AI and Central Oregon: 400+ residents, one Open Poll, six sessions, a civic assembly
Central Oregon Civic Action Project and partners, on BLOOM's stack: 400+ residents through an Open Poll and six listening sessions, seven themes, three opinion groups, common ground on transparency and community involvement, and a Civic Assembly in December 2026.
Place: Central Oregon (Deschutes, Crook, Jefferson counties and Warm Springs). Host: Central Oregon Civic Action Project (COCAP) and partners. Report: report.bloomproject.us/central-oregon-ai.
An anonymous Open Poll and six live listening sessions reached 400+ people across the region (Bend, Redmond, Sisters, Prineville, Madras, La Pine and smaller places). Voting patterns found three opinion groups: Optimists (51 people, see AI's arrival as inevitable and are least convinced it's already doing harm), Pragmatists (235, agree AI already delivers real benefits but want real accountability from AI companies), and Skeptics (113). Despite their differences, almost everyone agreed on transparency and community involvement in AI-related decisions: the top consensus statement, on transparency about AI in the education system, drew 92% agreement overall and 96%, 92%, and 95% by group. Responses were sorted into seven themes (Governance and Decision-Making, Data Centers, Education and Children, Mental Health, Workforce and Labor, Existential Risk, Access to Quality Information), each holding poll statements and session quotes.
Next: a Civic Assembly in December 2026 where 30 to 40 residents develop policies to make sure the public has a meaningful role in the government's AI-related decisions; selected delegates receive a stipend. A 2024 assembly on youth homelessness saw its recommendations adopted by local government and school districts. "We're not talking for talk's sake," says COCAP's Josh Burgess. "The poll and the conversations are the foundation."
The pattern a neighborhood can borrow: map the landscape, deliberate on tradeoffs, report back, and hand the result to a group that carries it forward.
Details
- place: Central Oregon
- sources: https://report.bloomproject.us/central-oregon-ai, https://centraloregonian.com/2026/05/21/a-new-civic-assembly-on-ai-launches-in-deschutes-crook-and-jefferson-counties/, https://ktvz.com/news/local-news/2026/04/01/deliberative-democracy-takes-center-stage-at-central-oregon-summit/
- image url: https://texakzqqenzpxawktbgx.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/studio-library/bloom/reporting-layer.png
-
Build prompt
A "what we heard" report page
Build prompt: after the listening, a report page in the Talk to the City pattern: themes with real quotes, minority views kept visible, a…
-
Build prompt
A listening wall for one neighborhood question
Build prompt: a Pol.is-style listening wall for one question, two weeks open, QR flyer on every corner, with a printable consensus summary…
-
Tool
CivicOS (BLOOM Project)
Infrastructure for public problem-solving: an Open Poll maps the opinion landscape, small-group community conversations work through…
-
Tool
Decidim
The free participation platform cities and cooperatives run themselves: proposals, assemblies, participatory budgeting, consultations.…
-
Recipe
Facilitation guardrails for a neighborhood deliberation
What keeps a deliberative tool honest: ground rules on the page, plain language, small groups over open microphones, a named host, room…
Contributed by Central Oregon Civic Action Project with BLOOM Project · report.bloomproject.us/central-oregon-ai
Original source: https://report.bloomproject.us/central-oregon-ai
See something to fix or add? Suggest an edit on GitHub — the commons lives in git too, and its history is the changelog.
deliberationstorycentral-oregonaicivic-assemblybloom