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RICH RIEGEL
THE MID-COUNTY MEMO
To help give a rounded view of the East Portland Neighborhood Office, the Memo quizzed one of Mid-county’s most respected citizen activists.
Bonny McKnight, co-chair of the Russell Neighborhood Association, was asked a direct question from the Memo: How much sway do neighborhood associations have?
“We have lots of power when all 95 neighborhood associations get together,” she told the Memo in an over-the-telephone interview.
“When we as individuals get together and use our political power,” she said, “dealing with the city council, we do have some power. The problem with neighborhood associations is that they are competitors with all kinds of activities that people engage in today.” McKnight used as examples shopping, watching television, and taking care of the family pet, all manner of activities.
“The struggle with all the neighborhood associations,” she confessed, “is how to move into a different kind of competitive environment to get lots of people involved.” She admitted that it’s easy to get citizens involved “with one issue, but it’s harder to do on an ongoing basis. So what we’re trying to do is get more creative, showing people what we do and keeping them with us.”
McKnight said that the task of those within a neighborhood association is identifying “something that motivates neighbors to get involved.
“Some people like to do events,” she detailed. “Some people like parks. Some people like school activities. We have to rebuild those partnerships, to show how neighborhood associations can help in all those areas.”
McKnight, who was Neighbor of the Year for the 2005 Mid-county Memo Community Awards, was asked if EPNO does a good job of helping both neighbors and neighborhood associations.
“Because we are a city-staffed office,” she said, “we have a different set of problems compared with the other coalitions.”
A bit of explanation: EPNO is a city office, and excepting one other coalition office, the others are nonprofit organizations that, as McKnight said, “are stand alone, and hire and fire their own staff.”
McKnight was not shy about expressing her mind.
“It’s my personal belief (that) we are a very expensive office,” she said of EPNO. “I personally wish we were a nonprofit. We would more wisely invest our budget.”
She continued, “We’re criticized for not being able to effectively contact people, which is true of most coalitions, but more of our resources go into staff. We lack the choice of how to spend our money because it’s already allocated.”
McKnight has her own take on the work of neighborhood associations.
“The city provides money for the coalitions,” she said, “and most of what we do is second guess what the city commissioners do. It makes it hard sometimes.”
As for how she’d like to see EPNO improved, McKnight continued to champion the individual neighborhood associations.
“I think it’s time for the city to understand that it can use us to identify issues,” before those issues are at full blossom.
“The (Portland City Council) needs to make us part of its system,” McKnight said. “It would be good to look at the rationale for starting neighborhood associations in the first place.”
McKnight said that past city leaders understood that it is important to listen to what the citizenry have to say through neighborhood associations.
“You can use the neighborhood association as a support group,” she said. “Neighborhood associations are another level of democracy.”
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