Oregon Senate Confirms Gerardo Francisco Sandoval as Land Conservation and Development Commissioner

Editor’s Note: Gerardo Sandoval served previously as a co-director of CLLAS.

December 6, 2019—From Around the O

On December 2, the Oregon Senate confirmed Professor Gerardo Sandoval as a commissioner on the Land Conservation and Development Commission (LCDC). During his term, which began December 1, 2019, and ends November 30, 2023, Sandoval will represent the Willamette Valley region.

“This is tremendous for [the State of] Oregon,” said Director Jim Rue in the committee’s press release. “Dr. Sandoval’s research, experience, and perspective will help ensure our work benefits all Oregonians.”

The commission, assisting the Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD), adopts state land-use goals and implements rules, assures local plan compliance with the 19 statewide planning goals, coordinates state and local planning, and manages the coastal zone program. The commission is also tasked with implementing rules on issues as wide-ranging as wildfire planning and urban growth boundaries to re-zoning for “missing middle” housing and the push to allow breweries on hops farms.

Sandoval is an associate professor in the School of Planning, Public Policy and Management (PPPM) at the University of Oregon. His work and research focus on the intersection of planning, immigration, and community change. 

In addition to now serving as a LCDC commissioner, Sandoval is currently serving a four-year appointment as a councilmember on the State’s Housing Stability Council (HSC). The HSC leads the work of the OregonHousing and Community Services (OHCS) department to meet the housing and services needs of low- and moderate-income Oregonians. The Housing Stability Council works to establish and support OHCS’ strategic direction, foster constructive partnerships across the state, set policy and issue funding decisions, and overall lend their unique expertise to the policy and program development of the agency.

“It is an honor to serve the state of Oregon in this capacity,” said Sandoval. “Public service is at the core of the UO’s ethos.” 

Sandoval’s expertise has been recognized through numerous awards and honors, including the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Award from the UO for promoting diversity, social justice, and equity. Sandoval is also the College of Design’s Dean’s Fellow for Diversity and leads the college’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee and its implementation of its Diversity Action Plan.

“Affecting positive change in the State of Oregon is embedded in the UO and PPPM missions, so it’s not at all surprising that Gerardo would lend his expertise to this effort,” said Rich Margerum, director of the School of Planning, Public Policy and Management.

Learn more about the commission and its work on the LCD Commission’s website.

Tags: Gerardo Sandoval, UO

Policy and Planning Trio Engages Diverse Communities

From Oregon Quarterly, April 3, 2019

In spring 2018, change came to the Bethel neighborhood in Eugene. Royal Elizabeth Park received a new name: Andrea Ortiz Park, after Eugene’s first Latina city councilor. Ortiz served from 2004 to 2012 and died in 2017.

“Naming a public space, like a park, after a Latina really sends a positive message of inclusion and belonging to the Latino community in Eugene,” says Gerardo Sandoval [CLLAS Executive Board member], an associate professor who specializes in community development in the School of Planning, Public Policy and Management (PPPM). “It’s a formal designation that recognizes the positive contributions Latinos are making in Oregon.”

The renaming followed years of outreach to the Latino community by Sandoval, a supporter of the city’s efforts to make parks more inclusive. Through the Latino Civic Participation Project, he led an initiative to involve low-income, marginalized groups in community development, public policy, and planning.

Sandoval will continue his outreach and research efforts with the new Access and Equity Research Group. The group includes José Meléndez, an expert in equitable public engagement and transformative learning who joined PPPM as an assistant professor in 2018; and John Arroyo, an MIT-trained urban planner who will arrive this fall after completing his Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship in Latino Studies at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe.

“One person dealing with diversity issues cannot address all of those,” Meléndez says. “We need multiple people addressing them.”

In addition to Latinos, the group will study underrepresented indigenous, Asian American, and African American communities, and will examine the links between communities and the design, planning, and management of public space. In particular, the group will focus on “participatory action research,” which emphasizes partnering with communities to solve problems.

“Many of us use qualitative methods that help elucidate stories and deeper context of the communities we research such as ethnography, in-depth interviews, oral histories, and content analysis of archival and current policy and legal documents,” Arroyo says.

Like Sandoval, Meléndez and Arroyo have worked with Latino communities. During his doctoral studies and then as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Meléndez investigated the budgeting process in the city’s 49th Ward, finding that Spanish-speaking Latino immigrants struggled to participate due to a language barrier. He partnered with the community to create a Spanish language committee that significantly increased and sustained the participation of its members in civic decision-making.

As a fellow, Arroyo is studying Latino immigrants with his first book project, Shadow Suburbanism: Mexican Everyday Life, Fear, and Space in Greater Atlanta. He is analyzing how Mexican immigrants reshape their suburban environments despite rising anti-immigration policies that distress one of the South’s fastest growing populations.

Meléndez and Arroyo will also continue their research and outreach to Latino communities in Oregon, where that population is growing rapidly. According to the Latino Civic Participation Project, Latinos now make up 14 percent of the state population and 20 percent of the K–12 population.

Says Arroyo: “People don’t realize Oregon is a microcosm of national issues—rural poverty, urban income disparities, influxes of migration, and indigenous and small-city planning and infrastructure.”

—By Alex Cipolle, MA ‘11 (journalism), College of Design

Tags: Gerardo Sandoval, John Arroyo, José Meléndez, PPPM, UO, urban planning

Two CLLAS affiliated faculty members receive Fund for Faculty Excellence Awards

June 9, 2017—CLLAS executive board member Gerardo Sandoval (PPPM) and affiliated faculty member Jessica Vasquez-Tokos (sociology) are among 16 recipients of UO’s 2017-18 Fund for Faculty Excellence Awards, announced June 9 by Provost Scott Coltrane.

From Around the O: “Established in 2006 with the generous support of Lorry Lokey, the Fund for Faculty Excellence Awards aims to increase the academic quality and reputation of the University of Oregon by highlighting and supporting world-class research and teaching.

“‘Since its inception the award has been bestowed on 137 outstanding faculty members,’ Coltrane said. “These faculty members are recognized for their enduring commitment and contribution to our shared institutional spirit of learning, intellectual inquiry and service.’  

“Candidates are nominated by deans, with input from faculty and unit heads, and nominations are reviewed by the Fund for Faculty Excellence Awards review committee before a final determination is made by the provost. The award provides faculty members with a $20,000 salary supplement or $30,000 for research support.” 

For a full list of recipients: http://around.uoregon.edu/content/provost-announces-recipients-faculty-excellence-awards

Tags: CLLAS, Fund for Faculty Excellence Awards, Gerardo Sandoval, Jessica Vasquez-Tokos, UO

Gerardo Sandoval named to Oregon State Housing Stability Council

May 11, 2017—Current CLLAS executive board member Gerardo Sandoval has joined the Oregon State Housing Stability Council, tapped for his expertise on gentrification and rural community development issues and for his experience in outreach to Latino communities throughout Oregon. An associate professor in the University of Oregon Department of Planning, Public Policy and Management, Dr. Sandoval was nominated to this position by Governor Kate Brown and confirmed by the Oregon Senate. His first meeting with the council took place on May 5.

The role of the Oregon State Housing Stability Council is to “provide leadership in, and review and set policy for, the development and financing of affordable housing throughout the state of Oregon.”

A message from the director of Oregon Housing and Community Services dated May 5, 2017 states: “We look forward to [Dr. Sandoval’s] expertise on gentrification, the nexus between housing affordability and transit-oriented development in low-income neighborhoods, and creating mechanisms of public participation. OHCS will also surely benefit from his research and outreach experience in Southern and Eastern rural Oregon, as well as his insight as a disabled military veteran and interest in affordable housing for Oregon veterans.” 

Tags: CLLAS, Gerardo Sandoval, Oregon State Housing Stability Council, PPPM, UO

CLLAS’s associate director featured in Around the O

Source: In ongoing study, UO’s Sandoval looks at exploitation of workers | Around the O

May 20, 2015— “When Gerardo Sandoval turned his attention on conditions at a large meatpacking in Iowa, he had no idea he’d be reconnecting to his homeland.

“In 2008, while he was an assistant professor at Iowa State University, U.S. immigration officials raided the plant in Postville, Iowa, and deported hundreds of undocumented Guatemalans. › Continue reading

Tags: CLLAS, Gerardo Sandoval, UO