Promoting civic engagement in Sisters

A group of citizens is promoting leadership and civic action in Sisters, with a focus on how City government can improve community engagement and outreach.

The first cohort of the Civic Leadership Academy (CLA) presented their report on the City’s outreach and engagement efforts to the Sisters City Council on June 12. This presentation was the product of two months of work by the CLA cohort, and the program represents years of work by the city and its partners.

The CLA is a collaboration among the City of Sisters, Citizens4Community (C4C), and Portland State University’s National Policy Consensus Center (NPCC). Steve Greenwood, of the NPCC, has run the CLA in Hillsboro since 2016.

According to Greenwood, the purpose of the program is to increase civic capacity, developing leaders who “solve problems; the emphasis is not so much ‘what can you do to attain power?’ It’s ‘what can you do as a leader to help the community?’”

According to Kerry Prosser, assistant city manager, the NPCC was interested in bringing the CLA to rural communities. Prosser worked with Jane Paxson, board vice president of C4C, to secure funding. Greenwood and colleague Nujhat Ahmed brought the show on the road in April, facilitating the CLA in Sisters.

The City invited applications in the spring, then selected 10 participants. Prosser said that “the diversity of the cohort was helpful. We had business owners and non-profit people and retired people and somebody who was in college.”

One of the City’s goals in hosting the CLA is to increase public engagement, especially among those who might be intimidated by going to City Hall, so Prosser was excited by this diversity. They represented “such varying perspectives, and looked different from who’s normally in our meetings and our open houses…Inviting them in to hear what they have to say is super beneficial for everybody.”

Over the course of six weeks, cohort members developed leadership and collaboration skills, met with city councilors and staff, and conducted research. Greenwood captured the spirit of the curriculum, saying, “civic leadership is not about standing in the town square and making speeches. It’s about doing hard work on a commission, or a committee, or a task force.”

In that spirit, the CLA was framed around a question posed by the City Council: How can the City of Sisters improve community engagement and outreach? After their final meeting, the cohort spent about three weeks completing their written report and presentation of their findings.

At the June 12 workshop, three members of the CLA presented on behalf of the cohort: Abhi Chaudhuri, Cheryl Pellerin, and Spencer Hamiga.

The beginning of the presentation focused on stakeholders who may not be engaging with the City. The group observed that between 2019 and 2022, the 65-and-over population grew from about 500 to 1,200, accounting for most of the growth in Sisters.

“This has coincided with the explosion of owners occupying homes and reduction of housing affordability for citizens,” noted Chaudhuri. “This means that the availability of rental units has fallen dramatically and as we go about planning the Urban Growth Boundary this year, we really need to consider the needs of this displaced population.”

The discussion of communications largely explored digital methods, drawing comparisons with peer communities like Joseph, Jacksonville, and Hood River. Pellerin voiced concern that unofficial sources like the Sisters Community Updates & News Facebook group have far greater reach than official city channels, saying, “if you talk about correct information, there’s risk when it’s not operated by the City.”

Hamiga described constraints on the city, including budget and labor. This discussion underscored the importance of tracking outreach efforts. Hamiga shared comments from councilors indicating there are no metrics associated with their outreach goal.

Before discussing opportunities to track engagement with the city’s digital communications, Hamiga reiterated the CLA’s support for adopting clear metrics: “If the council’s goal is to increase the city’s outreach and engagement, how do you measure that success? How do you come back and say ‘we’ve done it…we’ve accomplished our goal’?”

The end of the presentation focused on building trust by addressing emotional challenges among residents, like believing that some residents have an unequal voice in city affairs.

“There are similar sentiments of underrepresentation found among the local workforce, the Latine community, and younger age groups,” said Pellerin. “Honest effort to include these groups could help build social capital and build trust.”

The presentation drew a standing ovation from the City Council and community members in attendance, and Councilor Gary Ross opened the council’s comments with praise: “Excellent report…well done, well written, and thoughtful. There are some things in here that I think are going to be challenging to address…There are a lot of things that I think are relatively easy to address.”

Councilor Susan Cobb said she sent a list of eight recommendations based on the report to the city manager’s office. Prosser clarified to The Nugget that City staff are creating a communications plan, which they hope to complete in August. In the meantime, Cobb said, “The best way for us to appreciate what you have done is for us to have a follow-on workshop where we decide which low-hanging fruit we could actually get to.”

The discussion did turn to the challenging problems mentioned by Ross.

Councilor Jennifer Letz lamented that, “We only have the bandwidth to be reactive, and we really need to be proactive and be guiding the conversation, starting the conversation instead of reacting to it and then trying to clean up afterwards.”

Council President Andrea Blum spoke to the difficulty of addressing concerns of residents who try to engage but “feel unheard and unfulfilled.” Referring to the public nature of council meetings, Blum said, “The discussion we have sitting right here is all there is. There is no other area to be transparent about. So, how do we be transparent when all the decision making is right here in public?”

After the workshop, Prosser gave the CLA a fitting parting gift: application forms, inviting participants to apply for board openings in the fall. If participation in government is one way to measure success, then the CLA is off to a promising start: two members of the cohort have been appointed to the UGB Steering Committee.

Mayor Michael Preedin said, “I can’t wait to do a cohort next year with another subject. I want to do it every year after this.”

The CLA will indeed run in 2025. Look for application information in the spring.

Read the full CLA report on the city website at https://www.ci.sisters.or.us/administration/page/civic-leadership-academy.

Editor’s Note: Nugget freelance reporter Matthew McClellan is married to one of the members of the Civic Leadership Academy.