The Latest

You're invited!

Come for the free food, stay for the community and conversation! Please join the City of Portland's Office of Community & Civic Life and Oregon’s Kitchen Table for PEP Talk, a 3-day workshop that will discuss how we can create an equitable engagement model for the City of Portland.  This event is part of the City's Portland Engagement Project. For more information about the Portland Engagement Project, please visit the City’s website: www.portland.gov/civic/portland-engagement-project.

The PEP Talk will bring together community engagement experts and individual Portlanders to discuss how we can build proactive engagement structures that will reduce social vulnerability and livability issues, restore trust, and support our communities to thrive.

All Portlanders are invited to participate in one, two, or even all three days of the workshop but space is limited so please register today!

• Day 1 – Thursday, April 27, 3:30 to 8 p.m. – Zenger Farm
• Day 2 – Friday, April 28, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. – June Key Delta Community Center
• Day 3 – Saturday, April 29, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. – Portland State University Native American Student & Community Center 

Learn More about the PEP Talk Speakers!

Meet the Pendleton Team from The Hatfield Futures Project! We're so excited to have Rylee, Kyah, Summer, Josie, and Mackenzie join us for this year's competition. Stay tuned to meet all of our teams from this year's program. 

Names: Rylee Etchamendy, Kyah Hunter, Summer Wildbill, Josie Nelson, Mackenzie Walker (Pendelton High School)

What do you love about where you live?

It is a rural community, so there’s no traffic. It is a close community, and there is a lot of history from the Pendleton Round-Up.

What are you most excited about for Hatfield Futures?

Being able to have the opportunity to share our voices, and implement change for others in the community and throughout Oregon.

What is one surprising fact about you?

Kyah has been to Disneyland five times 

Josie has skied in Canada.

Rylee has held alligators before.

Kenzie has been to Mexico. 

Summer is a dual citizen of the Netherlands. 

In 2050, today’s high school students will be at the height of their careers and family lives. What future Oregon will they be living in? How can we support students in their efforts to shape a resilient and prosperous future Oregon?

The Hatfield Futures Project aims to engage students in generating innovative policy proposals for our most important societal, environmental, and economic issues. Our vision is to connect students across the state of Oregon as they collaborate in teams to present forward-thinking ideas at Portland State University in spring 2023 to community leaders, elected officials, and Portland State University faculty.

Students will build on the ideas that PSU faculty lay out in Oregon 2050 to develop their policy proposals. Oregon 2050 is an effort to be visionary and collaborate across traditional silos and outside of the constraints of planning as it has been constrained by practice and law, for a more environmentally sustainable, socially equitable, and fiscally resilient future. 

Oregon 2050 offers “big ideas” about how our state will welcome a projected more than one million new residents (relative to the population in 2020), and how we can face challenges and uncertainties about the future, such as the impacts of climate change, ongoing social inequities, and major changes in technology and to the economy. 

Oregon's Kitchen Table and PSU's College of Urban and Public Affairs have partnered to launch the Hatfield Futures Project in 2022-2023.  

The deadline to apply to form a team has passed. Teams will be presenting their policy ideas to a panel of judges at Portland State University on April 22, 2023.  Learn about the Hatfield Futures Project Teams here. 

This project is named for Senator Mark O. Hatfield.  Senator Hatfield represented Oregon in the US Senate for 30 years in addition to serving as Governor of Oregon, Oregon Secretary State, Oregon State Representative and Senator.  Senator Hatfield believed strongly that Oregonians need to be engaged citizens if Oregon’s commitment to good government and active participation were to be fulfilled. 

"Our problem is not the lack of knowing; it is the lack of doing. Most people know far more than they think they do."

- Senator Mark O. Hatfield.

Thank you to our Hatfield Futures Project Sponsors for helping to launch this effort!

In August of 2021, newly released 2020 US Census data showed that the number of people living in each of Clatsop County’s five commissioner districts has shifted so that the populations of the boundaries are no longer equally balanced.  The Clatsop County Charter outlines a timeframe of 120 days from release of the census data for the County to present to the Board adjustments to the boundaries so that the “total population is allocated nearly equally between the five districts; each of contiguous territory and as compact as possible.” 

Oregon’s Kitchen Table worked with the County to conduct a public engagement process to hear from residents of Clatsop County about what was most important to them when considering changes to the county’s district boundaries. In order to reach a number of different communities in different parts of the county, we designed a multi-faceted approach that also took into account existing COVID restrictions.  We held five public forums via Zoom during different days and times of day.  We also offered an online survey in both English and Spanish.  We conducted outreach to Spanish speaking and Latinx / Hispanic community members at two different vaccination clinics held by Consejo Hispano, a community-based organization focused on serving Spanish speaking and Latinx / Hispanic community members in Clatsop County.

About 300 people participated in the different forms of engagement activities. A total of 253 people responded to the OKT online survey available in English and Spanish. 40 people participated via survey questions on paper at two vaccination clinic events.  Approximately 25 Clatsop County residents participated in public forums. These activities were conducted between October 12th and November 5th, 2021.  Read the summary report from Oregon's Kitchen Table here.

County staff shared the results of the community engagement and provided recommendations on district boundary changes to the Clatsop County Board of Commissioners in December 2021.  You can view the boundary changes here. 

The state of Oregon has a new program to make sure people have ways to get rid of their family's unwanted medicines safely.  The program gives people places to turn in unwanted medicines rather than throw them away or flush them. This program is called the Drug Take Back Program.  And now it's time for you to share what would make it easier for you to participate.

Through this program, people in Oregon can return medicines that are expired or that they no longer want safely by:

• Leaving them at drop-off sites
• Picking up mail-back packets, or
• Asking for envelopes be sent mailed directly to you that are prepaid and addressed to turn in their medicines by mail 

MED-Project USA - a non-profit group that offers ways for people to turn in medicines that are expired or they no longer want - is working with the state to make sure that drop-off sites and other ways of turning in medicines are easy for communities around Oregon.  The state's new law wants to make sure this program serves "minority, lower-income, rural and other historically underserved communities."

And now MED-Project wants to hear from Oregonians as it sets up its services for collecting unwanted medicines. 

Oregon's Kitchen Table is gathering input this spring through listening sessions and small group and individual interviews.  You can also share your thoughts about safely getting rid of your medicines online through OKT.  

Please fill out this short survey if you live in Oregon. You and others can fill it out until June 16, 2021. Please invite your friends, neighbors, and family to fill out the survey, too.  The survey is also available in multiple languages.

简体中文      Русский      Somali      Español      Tiếng Việt

We're so excited to share with you the recommendations from the first Oregon Citizen Assembly - a group of Oregonians from across the state and all walks of life who came together for 7 weeks this summer (over Zoom) to discuss and deliberate on COVID-19 Recovery.  Their report includes both Core Principles and Policy Recommendations. The project was a partnership between Oregon’s Kitchen Table and Healthy Democracy. Panelists were randomly selected from across the state of Oregon, to reflect a microcosm of the state on age, gender, race/ethnicity, geographic location, political party registration, educational attainment, and voter frequency.

The Principles and Recommendations were written by the Assembly’s Citizen Panelists, after reviewing written testimony, hearing from a variety of expert witnesses, and deliberating over seven two-hour sessions.  They also reviewed responses from an Oregon's Kitchen Table survey to get a sense of what other Oregonians across the state are thinking about (watch for our full report from that input in the coming weeks!). They represent the words of Panelists themselves without editing from staff.  

You can also watch a virtual press conference where OCA members present their recommendations to Oregon State Senator Jeff Golden.  

We can't wait to see what future iterations of the Oregon Citizen Assembly looks like. There are plenty more  places where the wisdom of groups like the OCA can be brought to help shape issues around the state. Thank you for being with us over the past few weeks! 

We want to share with you a new effort we are launching this summer with our friends at Healthy Democracy - the Oregon Citizen Assembly.  This summer Oregonians from all walks of life will participate in our state’s first virtual Citizen Assembly to weigh in on what could be some of the state’s most important policy considerations in a generation as the state recovers from COVID.

The virtual Citizen Assembly will meet weekly in July and August 2020. They will discuss, deliberate, and develop a set of recommendations for Oregon’s COVID recovery that will be published online in late August and provided to decisionmakers. The Assembly models the kind of participatory democracy growing around the globe in recent years.

The 2020 Oregon Citizen Assembly on COVID-19 Recovery is comprised of 40 individuals from across the state and from diverse backgrounds. The pool of participants were randomly selected to reflect the demographic makeup of Oregon (you can read about the selection process and watch a video of it here). The Assembly will meet for two hours each week, for six weeks, to consider and discuss key questions put forth by state decision-makers.  Partway through the process, participants will have a chance to check in with their fellow Oregonians through a survey conducted by Oregon’s Kitchen Table. 

Portions of the Citizen Assembly will be open to public observers via livestream on Healthy Democracy’s YouTube Channel. The public sessions will also recorded and available here.  Join us in this opportunity for Oregonians to share their needs and priorities for the recovery.

You can read principals and recommendations from the Oregon Citizen Assembly on COVID19 Recovery here. 

Water and water supply affects all aspects of life in the Mid-Coast region - and now's your opportunity to weigh in on planning for the region's water. The Mid-Coast Water Planning Partnership is made up of people with many different water interests from Cascade Head to Cape Perpetua and is working to balance a number of water needs and factors in our region.  And now - they want to hear your thoughts and ideas.

Most of the region's water falls as rain during the winter and most of that water is not stored for very long. During the summer, when there is little rain, the Mid-Coast faces water shortages and droughts like other places in Oregon. In 2018, Lincoln County was in a severe drought for most of the summer. Starting today, people who live in, work in, own a business in, or often visit the Mid-Coast (from Cascade Head to Cape Perpetua) can weigh in at Oregon’s Kitchen Table (https://consultations.oregonskitchentable.org/water) to help make decisions about how to best prepare our region to meet our water needs.

Tackling water issues will take everyone. So, it’s time  to hear from you! We need as many people as possible who live, work, own businesses, or often visit the Mid-Coast to share their opinions. 

​This winter and spring, we've been spending lots of time with Central Oregon communities and our partners Central Oregon Intergovernmental Council and Let's Talk Diversity Coalition. Thanks to funding from Meyer Memorial Trust, our partnership group - led by COIC and also including the Ford Family Foundation’s Ford Institute Leadership Program alumni, the communities of La Pine, Sisters, Madras, and Prineville, as well as other partners - has been supporting Central Oregon communities to increase and broaden community engagement around economic development issues, priorities, and projects in each city. 

In winter, Oregon's Kitchen Table hosted an online consultation on people's hopes for the future of downtown La Pine.  Over 700 people shared their thoughts and ideas to help inform decision the City of La Pine is preparing to make about downtown and about a vacant lot purchased by ODOT for a transportation use. Participants were asked about their current use of downtown La Pine followed by a series of questions about what they would generally like to see more of.  The next section of questions focused on the particular property that would have a transportation use but also has the potential for other uses; these questions tested out preferences for what kind of a space people would like to see as well as what particular uses they would like to have.  Read the report on the results here. ​

Next up: We're in Sisters in April and May to provide support to Sisters Country Horizons, a visioning effort for Sisters and surrounding areas.  If you live in, work in, or often visit Sisters Country, help shape a vision for the community's future - attend a community meeting, share your input via an online survey, or host your friends, neighbors, or family members in a discussion from the comfort of your own table.  Check out all the ways you can get involved.

Image - Patrick Davenport, Sisters