By Pat Erdenberger
The Mountain Times
Re-established in 2022, the Hoodland CPO is now a vibrant group of concerned citizen volunteers. The 26 active CPOs have been established by Clackamas County Board of Commissioners (BCC) as official advisory organizations. We also advise many of the County offices and commissions on issues that pertain to our area.
One frequent area of request by the County for comment by the Hoodland CPO is in Land Use Permitting. We’ve established a committee that reviews, conducts site visits and provides comment to the County on the permits within the Zoning Laws that pertain. This year we reviewed and commented on 12 permit applications and pursued two appeals.
The County is planning a bike/walk trail along Welches Road and their planning department contacted the CPO to provide a speaker’s venue to describe the activity and to get input from the community in person and through a survey. We’ll be following that design process and provide in-person updates by the planners over the next 18 months. We will need a board member who appreciates the benefits of all the bike and trail opportunities.
When County planners were directed by the BCC to change the zoning laws to allow ADU/RVs on some properties, we worked with the community to provide an appropriate response.
We are also establishing relationships with the many other organizations in this area to the mutual benefit of all. We’ve been asked to advise on the vacation of roads, the need for the protection of walking trails along the Sandy River, as well as what County offices to contact for various sorts of needs, such as enforcement.
The CPO communicates to the Community through Facebook and NextDoor. We will need help with social media management in the coming months to provide a better service to those members.
On August 1, at the next community meeting, the Hoodland CPO will hold Board elections for the upcoming year. Three Board members will run for re-election and there will be two positions to fill. All of the Board roles are well-defined and involved various amounts of time and a recognition of special areas of skill and interest.
Can you help? Please email your interest or questions to hoodlandcpo@gmail.com and the CPO will return all organization information and short application to you.