Neighborhood Empowerment Initiative

At the February 2005 retreat of the Eugene City Council, launching a “Neighborhood Initiative” was identified as a council priority issue.  A staff team developed a draft action plan to provide a framework for defining the objectives and outcomes the council envisioned when identifying this priority issue.  The draft action plan was presented to Council at the August 10, 2005 work session.   Based on comments and specific direction provided at the work session, staff prepared a revised draft Action Plan.  That Plan was approved with modifications on November 23, 2005.

The focus of the plan is on creating and sustaining Strong Neighborhoods, with an emphasis on building partnerships motivated to collaboratively problem-solve and develop solutions that benefit a broad representation of the community. 

In April of 2007, the Plan was updated again to reflect additional direction from the City Council resulting from the January 2007 Council Retreat, as well as input from Neighborhood Associations, the Neighborhood Leaders Council, and the February 2007 Neighborhood Summit.

The Neighborhood Empowerment Team is comprised of City staff and a Neighborhood Leaders Council subcommittee. This team meets once a month and works together to advance the action items identified in the Neighborhood Empowerment Initiative and prioritized at the Neighborhood Summit.