Candidate Statement: Dani Schulte, AICP (she/her)

Dani is the Senior Planner for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, where she has served as a planner in various capacities since 2018. She is a life-long Oregonian who obtained her Bachelors Degree from Portland State University in Spanish Language and Literature and International Development Studies in 2014, and her Master of Urban and Regional Planning Degree from Portland State University in 2018. She moved out to rural Eastern Oregon to work for CTUIR, and hasn't looked back. She has been on the OAPA Board on and off since 2018, first serving as the EPG Chair and later as the Board Treasurer. She earned her AICP credentials in 2021. She likes to hike in the Blue Mountains with her husband and toddler, and knits lots of sweaters. Something she would like to help the Board accomplish is a better distribution of responsibilities, so that more Oregon Planners see joining the Board as a benefit rather than a burden. It has often been difficult to recruit interested volunteers, although engagement on the Board can be personally and professionally rewarding.

I have always been focused on sustainability and social justice in my personal and professional goals, and planning for a Tribal government has been a wonderful opportunity to focus on those goals with the support of the community, and shared holistic view of what those goals mean.

Under an ODOT/DLCD Transportation Growth Management grant, I had the opportunity to do extensive community outreach to update a 20-year-old Transportation Plan which had focused on vehicular access. Through extensive community outreach, the community's input demonstrated that, when asked, rural people also wanted healthy ways to move around their community. Sidewalks, bike lanes, horse trails, and transit routes ranked high among community priorities. This project helped me dismantle the assumption that rural people just drive because it's not practical to do otherwise. I learned that they just drive because, to date, we have not given them better options.

My favorite OAPA program is EPG's Mentorship Program. As an introvert, I thrive in a one-on-one relationship-based learning environment, and I love that our program does that so well that it has been used as a model by other chapters.

My favorite podcast about planning is 99% Invisible. It's not really about planning explicitly, but it's about the invisible attributes of the built environment, which fits well in a context of planning where we create plans that are themselves invisible in the built world - but often have meaningful impacts on peoples' lives.