Help with Creating the Oregon We Want

You are encouraged to be part of a critically important conversation on Monday, December 10th. This conversation will focus on the future of the Oregon planning program in the context of a vision for the future of our state and what state system needs to exist to help us make it real.

This conversation is the next step in a two and a half year discussion which started with the Oregon City/County Managers Association conference in 2016 where I led a panel discussing the next 40 years of the Oregon Planning program, through dozens of conversations over the following two years, some gatherings of local government officials over the last few months to gel some of the ideas, and culminating in a standing-room only session at the Oregon Chapter of the American Planning Association annual conference a month ago. 

The discussion and ideas raised at that conference, coupled with the keen interest expressed by the City and County Managers in 2016, pushes this initiative forward. You asked that I convene an opportunity for a continued discussion. The December 10th event is the beginning.

Please join us from 6:30 to 9:30 on Monday, December 10th.

We will meet at the Aldersgate Conference Center in Turner which is a short distance from I-5 just south of Salem. The address is: 

7790 Marion Road SE
Turner OR 97392

There will be beverages and snacks, with a donation jar to help defray the costs.

At your request, there will be similar conversation events in central Oregon and in the Rogue Valley shortly after the first of the year. Details will be announced soon. Also, I will lead a conversation on these issues at the Oregon County Planning Directors Association annual conference in Eugene tomorrow. Please join us if you can.

Please come to these conversations brimming with ideas. Bring your associates as well as interested elected and appointed officials. Pass this email on to others. The questions which will guide our conversation are:

  • Are reforms needed and to what end?

  • What is the possibility of actually seeing needed reforms come to pass?

  • What will it take?

  • What happens if we do nothing?

There were papers created after the OCCMA and OAPA conferences summarizing the discussions. Please let me know if you wish to have copies emailed to you. And, please let me know if you have questions or other ideas.

Thanks in advance for your help with this critical conversation.