocks, and how will it project its function as an essential public institution? The committee insisted that the main entry be switched to its north side, facing the proposed park and public square across Northwest Pettygrove Street. Initial plans put the entrance on a comparatively featureless block on Overton Street.
The committee also advocated for a more prominent and stately entry befitting a public library. Dumpster storage, ramps and blank walls should be minimized. The front steps should be wider and the main door more prominent and aligned directly with the steps.
Not all of these suggestions made it to the final design, but most were incorporated to some degree. The committee submitted a detailed letter of support to the city while asking for further consideration of enumerated topics.
The focus groups were easier to accommodate. They expressed preferences and few criticisms before being thanked with gift cards and excused without further involvement.
Steve Pinger, co-chair of the NWDA Planning Committee, had much higher expectations for the community engagement process, generating a series of email exchanges that highlighted the divergence in philosophies.
Katie O’Dell, deputy director of the library bond project, defended the course taken.
“Our project scope does not include an additional stakeholder/focus group with NWDA, and we are not able to expand that scope,” O’Dell wrote. “The library's community engagement ethos ensures listening to a wide array of voices, focusing on those most often left out. NWDA will have input through the design review process, and of course, you as an individual can participate in any future open houses or online engagements as they are planned.”
“We strive to both keep the association informed while also providing equitable opportunities to others as well,” she wrote.
Pinger did not appreciate the county outflanking the association with its own assessment of who should speak for the neighborhood.
“The NWDA, hopefully, includes those voices as well, and importantly endeavors to aggregate many varied inputs into a consensus viewpoint as a chartered, city-recognized neighborhood organization,” he replied.
Pinger wrote that NWDA was involved with plans for the park across Pettygrove Street from the library as well as with the developer of the adjacent Slabtown Square.
“I believe that the NWDA is in the somewhat unique position of looking to the potential integration of each of these adjacent but separate design elements into a cohesive and reinforcing sum of the parts. It is from this perspective that we look forward to participating in the initial conceptualization of the project,” he said.
Thorn in the side
Since at least 2016, administrators of Portland’s neighborhood system have contended that neighborhood associations predominantly reflect the wishes of upper-income homeowners, and it is government’s job to magnify voices deemed to have been left out. Multnomah County feels the same way, apparently.
Chuck Duffy, an NWDA president in the 1980s who later worked for Mayor Bud Clark and returned to the NWDA board in 2018, has had a front row seat to much of the evolution of the Portland neighborhood association system.
“This business about neighborhood associations not reflecting the entire population is a government-created myth,” said Duffy, who now lives in South Carolina. “The myth has been created because city officials over the years have found that neighborhood associations can be an effective to the detriment of the city’s desires.”
Neighborhood associations bring expertise and knowledge of city codes, policies and practices.
“That expertise can be a thorn in the side of government,” he said.
Focus groups represent the desire “to cherry-pick the people who agree with their proposals,” he said.
Unlike neighborhood associations, these “pop-up groups have no accountability, no open meetings, no bylaws” to ensure that they speak for a constituency, he said.
Duffy was surprised that the denigrating of neighborhood associations has spread to Multnomah County and found it “unbelievable” that an NWDA representative was not asked to speak at the library groundbreaking.
Liz Sauer, communications manager for Library Capital Bond Projects, defended the handling of the public involvement process, which she called “transparent, expansive and robust.”
Sauer said there was not enough room for more than four speakers at the groundbreaking.
Reinforcing cycle
The consequences of governmental orchestration of public participation can create a vicious cycle:
First, it dilutes the voice of independent neighborhood associations, relegating them to just one voice of many.
Then, the “underserved” populations take advantage of their special access to City Hall, a fast track they justify by saying neighborhood associations are inhospitable to them.
The neighborhood associations, thus, have a harder time recruiting minorities, who don’t need to engage with their neighbor associations because they have a direct connection to decision-makers.
Finally, government officials conclude that neighborhood associations are not representative of their full communities, which to the degree that it is true owes partly to their own thumbs on the scales.
Duffy and others contend that this pattern perpetuates common aspersions about neighborhood associations.
“You could call it the big lie that we don’t represent everybody when, in fact, we are the only group that does,” he said.
Chet Orloff, the former executive director of the Oregon Historical Society, served on the NWDA board in the 1980s.
“Chuck says much of what the county needs to hear,” Orloff said. “I would only emphasize what public agencies need to take from this event: Involve neighborhood associations in everything from planning to hosting events within their bailiwick.” is the neighborhood association in this picture?