By Sarah Yeoman and the 2025 LULI cohort | 9-minute read
Since 2012, our Land Use Leadership Initiative has mentored more than 250 community leaders across the state on Oregon’s land use system. This year, the program returns to the Portland metro region, gathering 30 dedicated participants who will work together on pressing land use issues over the next three months, thanks to sponsorship from the East Multnomah County Soil and Water Conservation District. This year’s cohort brings an array of skills and experiences from diverse backgrounds and situations. We are thrilled to engage with them to build grassroots capacity for advocacy on community-oriented land use planning.
Meet the 2025 cohort
Annamika Konkola is a high school senior from West Linn. Last year, she participated in the inaugural Urban Growth Boundary Youth Cohort, a collaboration between Metro and Next Up, which sparked her interest in understanding how land use decisions impact both human and ecological systems. She chairs West Linn’s Youth Advisory Council and enjoys engaging with a wide range of reading and writing. In college, she hopes to further study urban planning, environmental science, and government.
Anya Li first got involved with land use advocacy when she joined Next Up and Metro’s Urban Growth Boundary Youth Cohort, where she advocated directly to Sherwood’s city planners for denser, more affordable housing and improved public transit systems. Her experiences as a daily cyclist and public transit user drive her commitment to creating accessible, car-free transportation options for all. In her free time, you can find Anya in the pool as a competitive springboard and platform diver, playing guitar, or making friendship bracelets while listening to an audiobook.
Ben Brint has worked at the intersection of transportation infrastructure, policy advocacy, and environmental justice through his time as policy manager at SWTCH Energy and previous positions at Vermont Energy Investment Corporation (VEIC) and Lyft. Ben holds a master of public policy from UC Berkeley and served on the board of Camp Common Ground. He is particularly interested in exploring how Oregon’s land use system can support equitable transportation and housing access while advancing climate solutions.
Cass Cole is an eviction defense attorney living in Portland and practicing law in Clark County, Washington, where she grew up. Cass got interested in affordable housing and tenant power when she worked as a community educator, teaching Portlanders with low incomes how to winterize. Prior to starting her legal career, she volunteered for Community Alliance of Tenants and Welcome Home Alliance. Cass looks forward to joining LULI to learn more about land use law in Oregon, with the hope of strengthening her advocacy for policies that support housing abundance.
Christian Aguinaga grew up near Austin, Texas, and his early experiences walking and biking safely to school sparked an interest in accessible transportation, which deepened while earning his BS in economics from the University of Texas at Dallas. He recently managed the city council campaign for Steph Routh in East Portland, inspired by her commitment to livability and empowering neighbors to shape our city. Christian looks forward to learning with his LULI cohort how to navigate Oregon’s land use systems and help create thriving, inclusive communities.
Colleen Carroll is a community research partnerships coordinator at the Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning at Portland State University. Her approach to research partnerships is informed by her experience as a grassroots organizer and performance artist. She is a contributor to Dispatches From the Threshold: Organizing For Housing Justice in a Pandemic. She works on Evicted in Oregon, a research project based at PSU that aims to reframe issues of displacement in support of tenant organizing. She has also worked as a farmworker on farms in Oregon.
Glyness Dean was born in the McKenzie River Valley and raised in Portland. A bartender for many years, she realized she needed to pursue a career that filled souls rather than glasses when the Labor Day fires of 2020 decimated her family’s tree farm. Glyness is a cofounder of the Portland Placemaking Coalition and horticultural coach for VetRest. She is also training to become a therapeutic horticulture practitioner and provides coaching for home gardeners to tend their own land. After all this, she spends time with her three children and tries to remember when she last watered her plants.
Helen Traczyk is a graduate of Lewis and Clark College with a degree in environmental studies. Originally from Chicago, Helen became interested in land use through a transportation lens after completing her undergrad capstone project, which focused on transit issues that students faced in regards to the campus shuttle. She thinks land use in Portland is a unique topic and is excited to learn more about how land use and transportation can fit hand in hand.
Jacob Haley moved to Portland from Boise, Idaho, in August of 2018 after graduating from Boise State University with a bachelor’s degree in communications with a minor in nonprofit business. He quickly fell in love with Oregon’s nature and loves to spend as much time outside, whether that be skiing, camping, or river days with his dog, Indie. He’s passionate about maintaining the beauty of Portland – and Oregon as a whole – but also committed to making the city livable and comfortable for generations to come.
Je Amaechi mobilizes communities to advocate for safety and well-being through an abolitionist and decolonial lens and is currently the organizing director at Unite Oregon. With a background in philosophy, focusing on critical race theory and neurophilosophy, Je bridges deep theoretical insights with practical strategies for systemic change. Their global and local experiences, including delegations abroad and local board service, inform their commitment to creating a just and healed world.
Jeff Weitzel is a retired software engineer and lives in the Alphabet District of Portland. His recent volunteer efforts include serving on the 2021-2022 civil grand jury in the city and county of San Francisco. He presented the jury's report on sea level rise and the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard Superfund site to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. More recently, Jeff served as the secretary of the Neskowin Citizen Advisory Committee in south Tillamook County, where he was intimately involved in the land use process for a small coastal community.
Jessie Kochaver is a climate policy analyst in Representative Mark Gamba’s office in the Oregon state legislature. As of late, she has been primarily working on energy policy, and specifically policy to aid in the build out of the state’s electrical transmission system. She is passionate about addressing the climate crisis through an intersectional lens, especially through community action and effective policy. Jessie was born in Boise, Idaho, and has lived in Oregon since 2019. In her free time,you can find her eating her way through Portland’s food scene, reading, or exploring the Pacific Northwest by bike or foot.
Jonathan Edwards Greenwood is a disabled resident of the Kenton neighborhood in north Portland who spends a lot of time thinking about how Oregon can make its cities better places to live for everyone. His main focuses include building denser housing and expanding public transit to reduce reliance on cars. He testifies at the state and local level to fight for these causes any chance he gets, and hopes to learn more about being an effective activist through LULI.
Karsyn Kendrick is the conservation director at the Coalition of Oregon Land Trusts. With more than eight years of experience in federal and state policy, Karsyn advocates for conservation programs and funding in Salem each session. Most recently, she has been working to secure more funding for the Oregon Agricultural Heritage Program, a grant program that protects our working lands from fragmentation and development. Karsyn worked previously with the BlueGreen Alliance in Washington, D.C., and is originally from Augusta, Georgia. She has a B.A. in international affairs from University of Georgia and received her M.S. from George Mason University’s Environmental Science and Policy program in 2022.
Karyn Hanson is a civil engineer licensed in water resources. She serves as the president of the board of directors of Chehalem Mountain Water Council, and has worked in the municipal arena, writing land use findings for public facilities for a number of years. Now she reviews land use decisions to address impacts on our water supply, wanting to improve her skills working from this new perspective.
Leandre Culver Mills is from southeast Michigan, having ventured out West to the University of Colorado Boulder, where she received a B.A. in environmental studies with a minor in environmental planning. She made the move to Portland in July 2024 to pursue a master in urban and regional planning at Portland State University. In her free time, she enjoys hiking, practicing yoga, karaoke, and spending time with her dog, Ginger, and cat, Fig.
Lili Yazzie is a lifelong environmentalist and Oregonian. Her love for the land stems from time spent outside as a youth – rafting, hiking, and camping. Through the LULI cohort, she hopes to learn more about the unique struggles and opportunities in land use conservation in the Portland area and beyond.
Lindsey Rose Hutchison has worked in anadromous fish habitat restoration, volunteer coordination, and environmental education. While attending the University of Oregon School of Law, Lindsey worked with the Environmental Law Foundation, Western Environmental Law Center, and Advocates for the West. She has certificates in environmental and natural resources law and ocean and coastal law. Lindsey worked in water policy in Utah before moving back to Oregon in 2022 to join Willamette Riverkeeper as their staff attorney.
Maria Miller is an AICP-certified land use planner with experience in affordable housing, master-planned communities, mixed-use transit-oriented developments, and public park design. She also mentors high school students through the Urban Land Institute’s UrbanPlan program. As an immigrant, she brings a unique perspective to her work, which fuels her commitment to creating inclusive, sustainable, and forward-thinking solutions that balance the needs of diverse communities.
Marlee Baker has worked as an education and outreach coordinator for the Fair Housing Council of Oregon since 2022. In this role, they educate landlords, renters, and advocates about fair housing history and laws. Marlee holds a bachelor of social work from George Fox University and is passionate about the intersections of human rights, Indigenous sovereignty, and housing. They are an enrolled member of the Oglala Lakota Sioux tribe.
Mary Silfven is a public-health professional deeply committed to integrating environmental systems and human health into sustainable land use practices. Originally from Bend, Mary has engaged deeply in local food systems as a project manager for the Pacific NW Community Supported Agriculture Coalition and a board member for Slow Food Portland. Passionate about fostering collaborative and transparent governance, Mary is eager to expand her advocacy toolkit and impact Oregon’s land use decisions through the LULI program.
Matt Tuckerbaum is the board secretary of Portland: Neighbors Welcome and co-lead of the group’s Inner Eastside for All campaign. He studied and spent time working in urban development early in his career, and since then has been using his background to advocate for more sustainable land use and transportation policies in the places he’s lived. In both his day job, as a technical product manager, and his housing advocacy work, he aims to reinvent systems to achieve radically better outcomes for the people they serve.
Mika Barrett is a project manager at the Portland Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund, where she supports initiatives in regenerative agriculture and green infrastructure. Mika stewards more than $13 million in grant funding to resource communities and advance climate justice. Her work focuses on improving soil health, enhancing biodiversity, and promoting nonextractive practices in urban agriculture. Outside of her professional role, Mika is the caretaker of a 47-acre land trust preserve and enjoys growing food, trail running, and being a proud cat mom.
Mike De Blasi is originally from New Jersey and now lives in the mid-Willamette Valley. He’s worked in the natural resources field for almost 30 years, focusing on wetlands and streams. His natural resources background has helped him see that land use decisions and transportation systems are interconnected, and that diverse development, transportation options, and communities are necessary to have healthy communities and planet.
Moana Newman has led nonprofit development programs for more than 25 years, working with organizations that support healthy and engaged children, youth, and families. Before joining Caldera as director of advancement, in 2022, Moana served as director of development for Crowden Music Center and worked with wellness-centered organizations Family Support Services and Family Paths. In all things, she hopes to contribute to the creation of spaces that nurture strength and joy in the lives of children, youth, and families.
Morgen McLaughlin joined the Willamette Valley Wineries Association in 2017 as executive director after holding similar positions with the Santa Barbara County Vintners Association and the Finger Lakes Wine Country Tourism Marketing Association. Prior to leading wine and tourism organizations, she was the general manager of her family's vineyard and winery where she managed all aspects of wine.
Orquidia Violeta Velasquez crossed the U.S. border at 6 as a refugee, later earning an associate of the arts from Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles. Now in Oregon, she’s a mother and a partner, creating sustainable art from fibers and fabrics.
Pamela Slaughter is the passionate founder of People of Color Outdoors, an organization dedicated to fostering a love for nature while promoting access, education, and community for Black, Indigenous, people of color, and their allies. Pamela has worked tirelessly to ensure that outdoor spaces are safe, welcoming, and inclusive for all. Pamela’s work reflects her deep commitment to empowering communities, protecting the environment, and creating pathways for future leaders.
Sarah Radcliffe has a background as a lawyer and advocate on a range of social-justice issues. For the past 10 years, she has focused on policy advocacy, advancing disability justice; reforming the criminal legal system; expanding access to safe, affordable, stable housing; and more. She joined Habitat for Humanity Portland Region as the director of government relations in 2022 and is advancing policies to close the homeownership gap for communities of color and promote abundant, affordable homeownership opportunities, specifically through the community land trust model.
Shiny Flanary is a queer Black farmer living in so-called Portland, Oregon. She runs her farm, Scrapberry Farm, is the founder and manager of Come Thru Market, and manages the Black and Brown Herb Exchange. Shiny grew up in Oakland, California – not a place traditionally known for inspiring little Black girls to grow up to be farmers. She imagined that “growing things” was the purview of wealthy white people. With a little community and a lot of sweat, she now proudly calls herself a farmer, food-justice worker, and, most recently, interim executive director at Black Food Sovereignty Coalition.