The Charbonneau Villager Newspaper 2019 Oct issue Villager newspaper | Page 20

20 THE CHARBONNEAU VILLAGER
October 2019
‘I care
about this
community’
Longtime college
administrator is Wilsonville’s
new councilor
By COREY BUCHANAN
Joann Linville wants you to know
that she doesn’t care much for politics.
Yet, after a unanimous vote to ap-
point her as the newest Wilsonville
city councilor at a Sept. 5 meeting, Lin-
ville finds herself in a position of politi-
cal power.
For her, this new circumstance
arose because of encouragement from
the Charbonneau community, her
years working to perfect policy at pub-
lic institutions and boards and her time
serving on the City of Wilsonville’s De-
velopment Review Board.
She says she wants to do what’s best
for the Wilsonville community in her
new role.
Linville grew up in Portland but re-
calls passing Wilsonville during her
childhood “long before anything was
here” on her way to a relatives’ home
in Donald.
She then attained a degree in nurs-
PMG PHOTO: JAIME VALDEZ
Joann Linville is Wilsonville’s new councilor.
ing and a master’s degree in teaching
at the University of Washington and
went on to teach nursing at Mount
Hood Community College and then at
Lane Community College and Belling-
ham Technical College.
“I loved working with students.
When I took my first real full time
teaching appointment at Lane I wasn’t
sure that was where I wanted to be but
within a few months working with stu-
dents, watching the lightbulb come on
and having them excited about learn-
ing I got hooked and I couldn’t get out,”
she said.
Linville then took a job at the Belling-
ham college as an administrator, which
she said was derided by some of her col-
leagues. But she wasn’t deterred.
Linville went on to become the vice
president for student services and then
the vice president for learning services
at Arizona Western College for the final
10 years of her career. She viewed part
of her role as helping professors with
subject matter expertise become better
teachers and developed workshops and
other programs to facilitate that.
“We had to design those programs to
teach them how you design curriculum,
how do you lay out a logical sequence of
learning over a period of time, how do
you write the test, how do you do good
grading, how do you deal with student
discipline,” Linville said. “Those are
things that I saw as my job to help deans
and department chairs do.”
She also served on the Yuma Re-
gional Medical Center Board of Direc-
tors for eight years.
Upon retirement, Linville moved to
Charbonneau and has since become in-
volved in various activities. She was on
the board of the Charbonneau Women’s
Association and is the vice president of
the Charbonneau Women’s Golf Associ-
ation, volunteers for the Oregon Golf
Association and has served on a num-
ber of other Charbonneau committees.
Not to mention, she is the chair of one of
the City’s two DRBs.
“In every community where I have
lived I have tried to find a place to vol-
unteer,” she said. “It’s just giving back
to the community. The other is a bit of
a selfish thing in that I learn every
time I do that.”
Upon Stevens’ decision to resign
from council, Linville said many Char-
bonneau residents were worried that
the elected body would not include a
person who represents Charbonneau’s
interests. So some Charbonnau resi-
dents asked her if she would apply for
the open position.
Linville first interviewed with May-
or Tim Knapp and Councilor Kristin
Akervall, was selected as one of five fi-
nalists and then interviewed in front of
the council during a public meeting.
Even Wilsonville Councilor Ben
West, the lone person not to rank Lin-
ville as his first choice to replace Ste-
vens (she was his second choice), ac-
knowledged that Linville displayed the
most knowledge of City policy during
the interview process.
Some issues on the top of Linville’s
agenda and on the minds of Charbon-
neau residents include advocating for
the City of Wilsonville and Clackamas
County to be added to the intergovern-
mental agreement pertaining to Aurora
Airport planning and nudging the Ore-
gon Department of Transportation and
other elected bodies to add an I-5 south-
bound auxiliary lane, which is designed
to ease traffic congestion.
Linville will be sworn into the coun-
cil at the Sept. 16 meeting and her term
will last through 2020.
Charbonneau’s
Homeowner’s
Association
By JAN LANDIS
Celebrate change during
transitions
One definition of
transition is moving
from one setting to
another.
We are currently
transitioning from
LANDIS
summer to fall. I am
a summer person,
but I do enjoy the colors of fall.
COURTESY PHOTOS
Residents celebrate CHOA’s State Farm Insurance agent Jay Puppo,
who’s been serving Charbonneau for 30 years.
Oregon is beautiful at this time of
year, so it’s an easy transition.
Even if you prefer warmer weath-
Jr. Scoop serves ice cream at the event.
er you know how to navigate from
summer to fall. You may bring
sweaters out of storage and
gradually add layers to some of
See HOMEOWNER’S ASSOCIATION / Page 21