pdxassembly / structure

A vision, proposal and idea on how we could work together to encourage neighborhood organizing with the aim to reclaim our power over our urban surroundings and make our cities directly democratic nodes of resistance and self-organization

STRUCTURE

INTRODUCTION

This is a working document. It is a vision, a proposal and idea on how we could work together to encourage neighborhood organizing with the aim to Keep Portland Powerful in the face of Trump. We aim to reclaim our power over our urban surroundings and make our cities directly democratic nodes of resistance against the Trump regime and beyond. It is a structural vision of where we hope to take the Portland Assembly in the months and years to come. LetΓÇÖs Run Rip City! Portland Assembly aims to support the growth of networks of resistance and self-organization -- in our neighborhoods, our workplaces, and the institutions that surround us. To help us move forward under Donald TrumpΓÇÖs regime, we are proposing structures to make community organizing practical and accessible. We aim to move into an offensive position against the forces of alienation, government, and white supremacy in Portland and beyond while building and connecting networks of support that meet needs in tangible ways. To do this, we have several elements that we hope will work together smoothly. This document is a rough draft, and we expect the structure of Portland Assembly to evolve quickly as we discover together what works and what does not.

THE DIFFERENT PIECES

In brief, Portland Assembly aims to facilitate communication between self-organized and directed Neighborhood Action Councils (think 3-10 people who want to take on an organizing project in their neighborhood, Lents, Montavilla, etc), Neighborhood Assemblies in a given section of Portland and connecting these smaller action councils and other neighborhood groups together (Westside, NE, SE, North, Eastside). The city-wide Portland Assembly spokescouncils and organizing summits will then function to bring all these threads together to manifest real power. It will look something like this in terms of the various scales of the different aspects of the PA.

1. LOCAL: Self-organized and directed Neighborhood Action Councils (NACs). Portland has 96 different officially recognized neighborhoods. (Lents, Cully, Montavilla, etc). May also be organized based on city blocks, geographically based friend groups, housing complexes, etc.
2. REGIONAL: *Region-based Neighborhood Assemblies *(Westside, NE, SE, North, Eastside). They may host regular assemblies to pull together the various community interest groups and NACs in their area to work together and also to forge ongoing place-based organizing on a regional, section-based scale.
3. CITYWIDE: The Portland Assembly (Regular city-wide organizing summits including all these bodies, Neighborhood Confederation spokescouncil and the city Intergroup Roundtable spokescouncil for other community organizations).

With so much activity in the city, PA is attempting to make connections and facilitate joining forces between different community groups.

The core of Portland AssemblyΓÇÖs vision is the growth of Neighborhood Action Councils that will support people in the daily fight against threats to their wellbeing and safety with a focus on supporting targeted communities. These threats include deportation, financial hardship, partner or familial violence, food insecurity, white supremacy, and the police, to name a few.

A Neighborhood Action Council is simple to get started and easily repeated in other neighborhoods. It can be started with friends, community members, or neighbors and with as few as 3 to 5 people. At their most simple, they are groups of neighbors, friends, and families, living, organizing, and acting together.

We can set up programs to share food and coordinate childcare, create community patrols to prevent street harassment, deportations, and police violence, and set up secure internet resources to protect our information and ability to organize. Through collective action and the development of directly democratic structures, we can break the cycles of alienation, depression, uncertainty, and anxiety that result from lives dispossessed from the power that resides within all of us. What would it look like to build power together?

AN IDEA

Our goal is to support the growth of neighborhood organizing in the city of Portland. We hope to develop neighborhood assemblies and action councils across the city so that all can have a voice in a system of participatory direct democracy and build an alternative node of power that engages in city-wide direct democracy. At the same time, these councils can work to support our communities, put pressure on elected officials, and can foster the realization of a different way to run our city - based on people power, as opposed to relying on the good faith of elected officials who often disregard the needs of our communities.

Portland Assembly will center the desires and strategic visions of those most affected by the overlapping historical atrocities that continue to shape daily life in our city and beyond -- namely, settler-colonialism, African enslavement, white supremacy, wage labor, patriarchy, ableism, gentrification, and compounding processes of gendering, dispossession, domination, and racialization.

To this end, the Frontline Advisory Council will consist of self-selected individuals who know such historical harm first-hand and feel empowered to share their experiences with developing neighborhood assemblies. Sharing such insights is vital if we are to make history, rather than be victims of it.

We will also have an Intergroup Roundtable to channel the great strength that many established community organizations have to address certain issues such as labor, the environment, and the housing crisis. These groups will be able to collaborate together on their own efforts and also inform the wider Portland Assembly, pulling from years of institutional memory. Portland Assembly can also act as a space for groups to request the aid of the wider community. To ensure accountability, direct communication, and innovation, Portland Assembly will also have Internal Committees and Incubator Organizing Groups.

The Internal Committees of Portland Assembly are concerned with maintaining forward momentum, organizational cohesion, accountability, and communication between the various groups who organize through Portland Assembly. The Incubator Organizing Groups are designed to implement all initiatives decided upon by Portland Assembly. These are open groups that any community member can participate in. They also aim to develop new organizing tools, projects, and initiatives toward the development of autonomy, power, and community.

ADVISORY/GUIDANCE GROUPS

PA Frontline Council

This society systematically oppresses peoples and groups to undermine resistance. To better guide our collective liberation, Portland Assembly will have a council comprised of members of frontline communities, specifically Indigenous, Black, non-Black People of Color, Queers and Femmes and the Houseless. This council will have its own seat at the Neighborhood Confederation Spokescouncil, and will be given priority and opportunity in outlining strategic needs and aims. It will work to give voice to targeted communities and provide the structure for them to guide the energy and resources of the PA to solidarity efforts on behalf of their communities. Each of its subcommittees may also have a seat and function with the same powers as any of the Neighborhood Confederation spokes with the ability to bring proposals and vote. New subcommittees within the Advisory Council can be created at the discretion of the advisory council itself as a larger body.

Intergroup Roundtable

The Intergroup Roundtable is a space for established organizations and community groups to coordinate on projects and connect with wider populations. These groups may come up with collaborative efforts outside of the realm and the banner of Portland Assembly. Each member of this group may bring proposals to the Neighborhood Confederation Spokescouncil or they can act as a larger collective body. Any initiative for these groups to take on under the Portland Assembly name must be approved by the Neighborhood Confederation Spokescouncil. The PA Infrastructure Committee will also have a seat at this spokescouncil, if so desired. New additions to the Intergroup Roundtable must be approved by the Neighborhood Confederation Spokescouncil. No political parties or groups that have a party structure will be members of this advisory spokescouncil.

PRIMARY DECISION MAKING BODY

Neighborhood Confederation Spokescouncil

Portland Assembly works for the creation of a directly democratic Portland Metro Area. We envision the creation of neighborhood-based power. Our vision entails the formation of neighborhood assemblies who will cooperate with one another via a regular spokescouncil where each assembly will send a directly recallable delegate to represent its interests. The Neighborhood Confederation Spokescouncil is the primary decision making body of the Portland Assembly. All of the Portland AssemblyΓÇÖs activities will ultimately be approved of or guided by the decisions of this body. Participating groups in the Neighborhood Confederation Spokescouncil will be PA Neighborhood Assemblies that represent the various regions of the city and the various Neighborhood Action Councils in the Portland Metro Area.

PA NEIGHBORHOOD ASSEMBLIES

Neighborhood Assemblies will be based on five neighborhood sections of Portland: North, NE, Westside, SE, and East Portland within the Portland Area to start, but may encompass other defined physical spaces within the Portland Metro area in the future. It will also include one specifically for the houseless. Individuals will be placed in the neighborhood assembly districts that they see fit. Each Neighborhood Assembly will have no less than 2-5 people bottom lining the group and engaging its membership. They will have their own space set up within the PA online Hub and will maintain their own contact lists. The Neighborhood Assemblies will work to bring together the different community organizations, interest groups, and NACs within their section. They may host regular section-based open meetings or assemblies to better coordinate these efforts and also to foster bigger projects on their section scales.

Neighborhood Action Councils (NAC)

Neighborhood Action Councils are self-organized neighborhood groups which organize on a smaller scale than the neighborhood section-based Neighborhood Assemblies. They may often be organized around a particular neighborhood like Lents, Montavilla, Cully. Or around a particular block, housing complex, group of friends in the area, or more. There may be many different Neighborhood Action Councils within a Neighborhood Assembly section.

Individuals may form Neighborhood Action Councils at their discretion and join in any of the regional neighborhood assemblies or the PA at large. NACs are cooperative communities of resistance, founded on neighborhood affinity and formed to provide immediate services and protection for politically targeted communities through Direct Action (acting, directly). NACs operate from a platform of Direct Democracy (open, consensual, and accountable decision making), Solidarity (understanding that our struggles are unified), and Mutual-Aid (caring for each other).

At their most simple, they are groups of neighbors, allies, friends and families living, organizing and acting together. From this firm footing, they are then a vehicle for projecting the power of everyday people into society -- the power to build a better, more just and inclusive world for all ΓÇô and the power to defeat the forces of fear, hatred, greed and oppression that Trumpism represents.

AFFILIATED NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATIONS

Official City Neighborhood associations may vote to become members of the PA Neighborhood Confederation Spokescouncil.

PA ADVISORY/GUIDANCE GROUPS

The PA Frontline Council and Intergroup Roundtable may participate as full members of the Neighborhood Confederation spokescouncil, as well as any of its associated subcommittees.

PA INFRASTRUCTURE COMMITTEE

The PA Infrastructure committee will have one vote/seat at the table in any Neighborhood Confederation Spokescouncil.

PA Internal Committees

The Neighborhood Confederation Spokescouncil will serve as Portland AssemblyΓÇÖs main decision making body. To oversee the implementation of these initiatives and policies, and to maintain organizational cohesion, Portland Assembly will have several internal committees that are directly accountable to the decisions made by the Neighborhood Confederation Spokescouncil. For right now, the PA already has set members in the Infrastructure committee that came together to kick this project off. New members can be voted in by the Neighborhood Confederation Spokescouncil, and all current members will have to be re-voted in during January of 2018 if they wish to stay on the committee.

INFRASTRUCTURE COMMITTEE

This committee will ensure that mid-term, long-term, and ongoing goals of Portland Assembly are met, and that the decisions/strategic initiatives of the wider spokescouncil are achieving benchmarks. This is achieved through following up with member groups about their commitments.

It will ensure connectivity between various organizing groups and the neighborhood assemblies that are directly associated with Portland Assembly. The vision of Portland Assembly is best served by promoting Portland Assembly in the community and building connections. This includes speaking at community events and working towards the further development of associated neighborhood assemblies and the establishment of new ones.

Members have the ability to orchestrate fundraising efforts on behalf of Portland Assembly and organize community social events if so desired. The Infrastructure Committee will consider suggestions and criticisms and will propose solutions. They will have access to the passwords of the PA email account. They are responsible with continuing to check the email list of Portland Assembly and will follow up with inquiries, and will ensure that information gets passed along to the proper groups.

These individuals are tasked with organizing the various spokescouncil sessions. They will coordinate with the social media members to post event pages and updates around the times and locations of these meetings. They will send out emails and coordinate the best times and or locations for these events (if the events do not occur on a regular basis with a continuing dependable location). They will be in charge of soliciting meeting agendas ahead of time for each spokescouncil.

The infrastructure Committee will meet no less than once per month to discuss its own business. The Infrastructure Committee may represent the PA at speaking engagements, media interviews, and educational events, and will foster and develop community ties. They may also bring proposals and concerns to the Neighborhood Confederation Spokescouncil. This committee is comprised of directly recallable delegates who are elected by vote at the Neighborhood Confederation Spokescouncil. This committee will hold its own regular meetings to make decisions. All meetings will have notes taken that can be made available by request to any spokescouncil member. This committee may also bring in community members to help with certain tasks and to attend meetings, depending upon a vote of other infrastructure committee members. These individuals will not have access to privileged information such as the passwords of bank accounts.

ROLES:

Email checkers and responders

Treasurer

News media

Communications, PR

Outreach - The role of the person in charge of Outreach is to ensure that new groups and individuals are contacted, in an attempt to increase our reach and make connections with all those who seek to build new structures of resistance and support in the city of Portland and beyond.

Logistics - to coordinate specifics of events

Bridge Building - Maintaining good relations and facilitating communication between different groups in the advisory/guidance councils and dealing with difficult situations between other community organizations as they arise.

Bridge Builders are also in charge of ensuring good communication between the different members of the Intergroup Advisory Council, referring issues to the Accountability/Conflict Resolution Committee when needed, and ensuring the hosting and planning for the Intergroup Spokescouncil occurs regularly.

Incubator Organizing Group Point of Contact - This person is in charge of handling communications between the different PIC of the various incubator groups. They will also ensure that the needs between the various Neighborhood Assemblies, the Neighborhood Confederation, Internal PA and Advisory Groups are being communicated to the proper Incubator group.

TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE

The technology committee will be comprised of no less than one chair and one co-chair elected at the Neighborhood Confederation Spokescouncil meeting. They are in charge of maintaining the online Hub, website, and developing and suggesting further technological developments. Elected Infrastructure Committee members may also join this committee at will. This committee may also bring in community members to help with certain tasks and to attend meetings, depending upon a vote of other Technology Committee members. These individuals will not have access to privileged information such as passwords.

ROLES:

Website updater

Infrastructure Password Admins

Hub Moderators (HumHub)

ACCOUNTABILITY AND CONFLICT ENGAGEMENT COMMITTEE

Portland Assembly recognizes that abusive behaviors and systems of power are replicated and maintained through individual behaviors. We also understand that interpersonal conflict and issues are bound to arise when bringing large groups of people together; the Accountability and Conflict Engagement Committee is tasked with developing and implementing Accountability and Conflict Engagement models to address concerns that arise within our organizing. This committee will work closely with the PA Advisory Council to assess needs and address oppressive behaviors as identified within the PA.

This committee will be comprised of at least one chair elected by the PA Advisory Council at large and a second by the PA Neighborhood Confederation Spokescouncil. Additional chairs may be elected at will.

This committee may also bring in community members to help with certain tasks and to attend meetings, dependent upon a vote of other members of this committee. These individuals will not have access to privileged information such as passwords.

STRATEGY/THINK TANK

This working group will promote and develop the stated principles of Portland Assembly and the ideas associated with our principles, as described by this document.

The Strategy group will develop suggested strategic initiatives to offer to the larger spokescouncil when deemed necessary. They will create outreach and educational materials aligned with the principles and visions of Portland Assembly, and collaborate with others to do so.

They will host regular study/reading groups, open to the public, to discuss ideas related to the principles/visions of PA.

This group will be comprised of no less than one chair as elected by the PA Neighborhood Confederation Spokescouncil or as appointed by the PA Advisory Council. Elected Infrastructure Committee members may also join this committee at will and can fill in vacancies if a chair position is open. This committee may also bring in community members to help with certain tasks and to attend meetings. These individuals will not have access to privileged information such as passwords.

ACTIONS COMMITTEE

This committee is tasked with bottom-lining any campaigns or actions adopted by the Neighborhood Confederation Assembly. It may be comprised of no less than one chair elected by the Neighborhood Confederation Assembly. Elected members of any internal committee may also become chairs. The PA Advisory Council and each subcommittee of it may also each elect a single member to act as a chair of Actions Committee. All chairs have veto power over any decisions of the Actions Committee. The Actions Committee may solicit the assistance of the wider community as necessary to implement its goals. This committee may also bring in community members to help with certain tasks and to attend meetings contingent on a vote of other members of this committee at a meeting. These individuals will not have access to privileged information such as passwords.

PA Organizing Incubator Groups

Incubator Groups will implement the ideas, strategic initiatives, campaigns, projects, and goals decided upon by the Neighborhood Confederation Spokescouncil, and will bolster the strength of various neighborhood assemblies and affiliated associations. We see the need to generate and encourage local grassroots organizing. To do this, we will focus specifically on asset-based organizing.

Portland Assembly will host events for the wider community to attend on a regular basis. These events will provide breakout groups for attendees based on their skills. These breakout groups will then enable people with associated skills to orient their work along the needs of the various neighborhood assemblies and of the Neighborhood Confederation Spokescouncil at large. Each Incubator Group will also be able to bring proposals to the larger Neighborhood Confederation Spokescouncil to be voted on.

Each Incubator Group will have a Person in Contact (PIC). A PIC is a community member who volunteers to ensure each group has proper facilitation, stays in touch via electronic communications with each incubator groupΓÇÖs members, facilitates ongoing work, communicates the needs of the neighborhood groups and the Neighborhood Confederation Spokescouncil, and maintains communication with the Infrastructure Committee PA Internal Group. They are also tasked with ensuring each of these groups meets and makes progress towards goals.

Art/Music

*This group is intended for individuals with artistic skills and connections interested in applying those skills to movement-building. Individuals may be interested in hosting music shows, forming groups to flyer at concerts, banner-making, puppet-making/props fashion/aesthetics.

Design

*Individuals who are well-versed in any type of design including, but not limited to, graphic design, urban design, architectural design, technical design, and landscape/permacultural design.

Technology

*This is the group for sysadmins, front-end developers, infosec experts, etc, to focus on applying their skills toward community empowerment.

Media

*Individuals who are experts in content creation for the purpose of sharing our ideas, methods, and messages. This may include people skilled at filmmaking/video production, social media, and podcasts or community radio.

Resources

*This group is for individuals skilled or interested in building networks and programs for material support and mutual aid. Project ideas might include food distribution, resource shares, childcare programs, and alternative means of establishing health care.

Community Self Defense

*This is for individuals interested and skilled in community security, defense, and trainings of this nature.

Actions/Neighborhood Outreach

*This group is for individuals who are skilled or interested in planning direct actions, protests, and flyering campaigns.

This is an above ground organizing space. As such, no illegal actions will be discussed in the interest of security culture. For more information on security culture visit portlandassembly.com under the resources tab

Fundraising

*For those who are interested or skilled in fundraising through canvassing, crowdfunding, organizing bakes sales and other events.

Legal/Anti-Repression

*Individuals with legal skills, folks who do movement defense and jail support versed in security culture.

Policy

*Individuals interested in developing legislative programs with a focus on building local community power.

PA DECISION-MAKING PROCESS

The Open Decisions Model

An Alternative Vision for "New" Portland (Principles and Visions)

• We believe in embracing and encouraging an active citizenry through the development of direct democracy. We live in an age of democratic crisis. We have witnessed the lowest voter turnouts in history in recent election cycles. This is understandable if we consider the development of massive voter disenfranchisement mechanisms such has occurred after the repeal of the Voting Rights Act and with the implementation of Voter ID laws all over the South, the gerrymandering of voting districts that has enshrined the hegemony of a two party system, and the increasing corporate influence over democratic processes on city, state, and federal levels as manifested in the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling. As such, the average citizen is all but completely shut out from the means of influencing the decisions made, not only on a national level, but on a local one as well. To counteract this, we believe in developing an active citizenry. Defined not by legal statuses, but by oneΓÇÖs presence in a community.

• Through collective action and the development of directly democratic structures, we can re-capture our power in society. **We can break the cycles of alienation, depression, uncertainty, and anxiety that come from living lives dispossessed from the power and voice that resides within all of us. We will take back Rip City.

• We take issue with the City of Portland having city councilmen elected through city-wide elections as opposed to being elected on a more representative municipal scale as is the case in almost all major cities. As such, we advocate for the implementation of a new directly democratic model or the replacement of the current city council structure as it is currently conceived of in favor of a model that has city councilmen act as directly recallable delegates to each neighborhood association recognized by the City of Portland.

• We support worker-owned and controlled businesses, co-operatives, farms and tenant-owned housing and unionization efforts. We wish to see a city-wide economic development model that does not just privilege the wealthy, but, instead, works for financial independence of PortlandΓÇÖs communities, free from corporate and capitalistic control by incentivizing and organizing towards these forms of local business and housing.

• We want to see an ethical and ecologically sustainable development model. City plans should be generated from communities and neighborhoods themselves and be centered around a directly democratic process that includes the houseless community and works to halt harmful displacement. Therefore, we support the community control of institutions such as the Portland Development Commission and city Urban Renewal Zone process, or their abolition, tending towards an alternative directly democratic model.

• We prioritize protecting the land from harmful and destructive industrial projects.

• We believe in standing in solidarity with marginalized communities such as the LGBTQIA, femmes, POC, and disabled communities who face bigotry and violence on a daily basis.

• We prioritize defending our immigrant community from state and street violence and harassment. We want to keep Portland a sanctuary city where all are welcome regardless of official "immigration statuses."

• We stand for the radical reform and transformation of the police and prisons as institutions, or their abolition. These institutions have proven to be completely unaccountable to the general citizenry. This can be seen in the city's inability to even fire Ronald Frashour, who was responsible for the murder of unarmed citizen Aaron Campbell, after the police union waged a legal battle with the city costing multiple millions of dollars. The police also spearheaded an effort to have the PPB refuse to participate in the Citizens Review Board in recent months, which demonstrates this institutionΓÇÖs complete lack of citizen control or accountability of its officers, as well as the City of PortlandΓÇÖs inability or unwillingness to enforce such accountability. There exists many well-researched alternatives to addressing harmful behaviors in our communities. We believe these alternatives which address cycles of traumatization, harm reduction models, and focus on restorative justice should be prioritized, funded, and supported over the older, dysfunctional models that squander city resources while not addressing the fundamental causes of harmful behavior and trauma in our communities. The cityΓÇÖs current models reproduce social ills by furthering cycles of violence and brutality with policing that primarily serves the interests of those with wealth and power.

• We believe community self-defense is the best approach to navigate threats to our communities. Individuals who live in neighborhoods and are directly accountable to those around them should be the ones to keep themselves and their communities safe, based on a clear desire to protect themselves and each other. We should not be forced to be dependent on individuals who live out of town and get paid large salaries from the government, as they are serving interests which are not directly accountable to the citizenry at large.

• We believe in supporting a diversity of tactics. We believe all forms of activism and direct action are important and essential in keeping Portland powerful; therefore, all member groups and participants of Portland Assembly will adhere to the St. Paul Principles.

• • St. Paul Principles
• • • Our solidarity will be based on respect for a diversity of tactics and the plans of other groups.
• • • The actions and tactics used will be organized to maintain a separation of time or space.
• • • Any debates or criticisms will stay internal to the movement, avoiding any public or media denunciations of fellow activists and events.
• • • We oppose any state repression of dissent, including surveillance, infiltration, disruption and violence. We agree not to assist law enforcement actions against activists and others.
• • • We recognize the City of Portland as a settler-colonial entity. We strive to outreach to sovereign indigenous communities and to struggle as accomplices with indigenous peoples in the Willamette Valley, to have them included in this process if they so wish, or to work alongside them.

Security Culture

As we have already seen in recent developments, the Trump administration seeks to overtly and harshly repress dissent and free speech. This is why it is important that we utilize secure methods of communications and practice information security whenever possible.

Relevant Theory/Movements

Libertarian Municipalism - Murray Bookchin

Magonism - Ricardo Flores Magon

Democratic Confederalism - Ocalan, Rojava

NeoZapatismo - EZLN