Meet Mitch Green, 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.

Name: Mitch Green

Neighborhood: West Portland Park

Renter/homeowner: Homeowner

Education: Economics PhD, Economics M.S., Economics B.S.

Occupation: Economist

How long you’ve lived in the city of Portland: 17+ years

Age: 42

Pronouns: He/him

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

Climate: Pass policy to direct the city of Portland to engage in clean energy development. The Inflation Reduction Act allows for municipalities to claim Section 48 elective pay tax credits to facilitate development. Portland can be leader in moving the region forward in the clean transition. Once charged with this scope, the city can apply for PCEF grants to seed a revolving loan fund to begin project development.

Housing: Change the PHB’s development strategy to include a social housing program. The current model of relying upon indirect benefits via tax abatement has failed to produce a meaningful rate of affordable housing production. A social housing program takes a direct approach and will use public funds more efficiently.

These policies create assets for the city and make efficient use of public funds, which appeals broadly to range of politics and priorities. I can find seven votes in that space.

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

I have a combined decade of experience working for Bonneville Power Administration where I have advanced policy ranging from cost / benefit valuation criteria for investments, to long-run integrated resource planning, to complex financial risk policy development for a roughly $3 billion revenue entity. In my work I’ve had to move decision makers to consensus positions, both internally and externally.

I have a PhD in economics which affords me the independent skillset to evaluate the inherent tradeoffs in a budget setting process.

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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 would work with my colleagues in city hall to build upon our recent successes. Recently, the city released some pre-approved plans for ADU development that waives the design review stage. That is a great example of things we can do to streamline permitting, and we should extend that to other modalities. Additionally, the next city council should have a standing committee that is charged with monitoring and providing oversight into the permitting process, to ensure that administrative roadblocks can be cleared and that this crucial function is properly resourced.

I would also bring to committee a review of our System Development Charge policy. While it’s a revenue stream for the city, it makes housing development more costly and results in patchwork infrastructure development. We should roll those costs into the general capital program of the city, thereby relieving the burden on developers.

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?

There is an interplay between public faith in the administrative capacity of the city and their willingness to pursue big, bold policy agendas. We need to get our house in order to rebuild that trust. To that end, my priority is focusing on the operations and maintenance of core city functions like PBOT, public safety, our new consolidated permitting and development function, and our parks. City council should lobby ODOT for funds to support local sidewalk and active transportation projects.

I support subsidies for economic development, but we have opportunities to be more targeted in our method of funding them. There are new TIF districts in the pipeline that will provide much needed funding for neglected parts of the city, but the next city council should evaluate the impact of this form of development funding on the overall budget and study alternatives that achieve the same ends with greater efficiency.

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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?

I do not support eliminating any existing taxes. I would support the creation of a sales tax with carve out exemptions to make it progressive in income incidence, but I do not have a strong prior inclination for new taxes at this time. I think we need to review our programmatic expenditures for waste before pursuing new 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?

I share the concern of some candidates that the new council is not properly resourced to support a staffing level necessary to make newly elected city council members effective. If elected, I would support an effort to pass an expedited resolution to allocate more FTE positions to fill out a staffing level that is consistent with peer cities. It’s important that the new system functions well as voters have placed a lot of faith in it. I want it to succeed, and it’s difficult to do both constituency services and policy development on one staffer.

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?

No. Portland has yet to cure its deficiencies as identified in the DOJ settlement, and until we have developed the training and accountability measures called for in that settlement, I think arresting and jailing people for living outside is misguided and a poor use of public money.

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. The PPB has yet to staff to its authorized level. If Mayor Wheeler is right in suggesting there will be painful cuts ahead of the new city council in the budget setting process, then allocating more of that scarce budget to a bureau that can’t spend it is unsound.

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

No. We are now having 1 in 100 year weather events on a frequent basis. That is happening due to climate change. We have a huge climate resiliency investment deficit, and so it’s imprudent to undermine PCEF which makes those investments possible.

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

PBOT should prioritize creation of protected bike lanes and priority bus lanes in order to make it it safe and easy to avoid driving. Doing so will reduce traffic and lower ongoing maintenance costs for driving lanes. This is not an exclusionary tradeoff: prioritizing the former funds the latter.

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

That depends upon your frame, doesn’t it? Crime and homelessness have received a lot of attention from city leaders, and not without warrant. But there has been little discussion about how to move quickly to make commercial to residential conversions feasible, which would cure the primary economic drag on downtown.