Community Preparedness Team Strategic Plan

DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT The following article is a working draft of the strategic plan for the community preparedness team. DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT

2025 Community Preparedness Team Strategic Planning Group members

Name	Organization
Joshua Baker	Outreach Program Manager, Lloyd Ecodistrict
Glenn Devitt	Community Preparedness Coordinator, Portland Bureau of Emergency Management
Michael Genuine	Emergency Preparedness and Safety Manager, Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization
Regina Ingabire	Community Resilience Outreach Manager, Portland Bureau of Emergency Management
Ernie Jones	BEECN Coordinator (retired), Portland Bureau of Emergency Management
Lydia Ledgerwood-Eberlein	Senior Analyst, Community Capacity Building and Grant Coordination, Multnomah County Emergency Management
Marisol Lozano-Peralta	Community Engagement Specialist, Portland Bureau of Emergency Management
Angelique Nomie	Administrative Specialist, Portland Bureau of Emergency Management
Jim Quinn	Board Member, Friends of Portland NET
Jeremy Van Keuren	Community Preparedness Manager, Portland Bureau of Emergency Management

PBEM Community Preparedness Team Vision, Mission, and Values

Vision	Portlanders lead, support, and collaborate with one another to prepare for, adapt to, and thrive after disasters, with a focus on ensuring that no community is left behind in our city's resilience future.
Mission	To strengthen community resilience by fostering inclusive networks, co-creating accessible preparedness programming, and building long-term partnerships that empower everyone who lives, works, plays, and worships in Portland.
Values	Safety and Well-Being: The physical safety and emotional well-being of volunteers, staff, and community members are paramount. We provide trauma-informed training, resources, and care to support all participants in Community Preparedness Team activities. Equity and Historical Acknowledgement: We recognize the importance of understanding our city's and region's history and work to ensure that our programs are inclusive, accessible, and responsive to all Portlanders, especially those most affected by disasters. Community-Centered Collaboration: We meet communities as partners. We support community-driven solutions through action, collaboration and co-creation of programs and resources. Preparedness Through Co-Creation: We see preparedness as the foundation of resilience. We co-create policies, trainings and resources that provide communities with the knowledge, skills, and support they need to act independently and collectively before, during, and after emergencies. Inclusive Design and Accessibility: We use inclusive design principles and lead with accessibility to ensure that our policies, resources, trainings, and programs are practical and meaningful for all. Building Trust Through Transparency and Accountability: We believe trust must be earned through honest communication, clear intentions, and follow-through. We hold ourselves and our partners accountable to the communities we serve. Prioritizing Impact Over Scale: We favor meaningful and intentional engagement over quantity. We believe this builds stronger, more sustainable networks of resilience. Agents of Positive Change: As emergency responders, we advocate for a more resilient and thriving community for all. We are facilitators of and partners in positive change with the communities we serve.

Community Preparedness Team Service Areas

Basic Earthquake Emergency Communications Nodes (BEECN)

For background on the BEECN program, please visit the BEECN Program Introduction article.

Goal #1: Pull the BEECN Readiness Score to a consistent 50% quarterly average

Background: The BEECN Readiness Score is an aggregate score reflecting key deployment readiness factors for each individual BEECN resource and the program as a whole. The Readiness Score in and of itself is not important, but it assesses the viability of elements that make a BEECN resource work, such as volunteers assigned, radio signal strength, deployment status, and more. A low score for a BEECN resource indicates that deploying it in the aftermath of an earthquake is less likely to be successful as there are more points of prospective failure.

PBEM began tracking the overall BEECN readiness score in October 2023. From then to November 2025, the overall BEECN Readiness Score has maintained an average of 27% and has not climbed past 36%. This is important because individual BEECN resources depend on an integrated network of collaborative BEECN resources. Therefore, a low overall score represents a higher risk of the BEECN system failing to perform in the aftermath of an earthquake.

The PBEM Community Preparedness Team proposes the following objectives in order to bring the overall BEECN Readiness Score to a consistent average at or exceeding 50%:

	Objective	Narrative	Status
1A	Evaluate, and move the BEECN District Coordinator program out of its pilot phase.	District BEECN Coordinators are a new volunteer position position currently piloted in Districts 2 and 4. With PBEM no longer employing 1 FTE to manage the BEECN program, BEECN maintenance and monitoring has fallen to the remaining PBEM CPT team. Absorbing that additional workload in-house has dragged down BEECN Readiness Scores, as testing, maintenance, and restocking caches has been deferred. The purpose of a District Coordinator is, for each resource in their District, solve simple maintenance fixes, request inventory refills, coordinate BEECN radio tests, and provide leadership. The program only began in the Fall of 2025 with District 2 and 4, and it is too soon to say if a District Coordinator can help pull up scores. But if the program is successful in the pilot Districts, PBEM will expand it to Districts 1 and 3.
1B	Recruit 40 more Amateur Radio Operators (AROs) and assign them to fire stations.	Each fire station is the radio traffic relay point for multiple BEECNs (sometimes as many as five or six). If a fire station does not have at least one ARO assigned, all of the BEECN caches tied to that fire station are unlikely to be able to pass radio traffic up to the EOC. At this time, 20 fire stations do not have any AROs assigned. Program-wide, BEECN needs to recruit, train, and assign a minimum of 34 AROs to get on solid footing. The recruitment process for AROs is challenging. AROs have to become licensed amateur radio operators, and then undertake hours of additional training to learn how to operate a fire station orange kit. Since the system relies on amateur radio, by FCC rules, the AROs must be volunteers and not City employees (unless they volunteer their time without pay). Success recruiting more AROs will require dedicated attention from PBEM staff and the help of Multnomah County’s amateur radio community.
1C	Re-start regular BEECN training.	Owing to staff shortages, PBEM CPT suspended monthly BEECN training sessions in April 2025. These training sessions, open to the public, were critical for increasing the number of available BEECN volunteers (a typical training would have 40 attendees). Available BEECN volunteers is a factor in overall program readiness. PBEM can mitigate the staff capacity issue by recording the training on video and making the video available to prospective BEECN volunteers. The video content would be complemented by optional virtual Q&A sessions with prospective volunteers after they complete the video training.
1D	Develop a training module on how to run a District-level BEECN test.	Optimally, the entire BEECN system is radio tested annually. The tests help identify radio communications issues and ensure the equipment is in good working order for deployment. PBEM no longer has the staff capacity to conduct regular radio tests for the BEECN program. Volunteers could fulfill that role if trained, with some PBEM support. The training could be done through an SOP published to WikiNET.
1E	Retire old BEECN cache boxes and site 100% of all BEECN radios in the field.	The older style BEECN cache boxes are difficult to maintain, difficult to place securely (because they have a large horizontal footprint), and there is no funding available to replace boxes that have fallen into critical disrepair. When caches have been stolen or removed from the field for maintenance issues and not returned, it is a significant drag on the overall BEECN Readiness Score because that resource is scored at “0% ready”. A cache that is not deployed is not available for use. This plan recommends permanently retiring old cache boxes when they are stolen or no longer work. For each BEECN cache that loses a cache, PBEM will instead site only the UHF radio. The UHF radio (which is in a case the size of a lunchbox) is far easier to track, maintain, and site with BEECN volunteers or other community partners. All associated cache equipment (e.g. medical supplies) would be placed with the local Neighborhood Emergency Team (NET). Tactical notes raised by the strategic planning group for consideration: Why can NETs find a place if we can’t? Will the radio still be accessible on private property? Deconflict NET staging areas and BEECN sites… Have BEECN sites and medical evac areas next to each other, with NET staging areas further away “Medical deployment activation” “Central location…” “Make the radio portable…NET is the team, BEECN is the team member”
1F	In all strategic goals and objectives, prioritize District 1.	District 1 consistently has the lowest BEECN Readiness Score by a significant margin, often in single digits. Compared to the other districts, District 1 also includes the greatest proportion of communities underserved by government: BIPOC communities, new Portlanders, low income households. This objective proposes that District 1 be prioritized for staff work and intent. Tactical plans to improve District 1’s score can include working with D1 Councilors and local nonprofit organizations to recruit more BEECN volunteers. Tactical notes raised by the strategic planning group for consideration: Two district coordinators instead of one? Strategic partnerships with community based orgs, possible financial incentives? Targeted Universalism Maybe this is a CPT goal for the whole strategic plan?

Background and Notes

CPT Strategic Planning Group Meeting Notes

Appreciation to Angelique Nomie for being the group note-taker.

Meeting Date w/ link to notes	Meeting Topics
2025.12.19.CPT Strategic Planning Meeting	COAD program
2025.12.05.CPT Strategic Planning Meeting	BEECN goals/objectives
2025.10.24.CPT Strategic Planning Meeting	BEECN program
2025.10.10.CPT Strategic Planning Meeting	Refining Values
Strategic planning process suspended, June to October
2025.04.04.CRT Strategic Planning Meeting	CPT Values
2025.03.21.CPT Strategic Planning Meeting	CPT Mission and Vision
2024.12.08.Strategic Planning Intro Email	Background materials

Background Documents

The following documents were provided to group members as background review and (in some cases) later in the process as topics and ideas emerged in meetings.

Pub date	Document	Author(s)
2025.12.10	Wikipedia article: Structural violence
2025.01.31	Portland Public Safety Service Area Strategic Plan
2025.__.__	2025-2029 MCEM Strategic Plan
2025.__.__	West Street Recovery website
2019.05.__	Targeted Universalism Primer: Policy & Practice	john a. powell, Stephen Menendian, Wendy Ake (UC Berkeley)
2019.01.__	Building Cultures of Preparedness	FEMA
2019.__.__	The Spectrum of Community Engagement to Ownership	Rosa González, Facilitating Power
2018.10.17	Memo: Key Performance Indicators for PBEM	Jeremy Van Keuren (PBEM)
2014.01.__	The Big Lie of Strategic Planning	Roger L. Martin (Harvard Business Review)
2012.01.01	Public Participation in Emergency Management	Jason Alexander Rood (PSU)
1996.09.__	Building Your Company's Vision	Jim Collins and Jerry I. Porras (Harvard Business Review)