Occupy protests and Bank Transfer Day activity across the West have all but faded but credit union leaders continue to see positive fallout on behalf of enabling public funds legislation.

The latest came this week from Portland, Ore., Mayor Sam Adams who writing in a Northwest Credit Union Association bulletin said the city needs to diversify its investment mix “to buy local,” which means reducing some of its bank ties and switching to community banks and CUs.

He said he favored a newly introduced “Responsible Banking Resolution” being adopted in California and across the Northwest which favors community bank/CU deposits and is a direct outgrowth of the Occupy movement.

“The Responsible Banking Resolution is one of the reasons I was attracted to and supported Occupy Wall Street,” Adams said in an interview with editors of Anthem, the email newsletter of the NWCUA.  

The regional trade group has been active in pushing bills through both the Washington and Oregon legislatures allowing greater CU access to municipal funds .A bill in the Washington state Senate awaits action allowing federal CUs to accept $250,000 in public funds.  Similar measures are progressing through the Oregon body.

At the local level, city councils in both Seattle and Portland as well as Berkeley, Calif., and Los Angeles have been reviewing proposed statutes which would move funds out of such megabanks as Wells Fargo and Bank of America and into credit unions.