Skip to main content
The Intertwine

A coalition working to preserve and nurture a healthy regional system of parks, trails and natural areas

navigation-menu

Menu
  • Explore Places & perspectives
    • Subscribe to Emails
    • Outside Voice Blog
    • Northwest Family Daycation
    • Calendar
    • Add Event to Calendar
    • Intertwine Listserv
    • Summit 2019 Keynote Address, Meera Bhat
    Take a look
    The Intertwine Alliance has three big strategic goals
  • Power of Partnership Partners at work
    • Vision for Inclusive & Accountable Events
    • Intertwine Summit 2024
    • Intertwine Summit 2023
    • Intertwine Summit 2021
    • Regional Trails Advocacy Group
    • Connecting Canopies
    • Regional Urban Tree Policy & Programs Report
    • Other Partner Convenings
    • Equity & Inclusion Cohorts
    • Regional planning documents & other resources
    • Intertwine Projects
    • Partner Spotlights

    Get outside and find out with Northwest Family Daycation

    What's hopping?
  • The Alliance A growing coalition
    • Donate
    • Mission & Vision
    • Partners of The Intertwine Alliance
    • List of Partners (PDF)
    • Join The Alliance
    • Partner Dues
    • Board of Directors/Public Advisors
    • Staff
    • Action Alerts & Recent Advocacy
    • Policy Committee
    • Advocacy Position
    • Strategic Plan 2019-2024
    • Equity Strategy
    • Land Acknowledgment
    • Partner Testimonials

    See what's happening in our partner blog

    Use your Outside Voice
Twitter Facebook

Header Menu

  • Donate

Search form

  1. Home
  2. Outside Voice blog
  3. How is Metro spending your parks & nature money?

How is Metro spending your parks & nature money?

Join us at our first monthly partner coffee, and let's talk about it!

by Owen Wozniak, June 22 2021
Photo credit Metro

If you’ve been to a natural area anywhere in this region, chances are good you’ve seen firsthand the uses to which Metro puts your tax dollars.

Quick refresher: Metro is our regional government, tasked with a bewildering array of jobs that include managing the zoo and convention center, running solid waste transfer stations, coordinating regional land use and transportation planning, and (my favorite!) supporting the region’s parks, trails and natural areas.

Metro connects us to nature in several ways. It operates incredible regional parks like Blue Lake, Cooper Mountain and Oxbow. It acquires and restores natural lands across the region. And it distributes money and resources to community groups and other local governments so they can create parks, trails and natural areas, as well. Metro is absolutely essential to nature in The Intertwine.

And you, in turn, are essential to Metro. The citizens of this region have consistently voted to support Metro’s investments, passing bond measures in 1995, 2006 and 2019 to acquire and development land for parks, trails and natural areas. You – we! – have also repeatedly passed levies so Metro can take care of all that land.

How do you want to see The Intertwine Alliance show up in this discussion? What are your priorities? What resources do you need to engage? Please join us for a partner coffee on July 15.

Beyond your tax dollars, you give Metro something equally important, the political will to think big and tackle the enormous, interlocking challenges we face as region: systemic racism, climate change, a homelessness crisis, a pandemic, and the enduring inequities carved into the landscape by past development patterns.

Metro needs our collective engagement to move this work forward. Commendably, the agency goes to great lengths seeking it out. One venue is the Natural Areas and Capital Program Performance Oversight Committee, on which I serve. The name is a bit complicated, but the mission is simple: provide community perspectives on, and oversight of, Metro’s bond and levy investments. Other Intertwine Alliance partners on the oversight committee are Nicole Johnson, Community Engagement Manager at 1000 Friends of Oregon, and Georgena Moran, Project Coordinator at Access Recreation.

This is a big job, because Metro has a lot of resources right now. The 2019 bond measure generated $475 million that Metro will spend over the next decade on the following programs:

  • Protecting and restoring natural areas across the region ($155 million)
  • Supporting local park and natural area projects by other local governments ($92 million)
  • Making “Nature in Neighborhood” grants to nonprofits and local governments that support community-led initiatives ($40 million)
  • Developing and repairing Metro parks – think new trails, picnic areas, restrooms and more ($98 million)
  • Creating more – and more accessible – walking and biking trails ($40 million)
  • Advancing “large-scale community visions,” such as the Riverwalk at Willamette Falls ($50 million)

The sweep and scale of Metro’s ambition – our ambition – is impressive. Though it will take a lot more than $475 million to create the equitable and climate resilient region we need, that’s a pretty good down payment. But we need to spend it strategically.

This is where you come in. As an oversight committee member, I want to represent all Intertwine Alliance partners to the best of my ability. I need to hear from you. How do you want to see The Intertwine Alliance show up in this discussion? What are your priorities? What resources do you need to engage?

Here's one chance to tell us: Intertwine Alliance board and staff are excited to announce a new virtual partner coffee series, with the first one to be about this very topic. The idea is for Intertwine Alliance partners to gather informally together each month to build connections and consensus for the work we do together as a coalition. We'll change up the day/time each time, to accommodate a maximum number of schedules. Sometimes the coffees will have a topic; sometimes they’ll be more free form, whatever is on partners’ minds.

We hope you’ll join us on Thursday, July 15, from 4 to 5 p.m. Fellow oversight committee members Georgena and Nicole will be with us for the conservation. Please RSVP at your earliest convenience.

To me, the big picture is clear. We need a lot more nature. And we need to deepen our understanding of how our history in this place informs what we must do if we want a democratic and sustainable relationship to the land and to each other.

Beyond that ... there are a lot of details. Luckily, Metro is good at details. They’ll be even better, though, if they hear fully and clearly from all of us.

Owen Wozniak

Owen Wozniak is a program manager at the Land Trust Alliance, where he supports nonprofit land trusts protecting climate-resilient natural places across the Pacific Northwest. Active in Portland-area conservation and environmental policy for the past 15 years, he's a founding partner of The Intertwine Alliance and its current board president. From 2007 to 2018, Owen was a project manager with The Trust for Public Land, where he worked with state and local natural resource and parks agencies, community groups, and landowners on projects ranging from urban gardens to community forests and endangered species conservation. Owen is also author of several hiking and biking guidebooks, including "Biking Portland" (Mountaineers Books, 2011). In his spare time, He loves to ski, bike and paddle, keeping up as best he can with his 9-year-old son.

The Intertwine

P.O. Box 14039 
Portland, OR 97293

503-445-0991

info@theintertwine.org

© 2016 The Intertwine Alliance
Site Map Subscribe

Explore

  • Subscribe to Emails
  • Outside Voice Blog
  • Northwest Family Daycation
  • Calendar
  • Add Event to Calendar
  • Intertwine Listserv
  • Summit 2019 Keynote Address, Meera Bhat

Power of Partnership

  • Vision for Inclusive & Accountable Events
  • Intertwine Summit 2024
  • Intertwine Summit 2023
  • Intertwine Summit 2021
  • Regional Trails Advocacy Group
  • Connecting Canopies
  • Regional Urban Tree Policy & Programs Report
  • Other Partner Convenings
  • Equity & Inclusion Cohorts
  • Regional planning documents & other resources
  • Intertwine Projects
  • Partner Spotlights

The Alliance

  • Donate
  • Mission & Vision
  • Partners of The Intertwine Alliance
  • List of Partners (PDF)
  • Join The Alliance
  • Partner Dues
  • Board of Directors/Public Advisors
  • Staff
  • Action Alerts & Recent Advocacy
  • Policy Committee
  • Advocacy Position
  • Strategic Plan 2019-2024
  • Equity Strategy
  • Land Acknowledgment
  • Partner Testimonials
Top