The Statewide Resilience Forum, run by the governor’s office, is about halfway through its process for creating a Plan for a Resilient Oregon (PRO), a statewide strategy to improve community resilience to all types of disasters. It is a follow-up to the Cascadia-focused Oregon Resilience Plan from 2013. Staff from the Association of Oregon Counties (AOC) are engaged in this process, as a steering committee member representing local governments.
Listening sessions and focus groups have been conducted across the state by community-based organizations contracted to get broad public input into this plan from community members, with support from Oregon State University staff. We have received the first wave of community input and seven themes have emerged as focus areas – climate change, wildfire, tribal perspective, transportation, communication, emergency response, and long-term recovery.
The next steps for the forum members and PRO staff are to dive into the specific feedback and prioritize areas for budgetary development and legislative concepts. One of the overarching goals for the PRO is to build resilience planning into the state budget development process for executive branch agencies, so that they will think about items like asset management or disaster preparedness when building out their funding requests. The full report is due in September, followed by an October resilience forum to advance the report.
As the frequency and intensity of all-hazards disasters continue to increase across the state and as we head into what is likely to be a very difficult wildfire season, this plan is an opportunity to prioritize preparedness and resilience throughout the state and drive investment decisions in both communities and infrastructure. More information can be found on the PRO website.
Contributed by: Tim Dooley | Legislative Affairs Manager