It’s official: Portland City Commissioner Chloe Eudaly will be seeking reelection.
The commissioner stopped by OPB's "Think Out Loud" Thursday to discuss the sweeping changes she has planned for the city's neighborhood associations and community groups. Asked by the show's host, Dave Miller, what she thought would happen to her vision should she be out of the position next year, Eudaly said she was hoping to stick around for more than that.
“I am, in fact, running again,” said Eudaly, noting this was her first day making the “official” announcement.
The first-term commissioner has made plenty of unofficial announcements, however. Her communications director, Margaux Weeke, said Eudaly’s already confirmed her candidacy to multiple media outlets and plans to hold an official kickoff in early 2020.
In a Facebook post published just after Thanksgiving, Eudaly said she was assembling a new campaign team and building "a shiny new website." The commissioner's old campaign website from 2016 is no longer functional.
The post also gave a preview of what Eudaly will seek to highlight from her four years overseeing Portland’s Bureau of Transportation and the Office of Community & Civic Life.
“I’ve been focused on working to protect tenants (Relocation Ordinance and Fair Access In Renting (FAIR)), defending our immigrant and refugee community (sanctuary city and universal defense), and our environment (renewables resolution, green roofs, lead abatement),” she wrote. “And I’m committed to making our streets safer for pedestrians and cyclists while fighting to vastly improve our public transit system.”
Eudaly's already drawn several opponents: energy consultant Jack Kerfoot, who has said he plans to put renewable energy at the core of his platform; software developer Seth Wolley, a green party activist and proponent of government transparency; and Mingus Mapps, a former political science professor who worked under Eudaly at the Office of Community and Civic Life until he was let go this year.