In East Portland, a light post offers hope for a change in City Hall representation

Editor’s note: This is the first in an occasional series about how East Portland neighborhoods are experiencing district representation in the city’s new government.

Bob Earnest had almost given up on the light post.

Three years ago, Portland’s transportation bureau installed a new wooden light post down the street from Earnest’s house in East Portland’s Hazelwood neighborhood. The light was meant to improve bike and pedestrian safety. But it never turned on. Earnest jumped into action, sending emails and calling the city.

“I kept asking them, ‘How long do we have to wait until you take care of this dark intersection?’” Earnest said. “And nobody, nobody would listen to me. I gave them inventory numbers. I gave them dates, times, and they just kept going, ‘We’ll get to it. We’ll get to it. We’ll get to it.’”

Then, in January, the city overhauled its form of government, giving Hazelwood and the rest of East Portland dedicated council representations for the first time in history. Earnest brought the light post issue straight to his new representatives. Days later, the street corner was illuminated.

“Bingo — a result!” Earnest said, sitting at his kitchen table a week later. “So, that’s pretty impressive.”

The voter-approved city government change was intended to improve access to City Hall for Portlanders living in more diverse and lower-income neighborhoods far from downtown, whose issues have long been an afterthought to city leaders.

But making that change isn’t as easy as switching on a light. “People are hesitant to trust the city,” said Frieda Christopher, who has lived in Hazelwood since the 1970s and spent 35 years on the David Douglas School Board — the neighborhood’s main school district. “And it’s hard to overcome that negativity.”

Proof that the government transition is accomplishing what it set out to do will take time to measure. But Earnest considers the quick light post fix an early sign that the change is working.

“I’m hopeful,” Earnest said. “I think we’re going to see some positive outcomes.”

A history of feeling ignored

Since moving to Hazelwood in 1996, Earnest has volunteered on the neighborhood association board, where he currently is the treasurer.

As a now-retired, white, homeowner in his 70s, Earnest fits the stereotype for a neighborhood association leader in Portland. But he hasn’t had the same kind of power as his peers across the city, like in the affluent Laurelhurst or Irvington neighborhoods. Like with the light post saga, he’s used to being ignored by city leaders. He believes that’s because of where he lives.

The Hazelwood Neighborhood straddles Portland’s north and south quadrants along East Burnside Street, stretching from Interstate 205 to 148th Avenue. It’s home to more people of color and more immigrants than the city as a whole, and it has more people living below the poverty line than Portland on average.

Hazelwood is also an area notorious for some of the city’s highest rates of gun violence and traffic deaths. Out of the city’s 94 neighborhoods, it’s the second largest, with a population over 26,000. Despite its size, the neighborhood hasn’t historically seen the kind of investments in parks, streets, or other infrastructure that other wealthier neighborhoods closer to downtown have benefited from. This frustrates Earnest.

“But we don’t pay a lower property [tax] rate,” said Earnest. “We don’t pay lower utilities. We pay fair market for every single service that we get from the city of Portland, but we don’t get a fair amount of services.”

Christopher, who is also white, said the distrust in city government from longtime residents runs deep, due to a pattern of broken promises and neglect. As an example, she points to the city not sufficiently including neighbors in discussions around the Gateway Urban Renewal Plan in the early 2000s, making people feel left out of a plan shaping the future of their community.

“It was just [the city] deciding what to do, which didn’t go over well,” she said. “And so it caused a lot of negativity out here.”

One challenge, Christopher noted, is that city officials don’t always see her neighborhood as part of their community.

“They never felt that invested,” she said.

In the city’s history, only one City Council member has ever lived in Hazelwood — Jo Ann Hardesty. She was also the first Black woman elected to City Council. While Hardesty did advocate for her neighborhood, she was elected to a citywide role, giving her little time to zero in on her neighbors’ issues.

A light in the dark

That changed this year. Hazelwood sits in the city’s brand new District 1, which includes almost all neighborhoods east of I-205. In November, Portlanders elected three councilors to represent that new district: Candace Avalos, Jamie Dunphy and Loretta Smith.

Earnest met Smith and Avalos at a community meeting on Jan. 22, where he detailed his years of work asking the city to turn on a lightbulb. They listened.

Later that evening, Avalos posted a video to her Instagram page, recounting the interaction. “There was a constituent who mentioned that they had been trying to fix a light on their street for literally years,” she said. “We made a plan to follow up. And they said it was the first time they felt truly valued. That breaks my heart and empowers me and excites me about what district representation really is going to mean.”

The next day, at a City Council meeting, Smith brought Earnest’s request up to staff with the Portland Bureau of Transportation. She read out the intersection and work number associated with the post.

“I want to make sure that District 1 folks feel that the city of Portland is here to have it work for them as well,” Smith said. “Can you all follow up on this?”

According to Smith, she got an email from PBOT Director Millicent Williams later that week confirming that she had contacted Pacific Power, the electric utility and that the light would be turned on in early February.

On Feb. 6, the corner was illuminated.

“Friday evening I drove to the intersection of 108 and Oregon....the intersection is lit!” wrote Earnest in an email to Smith that weekend. “Thank you from all the neighbors and me.”

Both Earnest and Smith believe that it was Smith’s request that led to the light being turned on. But PBOT spokesperson Dylan Rivera has a different story. According to Rivera, Pacific Power notified the city on Jan. 21 — two days before Smith’s request to PBOT — that it would be turning the streetlight on Feb. 6.

“What a coincidence,” Earnest told OPB, after learning of this explanation. “This has been dragging on for years and suddenly PBOT says, ‘Oh, we were one day ahead of you.’ I don’t believe it. The ball was not rolling until Councilor Smith made that call.”

Smith isn’t surprised by the response from the city. She said she believes Pacific Power likely acted in response to learning that a city councilor was on the case.

“Of course they’re gonna say that they already knew about it,” Smith told OPB. But she added a warning: “But now they have to really pay attention because this councilor is not going anywhere.”

A ‘wait and see’ approach

Whether or not the plan was set in motion before Earnest’s request to Smith, he doesn’t discount Smith’s influence over ensuring it went through. To him, it’s a sign that his neighborhood — and the rest of East Portland — will finally have a voice in City Hall.

Like Hazelwood, Distinct 1 as a whole has a history of being ignored by the city. Only two city councilors — Hardesty and Randy Leonard — have ever lived in the 15 neighborhoods it encompasses.

Patricia Ruffin has lived in various District 1 neighborhoods since 2008. Ruffin is the mother of former District 1 city council candidate Terrance Hayes, who ran on a platform of bolstering jobs and public safety in East Portland.

Ruffin currently lives east of Hazelwood in the Centennial neighborhood and often spends her weekends serving meals to unhoused neighbors with her grandkids. She said she can just look out her apartment window to tell the city doesn’t prioritize her community.

“I don’t know much about politics and funding,” Ruffin said, “but we don’t see street sweepers on our streets and when we call the police, they don’t show up. And our parks, they aren’t beautiful.”

Ruffin is Black and a registered felon, two factors that she said have forced her to confront prejudice in her life.

“Because of that, it never felt like my voice really mattered,” she said. “And it feels the same way living in this community. Like I don’t matter.”

District 1 is also the city’s most diverse. Like all of Portland, the majority of residents are white, but it has the smallest population of white residents in all four districts, at 58%. About 16% of District 1 residents identify as Latino, 15% identify as Asian, and 10% identify as Black.

It’s also the district home to the most households per capita that are considered “rent burdened,” meaning that tenants spent more than 30% of their income on rent.

One motivation behind the city’s government overhaul was to increase the diversity in a city council historically dominated by older, white, wealthy men. Judging by the election results, it worked: Out of the 12 elected, six are women, five are people of color, four identify as LGBTQ+, and three are renters. District 1 has two Black councilors: Smith and Avalos (who also identifies as Latina).

Earnest is aware that not everyone may get the kind of special attention from city officials that he received last month.

“Now the neighbors think I’m a superhero,” Earnest said. “I’m not. I just knew the button to push and the verbiage to use to get their attention. But that shouldn’t be. That shouldn’t be.”

To level the playing field, he wants to see District 1 councilors open an office in the district, where community members can visit and share concerns without having to drive to City Hall downtown. And he wants to see them out in the neighborhoods more often.

He’s already noticing progress. Earnest says he’s seen District 1’s three councilors at community events more in the last two months than he’s seen any elected official in Hazelwood in the past 25 years. District 1 councilors say they plan on holding more public meetings in their district in the coming months. They’re also touring potential locations where they could open a district office.

Christopher, the Hazelwood neighbor, said she’s encouraged to hear of councilors spending more time in District 1. But she’s hesitant to heap praise.

“I would say right now everybody’s taking a ‘wait and see’ [approach],” she said. “Those of us that have been involved for a long time, we’re going to see what occurs and what the follow through is.”

Earnest knows that investing in the neighborhood is more than just turning a lightbulb on. Streets need paving, parks need upgrades, and crime rates need tackling. But the light post is a start.

“This is a low-hanging fruit success,” Earnest said. “It shows neighbors that this new form of government is going to work. That’s my optimism. It’s going to work.”