City Club of Portland

The national healthcare landscape has changed dramatically in recent

Angela Carter, ND,

Lisa Watson

What does it take for a city to be "age friendly"? What questions do

Adam Davis

Ruby Haughton-Pitts

AARP is the nation’s largest nonprofit, nonpartisan organization

NOTE: We had previously planned to discuss solutions to Oregon's

Martha

Chris Costantino helps clients

Metro, the most important government nobody understands, is playing an increasingly prominent role in housing, transportation, and other key issues. Lynn Peterson, the new leader of Metro, has big plans, and as City Club members, we want to hear the details. Please join us for a conversation with Lynn. 

(Note: This event was originally planned as a conversation between Lynn Peterson and King County Executive Dow Constantine. Unfortunately, a conflict came up for Mr. Constantine and he is now unable to travel to Portland on this date. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.)

Lynn Peterson is the President of the Metro Council. From 2013-16, Peterson served as the CEO (Secretary) of the Washington State Department of Transportation. Prior to her position for Governor Inslee, Peterson served for Oregon Governor Kitzhaber as his Senior Transportation and Sustainability Policy Advisor where she oversaw transportation-energy policy, statewide transportation funding discussion and implementation of community priorities. Peterson previously served as the first-elected Chair of the Clackamas County Commission and on the Lake Oswego City Council. 

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Mary Kyle McCurdy is the Deputy Director of 1000 Friends of Oregon.  She earned her BA in Human Biology from Stanford University and her law  degree from the University of California at Davis. She served as a law  clerk to Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Edward Leavy. After two  years in private practice, she joined 1000 Friends in 1990 as a staff  attorney. With over 30 years working with Oregon land use laws, Mary  Kyle is a state leader on equitable land use, housing, transportation, urban planning, and climate solutions.

Despite a strong and growing economy, the coming two decades hold magnitude 8.0 challenges for public services for nearly every community in Oregon—schools, water, fire protection, public safety, mental health, and more. The key difference between the big earthquake predicted in our future and this coming financial crisis is simple: Oregon governments and voters have the tools to determine when (or if) the financial hardships will hit, how deeply they will impact communities today and in the future, and which Oregonians will carry the heaviest burden—by income level, geography, race and generation.

In a series of three events this spring, City Club presents new data, questions, and perspectives to offer a path for understanding this complex issue and our roles in shaping a hopeful future for all of Oregon. For some, this series will present a new way of talking about a host of issues that have been simmering for decades; for others it may be a wake-up call. Either way, this series is an appeal for new action and engagement. 

Part 1: Defining the Challenge - April 5
Jesse Beason, Caitlin Baggott Davis, and John Tapogna will share new data and discuss how philanthropic leaders in Oregon can work together and with communities to center the voices and experiences of community members in both defining the challenges and designing solutions. (Register below.)

Part 2: How Oregon's Coming Financial Challenges Impact Communities - May 17
Let's look at how the coming crisis might affect specific communities in Oregon. We'll especially focus on those who are often most impacted during economic downturns and examine the underlying assumptions that cause some communities to carry heavier burdens when public budgets shrink. Get tickets for part 2 >>

Part 3: Solutions to Oregon's Coming Financial Challenges - May 24
Let's talk about solutions that won't leave communities or generations behind. Get tickets to part 3 >>

Jesse Beason is Northwest Health Foundation’s President and Chief Executive Officer. He leads the Foundation in pursuit of its vision of health for everyone in Oregon and Southwest Washington. Before becoming President in January 2019, Jesse served as Northwest Health Foundation’s Vice President of Strategy & Public Affairs. He has also been Executive Director of Proud Ground and Senior Policy Director of Housing, Culture and Planning for then-Commissioner Sam Adams. In all this time, Jesse keeps saying yes to serving on boards—too many to list here. He moved from Denver, Colorado to Portland to attend Lewis & Clark College two decades ago. Jesse is a proud uncle, a semi-closeted sci-fi geek and a middling beekeeper.

Caitlin Baggott Davis is the founding executive director of the North Star Civic Foundation, a private entrepreneurial foundation focused on crisis-level wealth inequality in our region. The Foundation has supported research, economic analysis, and innovative policy development related to poverty and self-sufficiency in Oregon, as well as housing affordability and, recently, the fiscal health of local governments throughout the state.  

John Tapogna is President of ECONorthwest and oversees the firm's overall business strategy. Since his arrival at ECONorthwest in 1997, he has built consulting practices in education, healthcare, human service, and tax policy for clients including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Lumina Foundation, Idaho’s Albertson Family Foundation, and Oregon’s Chalkboard Project. He recently completed a widely-circulated study on homelessness in the Portland region for the Oregon Community Foundation. Prior to joining ECONorthwest, Tapogna served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Chile and was an analyst at the U.S. Congressional Budget Office, where he estimated the cost of Clinton-era welfare reform legislation.

For more than 30 years, Bob Joondeph has served as the Executive Director of Disability Rights Oregon (DRO). He recently announced his pending retirement, which provides an opportunity to reflect on the history and current state of disability rights in Oregon, and on disability rights as civil rights. 

Mr. Joondeph came to Oregon as a VISTA volunteer attorney in 1976. Throughout his career, Mr. Joondeph has represented individuals with disabilities in state and federal courts, agencies and legislatures.

Some of the changes that have taken place in Oregon during his time at the helm of DRO include:

• Closure of Dammasch state hospital and the Fairview Training Center
• The end of segregated employment in sheltered workshops
• The largest investment in safe and accessible transportation paths of travel in state history. 

DRO has also served as a watchdog for the treatment of people with disabilities in our criminal justice system, and in 2018 it joined with the Mental Health Association of Portland and Cascadia Behavioral Health to successfully petition to become a “Friend of the Court” in the ongoing case challenging the use of force against people with psychiatric disabilities. 

Mr. Joondeph has served as a member of numerous state policy groups in Oregon, and was recently appointed to the Social Security Advisory Board. A graduate of Case Western Reserve Law School and Brown University, Mr. Joondeph has lived in Oregon since 1976. He has four grown children and two grandchildren.

Steve Novick was a Portland city commissioner when the city council received a report detailing its abysmal track record of hiring and retaining people with disabilities. He regrets not having known more and done more sooner.

The ingenuity and can-do spirit of Portland residents is why our city's slogan is "the city that works." But does our governmental structure hinder our best work, especially when addressing complex issues such as race, policing, and housing?

For more than a year, a City Club committee researched Portland's commission form of government and other forms of government and voting systems. On February 12, we'll highlight the research findings and consider whether Portland's form of government gives us the tools we need to face today's challenges.

Our speakers include:

• Zeke Smith, FoodCorps
• Kristin Eberhard, Sightline Institute
• Jesse Beason, Northwest Health Foundation
• Mischa Webley, Northeast Coalition of Neighborhoods
• LaVonne Griffin-Valade, Former Portland City Auditor
• Mike Abbaté, Former Director of Portland Parks & Recreation
• John Russell, Russell Development
• Amanda Manjarrez, City Club research committee
• Michael Alexander, Portland State University
• Robin Ye, APANO

Local nonprofits provide essential services including health care, housing, and mental health support for our most vulnerable residents. How well will these services hold up in Oregon after a major earthquake? Will people get the help they need when they need it most?

In 2018, a survey of local nonprofits found that only about a third of nonprofits have a plan for continuing their operations after an emergency. How can we work with the nonprofit sector to ensure that a plan is in place for the continuity of all critical services, including those funded by grants and provided by nonprofits?

Join us at Friday Forum as we discuss the research and share insights about what it will take to make sure we take care of each other when "The Big One" hits.

Grace L. Chikoto-Schultz is an assistant professor in the Department of Public Administration in the Mark O. Hatfield School of Government. She holds a master’s degree in public administration and a Ph.D. in public policy from Georgia State University-Georgia Institute of Technology. Some of her research focuses on nonprofit organization's financial health and disaster preparedness. She also has experience conducting real-time evaluations of international NGOs' early disaster response activities. Prior to joining Portland State University, she taught nonprofit-centered courses at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee for 8 years.

Kerry Kozuki collaborates with and leads the Management Consulting and Services team at 501 Commons. He is responsible for overseeing the development and delivery of high quality management consulting and services, including information and referral services; management consulting; Springboard; Catalyst; human resources, organizational development, and leadership education; the Encore Fellows Program; the Five Elements Assessment; and other services in the organization’s management consulting portfolio. Prior to joining 501 Commons in 2016, Kerry’s career has largely been in hotel general management in Seattle, Portland, and Eastern Washington, focused on luxury hospitality. Some of his key skills include process improvement, organizational strategy and general organization operational excellence. He grew up in Williams Lake, BC, Canada, and completed his undergraduate degree at the British Columbia Institute of Technology. He later received his MBA at the University of Washington and gained his Six Sigma Black Belt from Villanova University.

Christopher Voss currently serves as the director of emergency management for Multnomah County and has more than 20 years of experience in the field of emergency management, including more than 60 Emergency Operation Center (EOC) activations. 

Mr. Voss previously served as the Director of the Montgomery County Maryland Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security (OEMHS) and has also served as an adjunct professor at Montgomery College and the University of Maryland University College teaching Emergency Management, Homeland Security and Public Policy Leadership courses.

Mr. Voss received his Bachelor of Science from the University of Connecticut, a Masters of Arts Degree in Security Studies from the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) Center for Homeland Defense and Security, and a Masters of Science in Environmental Technology from the New York Institute of Technology.  

Jim White currently serves as the executive director of the Nonprofit Association of Oregon. He began this assignment in October of 2012. Jim is deeply committed to social change and has worked in the nonprofit sector both domestically and internationally for more than 20 years. He has a passion for affecting systemic change in the way that the public, private, and nonprofit sectors work together to support and strengthen civil society. He is specifically skilled on working to build alliances and partnerships with mission- and results-driven outcomes in mind. 

Dr. Anne Castleton is a continuity planner and emergency manager who has worked in more than 20 countries educating colleagues and communities about risk reduction strategies. She joined Portland Bureau of Emergency Management in 2016 to support and coordinate bureau- and city-level continuity of operations planning (COOP) and is delighted to say that all the city's 33 bureaus have continuity of operations plans and the city is just releasing its 2019 Citywide COOP Framework.

Before joining PBEM, she supported the Integrated Research on Disaster Risk Programme based in China. As Mercy Corps’ Director of Disaster Risk Reduction, she coordinated the review and publication of Toward Resilience: A guide to disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation and developed a companion e-learning course with the Disaster Ready Initiative. Before being lured into international development and disaster risk reduction, Anne spent a decade as a project manager in the private sector (technology and pharmaceuticals).  

Many Oregonians can’t depend on receiving timely, affordable health care. The Oregon Legislature’s House Health Care Committee just released a report from legislators, industry representatives, physicians, and a few critics, all attempting to find a way toward accessible, affordable healthcare for everyone in Oregon. Can we achieve universal care? Do we want universal care?

State representative Andrea Salinas (D) and former state representative Rich Vial (R) join Oregon Nursing Association director Martin Taylor to discuss what they’ve learned while serving on of the “Universal Access to Health Care” Work Group and what they think Oregon can do next. This discussion will be moderated by Vanetta Abdellatif, director of Multnomah County’s Integrated Clinical Services.

Light refreshments will be served after the program.

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Andrea Salinas lives in Lake Oswego and represents District 38 in the Oregon House of Representatives. She serves on the House Health Care, Transportation, and Agriculture and Natural Resources committees. Salinas is the daughter of an immigrant from Mexico. Prior to joining the legislature, she worked for Senator Harry Reid, Representatives Pete Stark and Darlene Hooley, and was Oregon vice president of Strategies 360, a political consulting firm.

Martin Taylor joined the Oregon Nurses Association as its CEO in 2017. He previous served as an executive director of public affairs with CareOregon for nine years, developing Oregon’s coordinated care organization model. As ONA’s former director of health policy and government relations, he facilitated passage of the country’s first statewide nurse staffing law based on patient acuity.

Rich Vial lives in Hillsboro and is the former representative of District 26 in the Oregon House of Representatives. He served on the interim House Health Care, Carbon Reduction, and Judiciary committees. He is also Chair of the Washington County Planning Commission and previously served as Chair of the Groner School District Board and the Washington County Fair Board. He has been a land use attorney in Oregon for 30 years.

Vanetta Abdellatif is director of Integrated Clinical Services for Multnomah County. She oversees the County’s 25 health centers including 12 student health centers, eight primary care clinics, seven pharmacies, six dental sites, a central laboratory, and an HIV clinic. The system serves more than 70,000 residents each year and is one of the nation’s largest federally qualified health centers.