Meet John Toran, candidate for Portland City Council District 4

Editor’s note: Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 5. Stay informed with OPB on the presidential race, key congressional battles and other local contests and ballot measures in Oregon and Southwest Washington at opb.org/elections.

Portland is facing a 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.

Name: John Toran

Neighborhood: Downtown

Renter/homeowner: Homeowner

Education: Portland State University ‘02, B.S. US Grant H.S. ‘93. Also attended Hampton University and Benson Polytechnic.

Occupation: Property Manager

How long you’ve lived in the city of Portland: Did not answer

Age: 49

Pronouns: Did not answer

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 7 votes on the council to make them happen? Please avoid broad, sweeping statements and instead provide details.

First and foremost, we need to end unsanctioned camping by creating sanctioned camping areas. Each District would get them, and I’d like a portion of them to be sober. With those in place, we’d be one step closer to bringing people indoors where they can receive medical treatment and begin the long process of drug rehabilitation, connecting with government services in a safe and regulated environment.

Second, I want to establish A.I. business and shoe art incubators in Downtown and Old Town respectively. There’s a lot of low-cost co-working space that provides the office basics while creating natural innovation hubs that can drive Portland back into the creative limelight.

What previous accomplishments show that you are the best pick in your district? Please be specific.

I’m a small business owner, and even better a Portland small business owner. I’ve done construction, I’ve done procurement, I’ve run a dispensary; these ventures have been successful because I know how business works, and I know how the city works for the people who do business in it. We need that hands-on experience to ground City Hall in realistic, pragmatic approaches to addressing our many problems, approaches that produce results and don’t just pay lip service to ideologies that flounder the moment they’re put to the test.

Related: What you need to know about voting in Oregon and Southwest Washington

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?

I’d make it easier to build housing at all price points. More housing allows young people to achieve homeownership, or seniors to downsize from their homes and safely age in place in an elevator building in their neighborhood. A vibrant housing market with adequate supply helps both tenants and homeowners.

To achieve this we need to streamline the permitting process to prioritize housing. Developers should have a single point to obtain all of their permitting for their development and we need to coordinate city bureaus to make the permitting process as seamless as possible. These bureaus need to be reminded that Portlanders are the customers and they should be treated as such.

All that said, Neighborhood Associations play a critical role in shaping how the city develops and I’ll fight for neighbors to continue to have a say in the developments in their neighborhoods.

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?

For public safety, we need to adequately fund the police, fire, and city emergency services. In its current form there are opportunities internally to make things more efficient, and I’ll be looking at that come budget time before ever proposing a new tax to keep funding inefficient processes and administrative bloat.

Transportation is on the list too, specifically making our public transit safe and our roads usable. Again, the money is there, we just need to use it correctly. Nowhere is this clearer than in our homeless service spending, too, and we’ll be taking a long look at our partnerships and spending there before making any more promises to keep floating the cost for failure.

Related: Issues important to Oregon voters

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?

Inflation is high, businesses are leaving, high earners (especially the work from home types) are leaving; this is a marked change in Portland’s trajectory from the past decade or so of growth. As I said above our government is not providing the value they need to provide for the exceptional taxes being paid, so introducing more, driving more people out, is out of the question until we’ve resolved the issues at hand.

I’m okay with letting these random measures we’ve used as Bandaids to keep the bloat afloat expire, at least until we have a tax environment on par with peer cities and have a budget within our means that we can be proud of.

Do you have any concerns with the changes coming to city elections and city governance? If so, what would you like to see change?

On the election, yes, I do have concerns. I recently participated in an event that saw a very smart group of people with real time vote counting capability teaching a very smart audience about Ranked Choice Voting. It took an hour and a half and there were still questions. There’s a real chance that voters enter the process unaware of how it works and end up feeling even further disenfranchised by the change.

I’m optimistic about the changes coming to the city’s governance, however. It’s complicated, but it’s also a beautiful opportunity to bridge the gap between residents and city governance, advocating for practical, common-sense policies and initiatives that enable Portland to thrive through the election of a truly representative swath of the population. I also believe having a professional city manager presents the opportunity in having a single person accountable for the administration of the city.

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?

Yes. We have ordinances and laws and they should be enforced. If folks don’t want to take the resources available to them, they can’t simply continue to be coddled in our shared public spaces and do whatever destructive things they like without appropriate repercussions.

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?

We need more Police Officers (as seen in our dire response times), but adding some 200 additional officers could mean $50 million in the budget. This needs to be addressed, but we need to do so in a way that’s fiscally responsible without asking for even more from Portlanders.

Do you support putting the Clean Energy Fund measure back on the ballot? What, if any changes, would you support?

Yes. We have the highest inflation I’ve seen in my lifetime; things have changed dramatically since 2018, so I don’t see anything wrong with checking in with voters. Too many people are struggling and paying higher prices for absolutely everything so the effort might not be as appealing in 2025.

Which would you prioritize: Creation of more protected bike lanes and priority bus lanes or improved surfacing of existing degraded driving lanes?

We need to prioritize improved surfacing. Our city can’t recover unless we have a functioning transportation network, and surfacing affects everyone. Potholes are a regressive stealth tax that causes significant, avoidable financial burdens for Portland’s working class that the city is responsible for preventing.

Have the problems impacting downtown Portland received too much or too little attention from current city leaders? Why?

They’ve received more than enough attention, but leadership has ultimately failed in producing a vision that would direct that attention in ways that are pragmatic and productive. We need leadership with a clear vision of what Portland can be before any amount of effort will yield results.