March is Women’s History Month! Learn how it started from this short introduction from the Library of Congress:  

Women’s History Month had its origins as a national celebration in 1981 when Congress passed Pub. L. 97-28 which authorized and requested the President to proclaim the week beginning March 7, 1982 as “Women’s History Week.” Throughout the next five years, Congress continued to pass joint resolutions designating a week in March as “Women’s History Week.” In 1987 after being petitioned by the National Women’s History Project, Congress passed Pub. L. 100-9 which designated the month of March 1987 as “Women’s History Month.” Between 1988 and 1994, Congress passed additional resolutions requesting and authorizing the President to proclaim March of each year as Women’s History Month. Since 1995, presidents have issued a series of annual proclamations designating the month of March as “Women’s History Month.” These proclamations celebrate the contributions women have made to the United States and recognize the specific achievements women have made over the course of American history in a variety of fields. 

Upcoming Women’s History Events: 

• Thursday, March 3, 10 a.m.: 2022 Mother Tongue Film Festival—Centering Women’s Voices: Directors Roundtable  
• Thursday, March 3, 2 p.m: Celebrate Women’s History Month with Energy Trust of Oregon 
• Tuesday, March 8, 10 a.m.: Female Genius: Eliza Harriot and George Washington at the Dawn of the Constitution 

As we leave February and move closer to spring, we remind you that every month is Black History Month. Continue to celebrate all Black History—highlighting joy, resilience, and creativity.  

From the Oregon Department of Veterans’ Affairs:  

In honor of Black History Month, the Oregon Department of Veterans' Affairs is highlighting just a few of the exceptional stories, achievements, and contributions Black Americans have made to our nation's military history. The final entry in our series looks back on the remarkable service and legacy of the 6888th Central Postal Battalion, the first and only all-female Black battalion to be deployed overseas during World War II. You can find the story on their blog here. 

Miss last Wednesday’s Lunch and Learn led by Francesca Jones? Watch her IAP2 mini-course for PBOTers: Emotion, Outrage, and Public Participation here and her presentation slides here to get ready for the sequel this month. To practice what we learned, Francesca will host a follow-up March 9. We include the calendar hold in the Scoop. Stay tuned.  

Hey Coffee Talkers, make sure to check your inboxes for your next match. Emails went out Monday, Feb. 28. If you think you should have received one but didn’t, email Kailyn Lamb.  

Submitted by Erick Moe 

Thank you to Maintenance Manager Will Threewitt, Maintenance Supervisors Lee McIntire, Will Krieger and Jake Keller, Supervisor Lenore DeLuisa and the operations team, and Risk Specialist Steve Fisher, Mike Cave, and Jimmy Gibbons, who consulted on the OSHA best practices. 

Portland Streetcar shared this story via their Twitter account, too:  

Submitted by Abra McNair 

The following note was sent to Abra McNair and Richard Nasiombe from the Rose City Park Elementary School community. This work would not be possible without PBOT’s Project Delivery and Support teams lead by Michelle Rhoads: 

“On behalf of the Rose City Park Elementary School community, I want to express our sincere gratitude for your incredible responsiveness, professionalism, and speed in identifying our safety issue with students and families crossing NE 57th Avenue to and from school. Honestly, I was shocked to arrive Monday morning to my duty post to discover the new striped crosswalk and signage installed over a month earlier than we had expected. You are amazing! Please share our gratitude to those who did the installation as well. As the person who watches this intersection every morning and afternoon, I can tell you that the difference in traffic speed and attention to our pedestrians improved greatly.” 

Here is a picture of our safety patrol already in action. I’m including our parent leaders so they can share their gratitude as well. 

Last week, De’Angelo Bell and Jerry Munson from PBOT’s Street Signs and Pavement Marking teams, with support from Justin Buchanan and Sara Pope, installed two of the three Bike to Books winners from 2021. 

PBOT launched Bike to Books in 2017 in partnership with Multnomah County Library to encourage kids to ride bikes and read books. Every May, we invite kids all over Multnomah County to design new bike lane art for Portland. Grand prize winners get their design installed on a city street.  

This program would not be possible without the support, skill, and care these teams give toward the creation of thermoplastic versions of the winning designs, and the final installation.  

By Kailyn Lamb, Tosin Abiodun, Corinne Kotter, and Stacy Brewster

PBOT’s Equity & Inclusion team is currently updating PBOT’s Five-Year Racial Equity Plan. They kicked off this work late last year with a brief survey of PBOT staff, asking how familiar we were with the previous plan. A big thank you to the roughly 200 employees who took a few minutes out of their day to take the survey. As PBOT’s Equity & Inclusion Manager Tosin Abiodun always says: “equity work takes a village.”  

Here are some high-level findings from results of the survey. For those who want to dig deeper, you'll find more details on PBOT’s internal website here.  

Demographics 

Just under 200 PBOTers took the survey. Of those, 137 people identified as white, 17 as mixed race, 11  as Asian, 7 as Black or African-American, 1 as American Indian or Alaska Native, and 1 as Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander. Thirteen preferred not to disclose. The highest number of respondents have worked at PBOT for 10 years or more (70 respondents), followed by those who have worked here 3-5 years (64 respondents). PBOT Maintenance Operations had the most respondents from their group at 59, followed by Policy, Planning & Projects at 41. See the full demographic break down on our internal website.  

How familiar are you with the plan?  

Of those who responded to the survey, a majority (58%) said they were very familiar or somewhat familiar with the plan. Respondents that identify as Black, Indigenous, or People of Color (BIPOC) were more likely to be somewhat or very familiar with the plan (72%) than white respondents (60%).  

Did you contribute to the development of PBOT’s Five-Year Racial Equity Plan in 2017? 

While more BIPOC staff answered they were familiar with the racial equity plan, less said they contributed to its development. Seventeen percent of respondents who identify as BIPOC said they contributed to the development of the plan compared to 68% of white respondents.  

Finally, the survey showed that supervising employees were more likely to have contributed to the plan (70%) than non-supervising employees (25%). 

Equity is built into my performance plan … 

Sixty-six percent of respondents agreed that equity is built into their performance plans. Respondents that identify as white were more likely (73%) to agree with this statement than either respondents that identify as BIPOC (65%), or respondents that skipped or preferred to not disclose (52%). 

Not surprisingly, non-represented employees were more likely to agree with this statement (78%) than represented employees (53%). We can safely assume this is due to the new performance management system, SuccessFactors, which is now used by all non-represented employees.  

Supervising employees were more likely to agree with this statement (81%) than non-supervising employees (55%). This may be because supervising employees are non-represented and therefore have performance plans through SuccessFactors.  

My team, group, and division have clearly laid out equity workplans. 

Twenty-eight percent of respondents agreed with this statement, with supervising employees agreeing at a higher rate (33%) than non-supervising employees (25%) or staff that preferred to not disclose (24%).  

Respondents that identify as BIPOC agreed with this slightly more (33%) than respondents that identify as white (28%). Respondents in Policy, Planning & Projects were the most likely to agree with this statement (52%).  

PBOT is an anti-racist organization.  

Forty-nine percent of respondents agree with this statement. Fifty-four percent of respondents that identified themselves as white agree, 43% that identified themselves as BIPOC, and 41% that preferred not to disclose. In Traffic Systems & Operations 89% of respondents agreed with this statement.  

Supervising employees were more likely to agree (60%) than non-supervising employees (42%) or employees who skipped or preferred not to disclose (44%).  

PBOT leadership (including managers and supervisors) provide clear direction and guidance about racial equity work plans. 

Respondents did not agree with this statement with only 29% agreeing with it. We see that respondents in Traffic Systems & Operations responded with a higher rate of agreement at 70%.  

Employees who have worked at PBOT for less than one year were also in a higher rate of agreement at 50% saying strongly agree or agree.  

When was the last time you reviewed PBOT’s Five-Year Racial Equity Plan? 

A great deal of respondents (41%) said they’d never reviewed the plan or hadn’t reviewed the plan in years. Another 23% said they’d reviewed it sometime last year. Thirty-six percent said they had reviewed it at least in the last few months.  

Staff in PBOT’s Office of the Director and Traffic Systems & Operations were the most likely to have reviewed the plan recently.  

Respondents that have worked at the bureau for less than a year were also more likely to have reviewed the plan recently.  

Some key takeaways  

• PBOT’s newest group, Traffic Systems & Operations, is talking more about equity and the equity plan than other groups. 
• Supervisors were more likely than non-supervising employees to be familiar with the Racial Equity Plan, believe there is clear direction about equity work, or say equity is built into their work plans.  
• Generally, respondents did not think their group, division, or team had equity clearly built into their work plans. As we update our next racial equity plan, it will be important that individual teams, divisions, and groups rethink their work plans and how equity fits into them.  
• Less than half who took the survey see PBOT an anti-racist organization. We agree that PBOT is not at the end of its journey to becoming an anti-racist organization. That is why we need each of you to continue to engage with equity work, including helping to build the next racial equity plan.  

Next steps 

Watch the Scoop and Street Cred for the PBOT Employee Engagement Survey. We’ll be asking your opinion about diversity, equity, and inclusion at PBOT, your workplace experience, what our new goals should be, and how we will accomplish them. It’s important we hear from folks across the bureau. Every single PBOTers’ voice is important. Remember: equity work takes a village. 

To be more involved in our racial equity planning effort, please contact PBOT’s Equity Managers, Tosin Abiodun and Wendy Serrano.  

By Abby Hauth

Tammy Boren-King used to be one of the first city employees people would see submitting proposals for new development. Even though she doesn’t work in person at the permit office anymore, she’s still one of the first PBOTers developers will interact with. Tammy has worked as a City Planner ll - Land Use in PBOT’s Land Use Review team for the last three years. She helps developers realize the feasibility of their project. For this article, she walked us through the early assistance timeline as well as some Portland history. 

The Development Review division of the Development, Permitting & Transit (DPT) group is a relatively small 26-person team. Together they coordinate major right-of-way improvements without the use of public funds. The team includes civil engineers, traffic engineers, engineering technicians, transportation land use planners, and administrative staff.   

As public stewards, the Development Review division balances many competing interests for use of the street, curb, sidewalks, and utilities that are on, above, or below ground. They manage and reduce impacts from Portland development, ensuring improvements to the streets and sidewalks meet PBOT’s strategic transportation goals. It requires countless hours of coordination with developers, their architects and engineers, other city bureaus, and other departments within PBOT all while working under a strict deadline to approve work permits.   

This story is the second in a series highlighting the Development Review team and the vital work they do. To read the first article in this series, about five new projects at the North Portland Amazon facility, check out our Feb. 2 issue of Street Cred here.  

An early assist for long-term success   

Savvy developers know how to submit proposals for early assistance. There’s a cost for early assistance, but there are long-term benefits. For one, developers learn the various bureaus’ requirements prior to designing a project. No matter a project’s size, early assistance can help determine critical details about both the right-of-way and private property requirements.  

PBOT’s role in early assistance answer many types of questions. Is the site up to city standards for frontage improvements? What part of the property will be dedicated for right-of-way improvements? Where can the driveway go? When Tammy reviews applications, she’s looking for two primary triggers for public improvements: 

• Does the development increase trips to the property? If so, standard improvements can be requested if the right-of-way is not full standard width. 
• If the plan won’t increase trips, are they altering the property significantly? If the permit value is 35% or more of the assessed value of on-site improvements, then the city can require frontage improvements within the existing right-of-way. Dedication is not required. 

If either of these triggers are met, Tammy turns to the PBOT resources and manuals that house all our existing regulations, policy documents, and engineering requirements.   

The first of these is Transportation Rule Number (TRN) 1.09, the PBOT Development Review Manual. This manual specifies the width and cross sections for local service streets. It establishes some guidance for streets with a classification other than local service. This 18-year-old manual was last updated December 2020.  

The Pedestrian Design Guide is another useful resource for determining how wide a sidewalk needs to be. In places with no existing curb, developers must design stormwater management into their improvements and account for it in the dedication amount.  

We also reference the 2030 Bike Plan. For instance, there may be collector streets identified in the plan as needing more separation between bike and vehicle travel lanes, but there’s no curb yet. We help identify improvements that will set these roads up for success in the future. Instead of marking the bike lane piecemeal, one property at a time, we ensure the curb is set back far enough to accommodate these future improvements. 

Of course PBOT coordinates with many other bureaus throughout the Development Review process. During early assistance we work with the Bureau of Development Services, the Bureau of Environmental Services, the Portland Water Bureau, as well as Urban Forestry within Portland Parks & Recreation. Each bureau adds more detail on what’s required, from sanitary sewers to stormwater management, from water service to street trees, as well as zoning regulations and more.   

Playing catch up   

When it comes to Development Review, Portland’s past can still be a present-day problem. The legacy of the land annexed over the last century still affects Tammy’s job today.  

Many parts of Portland have streets far from the current standards. These are gravel streets or streets without sidewalks. Many of them were under the jurisdiction of unincorporated Multnomah County or built before the current system of land regulation existed at all. This includes much of Portland east of 82nd Avenue, large sections of Southwest Portland, and much of Portland north of Columbia Boulevard.  These properties were annexed into Portland for a variety of reasons, such as access to sanitary sewer systems or compliance with statewide land use planning goals.   

Coordinating all the many types of improvements (or lack thereof) the past has left us, is one of the many challenges PBOT’s Development Review team deals with daily. It requires tons of coordination across bureaus, as any decisions affects the function of all the various parts of our city system. They must also keep up with constant updates to the city’s long-term plans or state law.  

Tammy emphasized how vital good communication is to the function of their team, between bureaus but also within our own, to ensure updates to plans, rules, and guides are communicated clearly and effectively.