(September 14, 2016) Today, the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) announced the members of the Fixing our Streets Oversight Committee. The committee will play an important role in ensuring the accountability of the transportation safety and maintenance program voters created when in May they passed Measure 26-173, the four-year, ten-cent Portland gas tax.
By ordinance, the Oversight Committee will:
- Provide guidance to City Council on the effective use of new resources.
- Monitor revenues, expenditures, and program/project implementation.
- Review program priorities, spending, and any necessary revisions to project lists/financial plans, including the annual program audit. May make recommendations to City Council for project list revisions.
- Monitor construction impacts to businesses and neighborhoods.
- Monitor utilization of minority-owned, women-owned, and emerging small businesses to support community benefits.
- Provide an annual report to City Council containing the above information.
The Oversight Committee's first meeting will take place on September 19th at 4 p.m. in the Rose Room of Portland City Hall, 1221 SW 4th Avenue. After this initial meeting, the committee will meet quarterly. All committee meetings will be open to the public.
Measure 26-173 is expected to raise $64 million over four years. The program’s project list includes paving, sidewalks, crossing improvements, neighborhood greenways, safe routes to school, high crash corridors, protected bike lanes and alternative street design that will have a significant impact on neighborhoods across Portland. The full project list and other information about Measure 26-173 and the Fixing Our Streets Program can be found at: www.fixingourstreets.com
The members of the Oversight Committee are:
Carolina Iraheta Gonzalez
Carolina Iraheta Gonzalez currently serves as Verde’s Data Impact Manager. Carolina has a B.A. in Latin American Area Studies from University of California Berkeley and an M.A. in Organizational Development and Systems from the Leadership Institute of Seattle (LIOS) at Saybrook University.
Gonzalez’s professional experience includes over 15 years’ worth of community organizing experience in the Portland area. She also worked for seven years with the City of Portland’s Safe Routes to school program, a nationally recognized model, leading school and community efforts to create safer neighborhoods for walking and biking. She is one of the co-founder of Portland’s Mujeres en Movimiento, an all-female cycling group whose aim is to making biking more accessible to Latina women.
Elaine Freisen-Strang
Freisen-Strang’s professional career was in social services, the last 20 years directing a state contracted guardianship program. She has long been an advocate for the transportation and pedestrian needs of older adults and people with disabilities. She served on the Portland Pedestrian Advisory Committee and Low Income and Non Profit Workgroup for the proposed Transportation User Fee. She currently serves on Portland’s Age Friendly Transportation Committee and chairs the Elders in Action Commission Transportation Committee. She is also a member of the Access and Functional Needs Sheltering Task Force, the Governor’s Commission on Senior Services, and is the Volunteer State President for AARP Oregon, where she is an advocate for their Livable Communities Initiative and a volunteer for NeighborWalks.
Elliot Levin
Elliot Levin is the Research Director and Oregon Legislative Advocate for the Professional and Technical Employees Local 17. For the past 13 years, he has provided budget and policy analysis, classification and compensation research, negotiation support, and survey design for the nearly 9,000 public sector employees represented by Local 17 across Washington and Oregon. Additionally, he advocates on behalf of PTE Local 17’s Oregon members at the Oregon Legislature regarding issues including transportation funding, collective bargaining rights, and contracting. He holds a Bachelors Degree from Reed College in Sociology, and a Masters Degree in Pubic Affairs from the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Washington, where he specialized in environmental economics and cost-benefit analysis.
Gerik Kransky
Gerik Kransky is the Advocacy Director with the Street Trust, formerly the Bicycle Transportation Alliance. For the last 18 years, Kransky has been leading public policy and advocacy campaigns focused on public health, environmental, and transportation issues. Highlights of his campaign victories include increasing tobacco taxes to fund children's health insurance in Montana, defending Oregon's statewide land use planning program, and dedicating tens of millions of federal and local transportation dollars to bicycle, pedestrian, and transit projects.
Herb Jenkins
Herbert Jenkins is the innovator behind the Smart Traffic Control Cones System concept. With more than 13 years of experience in temporary traffic control, Jenkins is shaping the future of the traffic control industry through mentoring and classes crafted to educate individuals pursuing traffic management careers.
As a seasoned work site traffic manager and Traffic Control Supervisor, Jenkins has amassed a deep expertise in the hazards associated with temporary traffic control. The perils of working in an inherently dangerous environment inspired the idea for the Smart Traffic Control Cones System and propelled Jenkins into entrepreneurial innovation. Mr. Jenkins dedicates himself to serving others through his training courses and his leading edge traffic control system.
Jennifer Rollins
Jennifer L. Rollins is an attorney with Elliott, Ostrander & Preston, PC. She assists clients with business, real estate, and nonprofit matters, and she especially enjoys providing general counsel to closely held companies. Rollins is an active member of the City Club of Portland, and she recently chaired the club’s research study on funding Portland’s streets. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of Bridges Middle School and an associate member of Portland Mountain Rescue. Originally from New York, Rollins moved to Oregon in 2000 after graduating from the University of Virginia School of Law.
Justinian Ramos
Justinian Ramos currently works as the bilingual resident and services coordinator with Home Forward at Rockwood Station. His primary efforts are dedicated to strengthening community access to resources, building community through engaging programs & partnerships and resident advocacy. For the past 3 years he has dedicated his time to social services primarily running programs for k-12 youth in addition to adult self-efficacy programs. Prior to Portland he served as a sustainable community tourism Peace Corps volunteer in Guatemala for two years. He specialized in environmental education and community development in the areas of health, nutrition, recycling, waste reduction and resource stewardship. Justinian studied natural resource management and Spanish at Colorado State University and is passionate about social & environmental justice, equity, accessibility and civic engagement.
Maryhelen Kincaid
A native Oregonian, Maryhelen Kincaid is a retired Project Manager having worked for 22 years with AAA Oregon/Idaho working in Travel Services, Accounting, and Project Management. A dedicated community advocate, Kincaid was involved in efforts to acquire and preserve 47 acres of natural habitat in the East Columbia neighborhood for the Columbia Children’s Arboretum and Blue Heron Wetlands and helped organize the inaugural Vanport Mosaic Festival, celebrating the history of Vanport. Kincaid was awarded the Port of Portland Compass Award for 2016. She currently serves on a number of committees, including chair of the Development Review Advisory Committee, member of the Public Works Appeal Panel, Public Involvement Advisory Committee, PDX Citizen Advisory Committee, and Levee Ready Columbia which is the Oregon Solutions Marine Drive Levee Certification Committee.
Mike Albrecht
Mike Albrecht was born and raised in Portland. He lived in the Parkrose district and graduated from Parkrose High school. After completing high school, he went to work as a mechanic for a local logging equipment company. That experience enabled Mike to advance to a crane operator’s job in a small local ship yard. When that business closed, he used his mechanical skills for employment at Oregon Auto Spring, where he spent the next 29 years. During those years he advanced to Service and Production Manager. His career advanced a few years ago when he accepted the Fleet Manager position for the Portland division of Franz Bakery. Since joining the “Franz Family”, Mike has been an active member of the Portland Freight Committee.
Mitch DeFreitas
Mitch DeFreitas currently works in public transit as a Contract Administrator at TriMet. Prior to his work at TriMet, DeFreitas worked for 12-years in public works roadway construction. DeFreitas has a unique perspective as a roadway contractor, transit employee, automobile driver, transit rider, pedestrian traveler, and bicycle rider and has a thorough understanding of the public works process and the steps it takes to deliver successful projects that benefit the community.
Raihana Ansary
The government relations manager for the Portland Business Alliance, Raihana Ansary advocates for issues that support commerce, community health and the region’s overall prosperity.
Prior to working for the Alliance, Ansary worked at the office of former Mayor Sam Adams where she provided policy support to his economic development and planning and sustainability teams. She helped on a number of projects ranging from the creation of the Education Urban Renewal District to managing the implementation of the Downtown Retail Strategy.
Ansary earned a Master of Urban and Regional Planning and a Real Estate Development Certificate from Portland State University where she was also a Sidney Lezak Fellow. She received her bachelor’s degree in international studies and political science from the University of Oregon.
Samuel Gollah
Sam Gollah has over a decade of experience in entitlement processing, including land use and permit compliance as a public and private planner throughout the Willamette Valley. Gollah has also provided zoning and equity consulting services for the City of Portland’s Comprehensive Plan update (2035). He currently serves as a member of the City of Portland’s Transportation Expert Group (TEG).
Steph Routh
Steph Routh is a Content Manager with NTEN: The Nonprofit Technology Network. She is the former Executive Director of Oregon Walks and serves on the Jade District Policy & Equity Subcommittee and ODOT's Region 1 Area Commission on Transportation.
Tony Lamb
Tony is a graduate of Portland State University’s Community Development program with a focus on community empowerment, economic development and the creation of a livable community for all without displacement. He currently serves as the Director of Economic Development for The Rosewood Initiative. Tony has served on numerous social justice and economic development initiatives including among others: Social Justice and Civic Leadership Cohort with the Urban League of Portland, East Portland Action Plan Economic Development Subcommittee, and PBOT’s Transportation Expert Group.
William Henderson
William Henderson cofounded Knock Software, Inc in Portland, whose Ride Report software provides crowd-sourced bike maps and tools to consumers and city planners around the world. He is also a founding member of the Portland Independent Chamber of Commerce (PICOC), an organization for local businesses that value Portland's affordability, equity and sustainability. He graduated from Reed College with a degree in Mathematics.
Xao Xiong
Born in Wisconsin, Xao moved with her family to the west coast in the summer of 2008, and fell in love with Portland’s MAX light rail system. The MAX equaled freedom at the age of 16, especially because Xao commuted from her home on 82nd Avenue to school in Troutdale every day. By the time senior year rolled around, Xao had commuted via almost every transportation mode (unfortunately the street car doesn't operate quite that far).
After graduating from Reynolds High School, Xao became a diehard Duck at the University of Oregon and found her interest in City Planning via parklets. After graduation, Xao joined AmeriCorps and served as the Outreach Coordinator for East Multnomah County’s Safe Routes to School program. Throughout her term with the county, Xao navigated the local school system and created a Needs Assessment for the county's program to better serve the community's needs.