Community Announcements

Portland looking for community members to serve on CIC

The City of Portland is accepting applications through October 31, 2008, for 12 community members to serve on the Community Involvement Committee (CIC) for the Portland Plan. The Portland Plan is a comprehensive, three-year planning project lead by the City's Bureau of Planning. The purpose of the Portland Plan is to develop policies and actions to guide Portland's growth and development over at least the next 20 years. The planning effort will result in an update to the city's Comprehensive Plan and the Central City Plan.

The charge of the CIC is to review and make recommendations on the public involvement efforts for the Portland Plan. The committee will review past involvement efforts and results and preview upcoming involvement activities. The committee will make recommendations to the Planning Commission and staff on ways to continue or improve its public involvement activities so that they meet the overall goals of the public involvement work program.

The CIC will be made up of three Planning Commissioners and 12 members of the community at large. CIC members should expect to meet quarterly over the three-year period of the planning project. However, in the beginning, the committee may need to meet more often.

Apply to become a community member of the CIC for the Portland Plan online.

Interested in drop-in childcare for hospitals?

I have some good news to share: my My Little Waiting Room project could receive up to $1.5 million to bring drop-in child care to hospitals across the country! You can help by nominating My Little Waiting Room to reach the Top 25 at the American Express Members Project: http://www.membersproject.com/project/view/CO3EIY

Please vote by August 31. Thank you! Amy Paterson

Do you want paid family leave in Oregon? Help us get it!

We are Parents for Paid Leave, a grassroots group of Oregon parents that is working to pass paid family leave legislation next legislative session ('09).  We need your help to make this happen!  Please, if you support having paid time off after the birth/adoption of a child or in the event you need to care for a sick loved one (or yourself), please, sign up on our mailing list.  We promise not to email you often, only when there's something happening that we think you really need to know.  We hope the list will show legislators what kind of support this issue has throughout the state. 

If you'd like to do more, please download this one-page flyer about Parents for Paid Leave and deliver it to  your favorite coffee shop and doorsteps in your neighborhood.  Or someone else's!  Always wanted to take a walk around NW 23rd but never found a reason?  Love Sellwood but don't live there? Perfect.  Print a few (dozen!) of these flyers, distribute them to friends, family, coworkers, the office kitchen, your neighbors' front door, wherever you like.  An easy - and possibly even fun - way to be part of a real grassroots campaign.  It really does take a village, and we hope you'll be part of ours!

And if you just so happen to be game for even more, email us or join us at Urban Grind NE for our monthly meetings - the 2nd Saturday of every month.

We hope you'll join us in bringing paid family leave to Oregon's working families.