Meet Tiffany Koyama Lane, candidate for Portland City Council District 3

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: Tiffany Koyama Lane

Neighborhood: Sunnyside

Are you a renter or homeowner? Homeowner

Education: BA and MA in Education from University of Oregon

Occupation: Public School Teacher

How long you’ve lived in the city of Portland: 12 years

Age: 38

Pronouns: She/her

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:

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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.

A priority would be fully funding and expanding Portland Street Response and making it a coequal part of emergency services. It’s common sense that people don’t schedule a crisis for office hours, and we are leaving millions of federal dollars on the table by not having a 24-7 service. A number of other candidates have made a stated commitment to fully funding and expanding this program within a short period after taking office, even some candidates whose other policy positions differ from mine. Given that consensus, I’m confident that we can get 7 votes in favor of this proven response to people in crisis on our streets. I also support extending the lifespan of the CHAT Medication for Opioid Use Disorder program, which is a pilot funded through June 2025, and is one of the ways we can intervene in what is otherwise a largely for-profit system of opioid treatment.

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

Early in the campaign I went to an event hosted by the organization North Star Civic Foundation, featuring city administrators from across the country who shared their experiences of helping their city transition to this new form of government. They were asked what kind of leaders succeed in this form of government; they all talked about city council members who were curious, open-minded, and collaborative. I am a labor and community organizer and someone who works in a field where you have to work with everyone; no one is turned away from a public school. My work as lead external organizer in my union involved doing outreach to many different communities to make sure that caregiver voices were incorporated into our platform. Union work has also given me unique experience moving through conflict to find consensus, forming connections between people so that they can organize together.

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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?

In my neighborhood, there are vacant lots, buildings, and even entire complexes that have been sitting empty for years, which really affects the well-being of a community. I support introducing a land value tax as a way to incentivize better use of these empty spaces — and sometimes that includes giant unused parking lots (how many times have you seen the Walgreens on Cesar Chavez parking lot full of anything besides a giant puddle?). We need to build on changes that have already been made to our permitting and zoning, including making it legal to have apartment buildings in more areas of the city, encouraging density near transit hubs and areas where there is a huge demand for housing and not nearly enough supply. I am glad the current City Council voted in favor of the Housing Production Strategy, which will include looking at ways to do this in the Inner Eastside.

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?

Our housing and behavioral health crises will not be solved without continuing the investments we have made and thinking about how to allocate them appropriately. One thing I think a lot about is the lack of strong standards around wages for providers receiving public dollars from JOHS, Measure 110, and HB 4002. While the latter are routed through the County, the City has a big role in determining how our public dollars are spent on homelessness, and right now we have a workforce crisis–people who are doing the critical and very challenging work of connecting people with housing are often in situations where they are needing to work two jobs. We have burnout and high turnover, and this affects the general livability of the city. I want to fund a workforce that can tackle these challenges with the energy required and with the support these essential workers deserve.

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 not to renew? Are there specific taxes or levies you would support creating? Why?

It’s a choice to look at taxation as only something that takes from people, rather than as something that makes a service possible. Universal preschool is the norm in every peer nation, and, as a parent and public school teacher, I know it’s a huge failure that we don’t have this nationwide. I will always support investments in our community that are providing services that are rightly the province of the public sector — investments in education or climate infrastructure and resilience. I believe the Preschool for All and PCEF taxes are giving the community more than they are taking from individuals, and that’s the metric through which we should be evaluating taxes. I would push to change the mechanism for funding our roads and infrastructure, since a gas tax is not working, and I’m open to learning more about the proposal to use the Metro tax to build affordable housing.

Related: Listen to 'OPB Politics Now'

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 want to give the new system time to work; no change is immediate. I do worry about what staffing will look like for the new council; it feels important that we empower district-based councilors to have a presence in their districts, whether that’s through satellite offices or appropriate staffing. I also support any work we can do to instill more public confidence around the elections process, including the role of outside spending. That said, there is a lot of negativity about City and County government; while I understand that we have seen dysfunction, I think we should celebrate the fact that we are making a change. It’s good to be cautious and look for places to improve; let’s make sure it’s constructive rather than jumping to a foregone conclusion about a complex new system.

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?

There was an encampment outside of Sunnyside school that was shuffled back and forth between Sunnyside and Laurelhurst multiple times without people being offered shelter in any meaningful capacity. At one point they were told, “walk three blocks in any direction.” How would jailing anyone solve this problem? It doesn’t.

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?

I want to free up our police force to do the job they were trained to do, rather than ask them to fill the massive holes in our safety net as they are currently spending their time. I support expanding programs like Portland Street Response.

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

I am troubled by the tendency to instantly try to repeal or reform things that were voted upon before they have had a sufficient chance to succeed. And PCEF has already been enormously successful and should be considered a point of pride for our city.

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

I come from the labor movement and I recognize a false binary when I see one. A functioning city with appropriately funded transportation and road infrastructure does not need to choose between roads and transit; bikes and buses use roads too!

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

A recent survey revealed people who did not go downtown were more likely to have a negative impression of it, which shows how much our public discourse fuels perception. Downtown has highly visible issues but I would like to see much more focus on things like traffic violence and affordability.