A well-informed and deeply invested community is central to the work of Brandon Slyter and Nick Konan, both running in this May’s election for Chehalem Park and Recreation District board. Both men are campaigning to serve on the board because they see value and promise in the parks and public spaces available to Newberg/Dundee residents.
They hope that their voters will learn all they can about some of our community’s biggest assets. Its flourishing park system. Its state-of-the art recreational center, and multiple sports fields that are used year round. Its thriving pickleball club, as well as multi-generational activities too numerous to mention here.
Brandon and Nick believe that what is known about CPRD’s decisions can sometimes seem a bit unclear, and that community members aren’t always informed about what CPRD is doing, nor what CPRD can offer the community. They are campaigning with the intent to provide more transparency and more communication in the board’s actions, which will translate into more accountability about how resources are allocated by the board.
“I don’t feel like the community knows what CPRD is doing unless they go to all the meetings,” Brandon said at a Saturday meeting. “And even then, there’s a lot of questions. People don’t know where their tax dollars are going. They’re not educated on what parks we even have sometimes. They could see how amazing our district is if the district put in that effort to tell everybody.”
As a parent and long-time Newberg resident, Brandon knows first hand how communication can make a difference. He cites a land exchange in his neighborhood, and the relinquishing of land in Friends Park to a private owner, as an example of when communication might have helped. According to Brandon, many in his neighborhood were “confused and frustrated” and did not know what was going on. “Nobody was communicating with us,” he said.
Brandon continued, saying “I took it upon myself to do the research, to appeal the county lot line adjustment to force people to the table to say, ‘What’s going on? How can we work together and understand what’s happening?’”
“After we learned some details, we decided that as a neighborhood we wanted CPRD to hear our voice…We don’t want the lot line adjustment to happen,” Brandon said. He emphasized that people want their walking path to be safe from roads and they want shade from the trees that are at risk.
All this could have been avoided if communication had been better from the start. “So for me what’s important is that CPRD talks to the neighbors,” Brandon said, explaining that it felt like CPRD did the bare minimum required for communicating. He would like to see much more robust engagement with the community.
One idea Brandon has proposed is QR codes available at every public park, directing users to a website with more robust information. He sees this as a simple way the district could communicate with residents, letting them know how their parks are being maintained, and–more specifically–how their tax dollars are being spent.
Brandon already has substantial investment in his hometown. He serves on the CPRD Budget Committee, and has been certified through a district board training program. According to the Oregon Voters’ Pamphlet, Brandon has a “decade of experience leading disaster relief teams and managing complex logistics,” and is running on the principles of “transparent decision-making, supporting the dedicated staff, and prioritizing the long-term sustainability of our parks and programs.”
Nick has also been involved in the Newberg/Dundee community, and has a long history of working with parks and recreation districts, starting with his first job as a park technician in the Beaverton area. Now, he serves on the Pickleball Advisory Committee, and–like Brandon–attends CPRD meetings to learn more about the board’s work.
He is convinced that public spaces have value: that they bring people together, and are important investments for the physical and mental health of those in communities. And it’s for that reason that Nick believes the board should communicate clearly with its constituents about decisions being made that can enhance their health–or not.
“I just in some ways felt that decisions were not being made for the masses,” Nick said of the current board. “It’s critical that the board should benefit as many people as we can with the decisions that are made.”
“This motivated me to want to be a part of CPRD and help set policy that ensures that our park district is going to be available and accessible to all of our citizens,” Nick added. “The money CPRD is spending is coming from community members, from all of our tax dollars, and decisions of how our tax dollars are being spent need to be thought through and need to be really intentional.”
Fundamentally, both men are running because they care about our parks and care about our kids, and about how local resources can be best used to serve the entire community.
“Being present in a local, non-partisan park position is important,” Brandon said, noting that this election might be decided by a few votes. Making informed decisions about the future of our community’s public spaces is important for Newberg and Dundee to thrive.
Newberg Neighbors for a Better Community 
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