Ask the City of Portland to Get Serious About Creating Productive Dialogue Between the City and the Police

I am an 18-year-old high school senior and the founder of the youth-run organization Police Peace Portland (www.policepeaceportland.com). The goal of my organization is to bridge the divide between communities and their police force by productive, informative, and engaging dialogue. In order to aid in this effort, I am asking the city of Portland to implement a youth advisory panel to offer insight, solutions, and actions when it comes to the topic of police in communities. The youth advisory panel would be comprised of young people from diverse communities across the city, interested in, engaged with, and knowledgeable about this issue. The advisory panel would be in charge of planning and implementing future events and would be comprised of 6-8 students at any given time. More importantly it would be in charge of liasoning with and advocating for city support of our initiatives and the topic as a whole. Young people have the passion, dedication, and energy to make meaningful change on this issue and it is time for the city to listen to us!