President’s Message
Sixteen years ago my wife and I decided to make this neighborhood our home and bought a cute little bungalow in need of work. We’ve made many changes to our home to accommodate our growing family and have tried to do that in a manner that preserved the character we loved. We feel very grateful to be able to live in this fantastic neighborhood of well-tended homes and gardens, caring neighbors, and interesting businesses and dining opportunities. Having grown up on the west side in Beaverton, there seemed to be constant changes—widening streets and new housing and commercial buildings where there were once forests and farms. Thus, moving to Northeast Portland I thought of the neighborhood as fully developed and more immune to change. But change and evolution is inevitable—and changes are afoot in our city and neighborhood.
One of the roles of the Beaumont-Wilshire Neighborhood Association (BWNA) is to help our neighborhood navigate these changes and work to protect the neighborhood we love. BWNA strives to be a representative voice for the neighborhood by advocating for policies that will preserve the livability that drew us all here in the first place. BWNA has had many successes in influencing city policies with that goal, but it takes neighborhood volunteers to follow the issues, attend the meetings, and develop the narratives that can advance the neighborhood’s interests and concerns.
Another important role of BWNA is to help foster community and connections among the residents of our neighborhood—individuals, families, and our local businesses. BWNA strives to do this through community events such as the Taste of Beaumont, National Night Out Picnic, and communications through this newsletter, our website (www.bwna.us), and e-mail to provide information relevant to our neighborhood. Having been on the BWNA Board for the past two years, I’m excited to now have the opportunity to serve in the capacity of President alongside, and in the footsteps of, very dedicated officers and board members that similarly care about our neighborhood and involve themselves in this important work. I hope that you will look to your neighborhood association as a resource and as a place to engage in the conversation about how our neighborhood should evolve as Portland does. And I encourage you to actively participate by attending a board or general meeting (listed in the newsletter’s “BWNA Calendar of Events” column), volunteering to help support an event, or perhaps stepping up to fill our last remaining vacant at-large board position. But contributing to BWNA can also be as simple as communicating something you feel may be of interest or concern to your neighbors. Don’t hesitate to convey your thoughts and information about the neighborhood to me or to any other board member (listed in the newsletter’s “Officers, Board Members, & Committees” column) or via submission of a “Letter to the Board” newsletter editorial to editor Al Ellis (instructions on our website). I look forward to helping to keep BWNA functioning well as a resource for our neighborhood.