Meet Elana Pirtle-Guiney, candidate for Portland City Council District 2

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: Elana Pirtle-Guiney

Neighborhood: Vernon

Renter/homeowner: Homeowner

Education: BA, Lewis and Clark College, International Affairs

Occupation: Policy and Advocacy Consultant; former Policy Advisor, Legislative Director, and Labor Organizer

How long have you lived in the city of Portland: 22 years

Age: 39

Pronouns: She/her

For each of the following questions, please limit your answer to no more than 150 words. If you run over, we will at our discretion cut your response to meet that limit.

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.

1. I would restructure our public safety response, including policy and budget changes, so we have appropriately trained and resourced responses for the amount of fire and medical calls, calls about crimes, and calls when someone is in crisis that come into 911. This is long-term work but I would bring all affected groups to the table and strive to reach an agreement that supports all public safety workers and Portlanders’ needs.

2. Multiple state and city laws create wage floors for contracted services and publicly funded projects. Usually “average wages” are required. But average wages aren’t keeping up with costs. Portland’s spending should drive wages that allow someone to live here. I will review wage requirements to determine where we should require higher wages. There are strong arguments that this would be better for Portland’s economy and ultimately save public dollars, which I would lay out for colleagues.

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

1. Led negotiations on state policies, including minimum wage and construction energy efficiency standards.

As Labor and Workforce Policy Advisor I led multiple negotiations between parties with intractable differences, convening stakeholders, and finding policies that met the needs of as many groups as possible.

2. Managed intergovernmental relations through COVID

As Legislative Director to Gov. Brown I managed our relationships with 90 legislators. I’ve worked with State, County, Metro, and Federal leaders we need to partner with. I’ve led through crises.

3. Budget experience at the State and City levels.

As Legislative Director I worked with state agencies on their budget asks. As Parks Board co-chair I led the Budget Oversight Committee. I understand the difficult tradeoffs in balancing public budgets.

In policy and budget work, I applied equity principles to ensure we uplifted communities long left behind and made investments that supported community members and saved costs long term.

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?

We are thousands of units short, yet affordable housing units sit empty and market rate commercial space does, too. Construction won’t pencil out if developers see units sitting empty. I would immediately look at how we can increase vouchers to get people who are ready to enter housing into available units or prevent families from losing their homes.

On a smaller scale, I plan to include navigators in Portland Permitting and Development’s budget. Navigators would be assigned to follow projects through the entire process, helping foresee and resolve issues before they slow down permitting.

Finally, master plan developments like the Lloyd and OMSI districts present the largest, quickest, opportunities to dramatically increase housing availability. Many of these areas include homeownership and rental opportunities for mixed incomes. I will invite all bureaus working on these plans to discuss what actions the City can take to speed up development of these properties.

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?

The core work of the City is to provide appropriate, high-quality, infrastructure: water and sewer services, well-maintained roads, parks, pools, and community centers, the systems to approve or deny permits for development, and public safety. Right now much of this work is funded by user fees and levies. Ideally, public services would be fully funded through modest user fees and a larger budget of sustainable, equitable, property taxes, but without statewide property tax reform Portland will continue to have to rely on levies as well.

Regardless of how our infrastructure is funded we have to start prioritizing spending to save, funding the things that will save money in the long run. We must begin to address our backlog of deferred maintenance, actually prioritize projects that prevent more costly fixes later, fully leverage federal funds, and provide services that keep people stable.

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?

Voters approved these measures because they agreed we have fundamental challenges we need to solve. I support these tax measures, but we have a responsibility to ensure that we actually make measurable progress on the issues they are meant to address. We need increased accountability and transparency for spending and benchmarks for the public to know the expectations and if programs are meeting them.

Taxes and levies are a way for our community to decide to create critical services or address community needs. I am not considering proposing any new taxes or levies at this time. There are some critical needs that we must address, though, including deferred maintenance that has led to more expensive issues in our parks, pools, and recreation centers, and the underfunding of our fire department. Both of these budget gaps create safety and livability concerns that are not sustainable.

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

The new system does not set up Councilors to successfully address community needs. But better representation was one of the key reasons Portlanders voted for these reforms. If we want City Council to better represent the people who live in our communities we must:

1. Have a district office. This could just be space at a community center, but we need somewhere we can meet with Portlanders where there is no cost to meet (Portlanders don’t need to buy a coffee or food to be there) and there is a door that closes so we can discuss sensitive concerns community members may have.

2. Have sufficient staff to address community member concerns, create strong policy proposals, and support the work Councilors are doing. I think that requires a minimum of two staff members per Councilor and one constituent services lead who works with all three Councilors in a district.

Related: Issues important to Oregon voters

For the five remaining questions, please 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. I understand the inclination to resort to punitive measures and we must curb unsanctioned camping. But jailing someone for being homeless leaves them homeless but now with a criminal record – a substantial new barrier for them on their journey to getting off the street, stable, and housed.

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?

Not now. Until we restructure our public safety system, let police focus on crime response, prevention, and investigations, and empower other providers to address calls when a person is in crisis, we won’t know how many officers our community needs. Let’s build the right system, then determine our policing needs.

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

No. Let’s use this fund to put Portland on the map as a sustainable, equitable, city that’s investing in the economy of the future. There is a real opportunity to use PCEF, within the parameters voters overwhelmingly supported, to rebuild our economy and remake our reputation.

Related: Listen to 'OPB Politics Now'

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

We need safe roads for everyone and resurfacing is about safety.

But making biking and transit easier takes cars off the road and lowers resurfacing costs well into the future.

A short delay in improved driving lanes lowers costs and creates better conditions for all users, including drivers, for decades.

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

At this point, the wrong attention.

The extra attention downtown received was necessary – now let’s invest in what we do want downtown and in our neighborhoods, not just stopping what we don’t want.

Downtown Portland needs a plan, and it can’t come at the expense of our local neighborhood centers.