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Name: David Linn
Age (and when/whether that will change before the election): 42
Pronouns: (He/him)
Neighborhood: Centennial
Are you a renter or homeowner?: Homeowner
Education: Portland State — BA in History & Political Science; Master of Public Administration with a specialty in Local Government
Occupation: Executive Assistant at the Oregon Board of Examiners for Speech-Language Pathology & Audiology
How long you’ve lived in the city of Portland: All my life. I was born in an apartment off 82nd Avenue.
Portland is facing an historic election involving a new voting system and an unusually high number of candidates. Journalists at The Oregonian/OregonLive and Oregon Public Broadcasting share a goal of ensuring that Portland voters have the information they need to make informed choices, and we also know candidates’ time is valuable and limited.
That’s why the two news organizations teamed up this cycle to solicit Portland City Council candidates’ perspectives on the big issues in this election. Here’s what they had to say:
For each of the following questions, we asked candidates to limit their answers to 150 words.
Name two existing city policies or budget items you’d make it a priority to change. Why did you select those and how do you plan to line up at least seven votes on the council to make them happen? Please avoid broad, sweeping statements and instead provide details.
We need to move forward with the siting of several transitional housing projects throughout the city to quickly expand our shelters that are successful moving people off the streets and onto a path towards stability. They must be well managed and in cooperation with the neighborhood, without letting political influence give some communities a veto over how we respond to this 15+ year emergency. That also includes getting more detox and mental health services and not in just one concentrated place but throughout the county.
I would push for the reconstituting of the Property crimes unit that was recently disbanded. Our community members and small business owners face losing their livelihoods when organized theft is allowed to run rampant in our communities. It exacerbates gun violence and has other spillover effects into other crimes. When people see and hear about repeated robberies, they lose faith in the public safety system.
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What previous accomplishments show that you are the best pick in your district? Please be specific.
I am proud to serve on the Centennial School Board and in my first year I was surprised to find how much we were involved in the sale of surplus property. I never take the sale of public assets lightly and in one case, just by using “Portland Maps”, I was able to show that a no-bid offer would be an incredibly low level of return for the district. We insisted on putting out to more bidders and eventually the district settled on an amount that was $500,000 more than the original. Having a master’s degree in local governments has given me training in scrutinizing budgets, contracts, and intergovernmental agreements. These are where the details really matter.
I have served on Portland neighborhood associations for over 20 years. Just this year our team at the Centennial Community Association brought in $30,000 in grants and contracts from the city.
Portland is on track to permit the fewest number of multifamily units in 15 years and remains thousands of units below what’s needed to meet demand. What steps would you take to dramatically and quickly increase the availability of housing?
There are many vacant lots and expansive back yards in East Portland that can accommodate additional growth. The car-oriented shopping centers from Portland’s old suburbs are closing and we can work with our housing bureau and Prosper Portland to turn those from neighborhood blight to neighborhood attractions. With small code changes and some incentives, we could greatly expand the number of accessory dwelling units, home sharing and multi-generational homes, and community land-banking.
The city must use the full weight of its authority and purchasing power to drive down the cost of building affordable housing. Vacant lots, absentee owners, and burnout so-called “zombie houses” should be bought up by the city (or by Metro’s housing bond) and put back into productive use for affordable housing. We can do more to develop our green building jobs with a goal to reduce both the cost of building affordable housing.
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The next City Council is going to have to make some very difficult decisions regarding what to fund and how. What essential services must the city provide and how should the city sustainably fund them?
Portlanders expect the City to provide basic services first and foremost. Fire and medical response are the most important to keeping people alive. People also expect the city to at least make sure our streets are maintained for not just cars but for the buses and bikes as well.
We are often caught spending and wasting more money in the long run because we did invest in addressing the underlying issues. We must maintain our first responder systems but public safety dollars are better spent on prevention and investments in the community. We need to drastically increase our mental health and addiction workforce. Cutting the prevention will put more burden on the enforcement system and have costly ripple effects.
Portlanders have approved many tax measures in the past decade — supporting affordable housing, free preschool programs and green energy initiatives. Are there specific taxes or levies you want eliminated or would choose to not renew? Are there specific taxes or levies you would support creating? Why?
Portlanders have been supporting taxes because they want to see results. I think we need to ensure all those programs are working efficiently and are making long term advances in the areas they are intended for. We want to see the Metro housing bond getting affordable housing into our neighborhoods. We want to see PCEF and Preschool for All succeed and to see and feel the results in the communities. The community is tired of paying and never seeing the results.
The arts tax is one I think we should take another look at. It has had a long run and I think it can be improved by looking at raising the income level to pay and looking into collection efficiencies, like having it collected with state taxes.
Do you have any concerns with the changes coming to city elections and city governance? If so, what would you like to see change?
One of the most important things is to honor the will of the voters. It is reprehensible when our city commissioners, who fought against our charter reforms, then insult the voters by claiming they were too stupid to understand it. Any changes should be researched carefully and proposed for the next round of charter reform, which will come quickly.
I am excited to get around to every corner of the District and meet people where they are. I am concerned about the lack of remote offices but as someone who has run neighborhood associations for years, I am used to getting by with nothing. We will still need a central location for the 3 District wide City Councilors.
I would like to see more project and city district specific teams that cross bureaus.
Related: Listen to 'OPB Politics Now'
For the five remaining questions, we asked candidates to answer in 50 words or fewer:
Do you favor arresting and jailing people who camp on public property in Portland who refuse repeated offers of shelter, such as the option to sleep in a city-designated tiny home cluster?
The Portland Chief of Police has said we cannot arrest our way out of this problem. Jail is the most expensive and least effective method of getting people stabilized and on the path to recovery. We need detox, mental health, and transitional housing to get people off the streets.
Would you vote yes on a proposal to fund hundreds more police officers than the City Council has already authorized? Why or why not? How would the city pay for it?
No, we need a detailed plan about the whole approach to community safety and that means more than just police. Just adding more officers without addressing community concerns about accountability will not make our neighborhoods safer. We do need more investigators to hold people accountable for the crimes they commit.
Do you support putting the Clean Energy Fund measure back on the ballot? What, if any changes, would you support?
I do not believe in overturning the will of the voters without an emergency, and the program doing better than expected is not an emergency. I would support working with PCEF to identify alignment with community visioning and putting funding together for those projects.
Which would you prioritize: Creation of more protected bike lanes and priority bus lanes or improved surfacing of existing degraded driving lanes?
Portlanders deserve more than a false dichotomy between bikes and potholes. We can and must do both. We cannot let important infrastructure be targeted to just one mode of moving around. Many of our families in East Portland use roads, buses, and bike lanes all in a single day.
Have the problems impacting downtown Portland received too much or too little attention from current city leaders? Why?
“Attention” from the current city council doesn’t mean any real long-term change. Downtown has a historic opportunity to evolve with an increasingly online world. We can help shift more empty commercial spaces into homes for people who want to experience a vibrant nightlife.