Editorial

Vision requires next step: action

The Portland Tribune, Jul 20, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (5 Reader comments)

Two years of hard work by citizen volunteers and the investment of at least $1.2 million in public money haven’t done much yet to sharpen Portland’s vision for the future.

If Portland Mayor Tom Potter hopes to salvage something of substance from his VisionPDX project, he has just two months to do so.

On Sept. 19, the Community Vision Project Committee will present its final report to the City Council. Sometime after that, the council must decide what it wants to do with the Potter-initiated process.

Should commissioners invest even more in the visioning project by allocating funds for specific initiatives? Or should they simply accept the report in its current ill-defined form and allow it to serve as a general but completely nonbinding statement about Portlanders’ values?

At this juncture, it appears commissioners have no clear-cut choices to make — there aren’t any next steps or follow-up proposals on the table. If the visioning process, which has consumed thousands of volunteer hours, is to be worthwhile in the end, Potter and his staff must put some shape to it — and quickly.

Thousands took part

No one can doubt that citizens involved in the project were anything other than dedicated and sincere in their desire to advance the community and define what it should look like in 2030.

Committee members have been meeting for almost two years. They’ve collected input from 13,000 Portland residents. And they are correct when they say they have engaged people in the process who likely never have been asked before for their opinions about the city’s future.

1 | 2 Next Page >>

Facebook	Digg	Del.icio.us
Newsvine	Stumbleupon	Reddit