Your Top 5 Questions About PEP, Answered.
And now, a very brief FAQ:
What is the Portland Engagement Project?
The Portland Engagement Project, or PEP (as we affectionately call it to avoid 24 extra keystrokes), is a multi-year project to reimagine and evolve the way the City of Portland hears from and responds to Portlanders. It's being spearheaded by Portland's Office of Community and Civic Life, led by Interim Director Michael Montoya.
What does PEP involve?
PEP breaks into three main parts: Listen, Design, and Enact.
Listen is happening now. It started in early 2022 and will continue through Spring 2023. We're listening to four things: Portlanders, Data, Feedback, and Experts.
Design will happen in 2023-24, and Enact will take place in 2024-25.
Why are we doing this?
The last major design of Portland's civic engagement happened in 1974. A lot has happened since then! Just think about it - what used to happen through letters and meetings and phone calls now happens with many more people and through many more channels, like 311 and social media. The City's very makeup has changed, and we know that it's going to keep changing. So we need to get proactive about what Portland will look like in the decades ahead and plan accordingly.
Who is the PEP team?
PEP is being led by the Office of Community and Civic Life. Michael Montoya is the interim director, and he's supported by community specialists and the communications team.
Civic Life has brought on a handful of expert partners to help make it all happen, both in and out of the city. We'll introduce you to each of them more in future posts, but here's a preview:
Portland State University - co-creating data-driven neighborhood maps so we can accurately assess whether all Portlanders are being engaged.
Citywide Equitable Engagement Group - there are already community engagement specialists across many bureaus of the City - we've brought them together to share what works... and what doesn't.
Pregame (that’s us!)- a Portland-based independent firm that's conducting the listening sessions for city employees and all Portlanders.
Oregon's Kitchen Table - producing a summit event for community engagement professionals and open to the public, so we can make sure our ideas will work in the real world.
This sounds big. What's the price tag and how are you paying for it?
The estimate for this stage is $648,000, which was approved by City Council and has already been paid for through cost savings by Civic Life in the fiscal year 2021-22.
Whew! That's a lot of info. We'll keep future posts brief, but we wanted to give you the most important info right away.
Again, you can get more info and even see our full reports at www.portland.gov/civic/portland-engagement-project.
