City to hire new staff for Southwest neighborhood groups After cutting ties with district coalition, city bureau will expand to serve 17 neighborhood associations. "Change is never easy," Portland City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty reiterated Wednesday, March 10. Hardesty's comments came right before the City Council voted 4-1 to hire two new city staffers in the Office of Community and Civic Life to provide services to Southwest Portland's 17 neighborhood associations. The neighborhood associations were previously served by a district coalition — Southwest Neighborhoods Inc. — but Hardesty announced two weeks prior that the coalition would no longer receive any city grant funds and she would move to have neighborhood groups serviced directly by the city instead of the independent nonprofit group.