Oak Grove Community Council 2023 Board of Directors
Valerie Chapman
Chair
Valerie Chapman joined the OGCC as Vice Chair in 2019. She lives one block from the Trolley Trail in the Park Avenue neighborhood with her husband, Gwion Miller, and their three chickens.
Valerie grew up in southeast Portland
and first moved to the Oak Grove area in 1973. After some time living in Eastern Oregon and Washington, she moved back to Oak Grove in 1981. Their six children attended several of the North Clackamas schools: North Oak Grove, Milwaukie Jr. HS, Rowe Jr. HS, and Milwaukie HS (as well as St. John the Baptist and LaSalle). Valerie and Gwion have seven grandchildren, several of whom attend school in the district.
Valerie served on TriMet’s Citizen Advisory Committee for the Orange Line, which became her "major mode of transportation" after it opened in 2015. She serves as Chair of the Park Avenue Community Advisory Committee and has been a representative to MAP-IT.
Prior to the COVID-19 shut down, she became involved in discussions with other community members about the way the unincorporated Oak Grove area is governed. That group became the Oak Lodge Governance Project.
Valerie is a "mostly retired" minister and professor. She still facilitates a variety of classes and study groups online via Zoom and writes a weekly reflection. She enjoys gardening, playing with her grandchildren and exploring the area on public transit or on foot (except when there is a pandemic). Valerie and Gwion are avid movie watchers, like to cook, host parties, read, travel by train and enjoy each other’s company.
Treasurer
Daniel Dyre-Greensite
Daniel has served on the OGCC board as treasurer since 2025. He moved to Oak Grove in 2022 with his wife Brittany, and they live with their two cats toward the northern end of the CPO.
When not playing with the cats, Daniel and Brittany enjoy traveling, hiking, and walking & biking the Trolley Trail.
Daniel has worked in software development for over a decade. Outside of work, he is a volunteer representative for Danes Worldwide, assisting Danish people in Oregon with practical matters and organizing meetups in the metro area.
As a board member and as a resident of the community, Daniel hopes the OGCC can continue to act as a useful resource both for the public to learn more about the latest developments in our area as well as to engage directly with decision-makers to ensure everybody's voice is heard on issues important to Oak Grove.
Joseph Edge
Board Member at Large
Joseph Edge has been a land-use and transportation policy activist for more than 25 years. He is employed as a software engineer. He attended the old Oak Grove Elementary (now New Urban High School), Milwaukie
Junior High (now the Portland Waldorf school), and Rex Putnam High School. His parents and grandparents still live in the area. A resident since 1984, he has called the River Forest neighborhood home since 2014.
Joseph is a current volunteer with the North Clackamas Watersheds Council board, the Clackamas County Pedestrian-Bikeway Advisory Committee and is a Milwaukie Planning Commissioner. He has volunteered with the North Clackamas Watersheds Council board (chair 2017-21), the Oak Grove-Lake Oswego Bicycle/Pedestrian Bridge Committee, and the McLoughlin Area Plan Implementation Team (vice chair,
2015-21).
Having been present for several growth and disinvestment cycles in the Oak Grove area over five decades, Joseph is committed to stabilizing the local economy and housing markets to benefit the whole community. His passion is the preservation and restoration of functional ecological systems across all landscapes, and in particular the accommodation of wilderness and wildlife habitat in urban communities.
Joseph hopes for the Community Council to be a trusted resource in the community for governmental affairs and public policy advocacy, and to continually engage more broadly with the communities within its boundaries.
Ben Chaney
Board Member at Large
Mark Elliott
Vice-Chair
Mark Elliott joined the OGCC Board in February 2021 as a general board member. Mark and his husband Kirk have been residents of Oak Grove since moving to the area from Northeast Portland in November 2017.
Mark and Kirk live in the Concord School area and enjoy being close to the school and the Trolley Trail. They can be seen walking their goldendoodle Rupert, on the Trolley Trail to Stringfield Family Park and downtown Oak Grove for some good coffee and conversation. Mark and Kirk enjoy being grandparents to two granddaughters and a grandson.
Mark is a retired architect of 43 years, previously a Project Manger for ZGF Architects in Portland. His career was devoted to design and construction projects in the healthcare industry here in the Portland/Vancouver area and throughout the United States.
Mark was a Task Force member for the Oak Lodge and Gladstone Community Project, engaged in the Concord School redevelopment and new Oak Lodge Library and Community Center. Mark was elected to a 4-year term on the District Advisory Board for the North Clackamas Parks and Recreation District in July 2023 and has served as chair of the Oak Grove Festival Organizing Committee since 2022, he's served as a member of the Oak Lodge Water Services Budget Committee since 2022. Mark enjoys gardening, hiking and traveling and hopes to contribute to the health and wellbeing of our community through positive and solution-oriented engagement with local community initiatives and citizens.
Secretary
Joyce Johnson
Joyce Johnson joined the OGCC board as secretary in February of 2025. New housing developments and changes in land use guidelines in Clackamas County prompted her towards more community involvement in 2020.
She enjoys learning about community governance and our unincorporated areas of Clackamas County. Oak Grove is one of many in our very large county.
Born in Oregon, she moved from Oakridge to Portland when she was 9. Her family lived in the Parkrose area near PDX. She later taught in the Parkrose School District until retirement in 2010. After teaching K-3 classroom for many years, she ended her career teaching English Language Learners K-5 for 10 years. She also developed and implemented teacher trainings for Parkrose School District, using the Guided Language Acquisition Design program.
Now, Joyce enjoys singing in a choir, line dancing, roller skating, traveling and spending quality time with family and friends.
Wayne Potter
Board Member at Large
Wayne has lived in the Greater Portland area since 1979: Beaverton, Hillsboro, Tigard, Portland and more recently Oak Grove. Wayne and his wife, Pam, moved to Oak Grove in June 2019 to Willamette View, a senior community.
While living in Oak Grove he became acquainted with his newfound neighborhood through regular 3–4-mile walks and has also been a pen pal with Oak Grove Elementary School’s students.
For four years he has served on Willamette View Green Team; one year as President and now President of the Public Affairs Committee. He has brought speakers dealing with the Oak Grove Governance Project and the North Clackamas Parks and Recreation District. He supported the effort to adopt the Park Avenue Development Plan and is aware of the new development that has infilled some larger lots. He would like to find ways for the community to take more control of its own destiny and not just react to the marketplace development plans.
Wayne was employed as the Head Start Director of the Washington County Head Start Program whose programs were scattered in both rural and urban areas. This work was an eye opener to him where he could see the challenges of raising children and helping parents with their child’s development.
He spent most of his work life with the City of Portland where he directed the work of inspectors who helped maintain a safe urban environment and enforcement of zoning regulations, He also worked in the Office of Sustainable Development Office during its initial decade of establishing the garbage and recycling franchise system.
Wayne was President of the Washington County Public Affairs Forum that brought elected officials, business leaders, non-profit agencies and interested individuals together.
He is committed to finding out more about Oak Grove and Jennings Lodge organizations so we can all work together to make our area a great place to live as it grows.