CPO 1 News
September meeting
Tuesday, September 11, 6:45 pm, Leedy Grange Hall, 835 NW Saltzman
Community Participation Organization 1 resumes our monthly meetings after taking a break in August. Our program will include a visit from Luke-Dorf, an agency that provides a range of services to homeless folks in Washington County. Come and learn about their work and bring your questions about homelessness in the area.
Last month, we wrote about Washington County Kids, a program that helps lower income families access high-quality after-school programs. We’ll hear from founder Katie Riley about the work they do and how you can help.
As always, we’ll hear from our Public Safety folks—usually the Sheriff’s office and sometimes the fire district. There’s also time for community announcements and for you to bring your concerns about land use and development and anything else relating to county government.
New this month, we’re opening a bit early at 6:45 so people can have a chance to peruse the various development applications, county Ordinances, Planning Commission agendas and minutes, and all the other various notices that are sent to the CPO. It’s also a great time to meet your neighbors and socialize before the “formal” part of the meeting begins.
 If it’s Beaverton, is it still CPO 1?
The CPO system was set up in Washington County to give residents a voice in land use issues. There are currently 13 active CPOs. CPO 1 represents residents in Cedar Mill, Cedar Hills, and Bonny Slope. It also encompasses the areas that have been annexed into Beaverton over the years.
We’ve had trouble getting land use information from the city in recent years. We requested that the formal recognition of their responsibility to notify us be included in the Urban Planning Area Agreement (UPAA) that the county is currently amending as Ordinance 839. Since then, however, Beaverton has agreed to include this in an update of the city code.
The Central Beaverton Neighborhood Association Committee (NAC), which is supposed to be the community involvement organization for residents in this part of the city, has been somewhat inactive and in any case, rarely pays much attention to the fragments of the city north of 26. This became an issue with the Lifetime Fitness application, although its developers have been good about keeping us in the loop. Brian Martin, Beaverton’s Long Range Planning Manager, says, “we have already added CPOs to our notification lists, so from now on they will be getting notice in a similar fashion to the city’s Neighborhood Association Committees. This will be true for Comprehensive Plan changes, developments requiring public notice and annexations.”
Changes in county Community Engagement personnel
Several years ago, Washington County’s Administration Office (CAO) took over management of the CPO system from OSU Extension. Mike Dahlstrom has been the Community Engagement Manager since then. He recently retired and the county has announced the appointment of Amanda Garcia-Snell as Community Engagement Manager.
Garcia-Snell has worked for Washington County for the past 10 years, most recently as the Health Equity, Planning and Policy supervisor in the Public Health Division of the Department of Health and Human Services. She brings a passion for relationship building and collaboration to her work and has been dedicated to building community partnerships on a broad range of activities for over 16 years.
Garcia-Snell begins her new assignment this month. Her duties include oversight of the Community Participation Organization program, community engagement support for county departments and programs, as well as strategies that support civic leadership and capacity building.
In addition, recently-hired Program Coordinator Tamara Falls has accepted another position closer to her home. Her last day was August 30. Tamara served as Program Coordinator for CPOs 3, 4B, 4M, 8, 12C, and 13. The county says, “During this time of transition for both the new Program Manager and Program Coordinator, staff will make every effort to ensure all CPOs remain adequately supported.” Your CPO has learned to be fairly independent of CAO staff so you won’t see any changes!
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