Multnomah County Commissioner District 1 debate: Vadim Mozyrsky and Meghan Moyer

Administrative law judge Vadim Mozyrsky and public policy director Meghan Moyer rose to the top of a five-person primary race this spring for the District 1 seat on the Multnomah County Commission. Neither, however, received at least 50% of the vote to avoid a runoff for the general election in November.

We’ll hear from both candidates about how they hope to represent the district, which covers all of Multnomah County west of the Willamette River, as well as parts of Southeast Portland. We’ll also hear their stance on the biggest issues facing the county, including homelessness, public safety, addiction and mental health.

Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.

Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. We start today with one of the key races that could determine the direction of the Multnomah County Commission, a body that’s hugely responsible for responding to homelessness, public safety, addiction and mental health. This is for the District 1 seat, which includes all the county west of the Willamette River, as well as inner Southeast Portland. Nobody got more than 50% of the vote in the five-person primary this spring, which means that the top two candidates are now squaring off in the general election.

Meghan Moyer is a public policy director for Disability Rights Oregon. Vadim Mozyrsky is an administrative law judge for the Social Security Administration. They both join me now. It’s great to have both of you on Think Out Loud.

Meghan Moyer: Thanks for having me.

Vadim Mozyrsky: Thank you, Dave.

Miller: We flipped a coin before this and Vadim Mozyrsky, you’ll get to go first here. I want to start with the county’s response to homelessness, and in particular, the role that the criminal justice system should play. When should police or potentially sheriff’s deputies get involved?

Mozyrsky: So let’s start off by saying that the current policies are failing. The county budget has gone, in seven years, from $45 million to $400 million to address homelessness. But deaths have increased by 400%. Homelessness itself has increased by 136% on the streets and we’re failing. So the question is, how do we get people off the streets and into the services where they can be in shelters, where they can get warm food, warm showers, a bed to sleep in, and the services that they need. And right now, I believe that we need to provide all the opportunities to get into those shelters, but also we need to enforce our laws.

House Bill 4002 by the legislative body has said, if you are on the streets and you’re smoking fentanyl or using methamphetamines, we can actually have police officers that come and say, “we will get you into services, but if you refuse, then we will arrest you.” And then you’ll have an opportunity to get in the services again, but we need to make sure that people take us up on that. And then the city passed a camping ban recently saying that it’s kind of a similar thing: “If we have a bed for you to go [to], then we can use our criminal justice services to get you to a bed if you refuse.”

So right now, if a police officer comes to you and says, “you’re camping on a public area, we have a bed available for you” … in a shelter, in a motel, in a safe risk village, in a toss site, lots of places … “but if you don’t go, then you can be arrested.” So the difficulty is there’s a lot of people that want that help and there’s a few that are trapped in a cycle of mental illness and drug addiction, and yes, sometimes criminality who are refusing that help.

The way I believe a progressive should function is helping people that can help themselves. So I do think that there is a place for the criminal justice system in order to ensure people are getting drug addiction, mental illness treatment and housing.

Miller: Meghan Moyer, what role do you think the criminal justice system should play in addressing homelessness?

Moyer: I worry about heavily relying on the criminal justice system, because its tools are very limited. And being engaged in our criminal justice system has long-term consequences for people. And I think we’ve got to be really careful about using it as a tool to provide help when there are way better, more proven ways of engaging people. One, I’m a huge fan of Portland Street Response, which is based off of a Eugene program called CAHOOTS [Crisis Assistance Helping Out on the Streets]. It’s over 35 years old. It’s national best practices for how we respond to a mental health crisis that’s happening in our community. And it is a non-police response.

I am very worried about stretching police into our social service network when that’s not what they’re trained to do. That is a limited resource. There are times in which there are clear camping bans in designated areas. I am OK with enforcing that. But I am not OK with using law enforcement and using our criminal justice system to criminalize somebody’s mental illness or their status as a homeless person. Because that’s been tried. There’s nothing new about that. That’s been used in this country and other countries for decades. And it is a failed solution because the tools they have in front of them is to fine someone – well, if you’re homeless, you do not have resources – or to jail somebody. And to jail somebody because they have a mental health crisis, they have a substance use issue, doesn’t actually address any of those things. So I do think that it is important that deflection happen and deflection be real, and that’s a real choice.

But right now, and one of the reasons I’m running is, it’s not a real choice. We could tell you about treatment, we could tell you places that do treatment, but we can’t actually get you into treatment, versus a charge. And there are hours of the day where you don’t even get that deflection option. You are just going to be charged. And I think that’s an unequal application of justice.

Miller: I want to turn to the deflection centers in a second. And I recognize that in both of your responses, it’s impossible to talk about simply one piece of this without talking about the, often, overlapping issues here. But to deflection for a second, it is its own world of what happens when people are arrested on various drug charges at this point.

Meghan, sticking with you, and then Vadim I want to go back to you – what would you support in terms of a county camping ban, a ban that … we’re not talking here then about the Portland police and that city’s ban, but something that would be enforced, say, by sheriff’s deputies in unincorporated parts of the county. What would you vote for?

Moyer: Yeah, I would support a time, place and manner ordinance that said you can’t camp during daylight hours in these public places. And the caveats that I have laid out is you do warn people several times before you move to arrest, you allow people to pick up and move, and if they are in a state in which they cannot understand the conversation you’re having with them, we have to have a drop off center for people who can’t. It could be reasons for intoxication, it could be due to mental illness. I am very worried about putting people in crisis in a jail because we’ve had deaths, not just in Multnomah County [but] all over the state. And I want to bring people to a safe space.

So those are my caveats. I would support a time, place and manner.

Miller: And let me go back to Vadim and I want to hear more from both of you about a drop-in center, something that folks have been talking about for a very long time at the county. Vadim, what would you support in terms of a county-wide camping ban?

Mozyrsky: So, I’m glad that my opponent has changed her position in saying she would support such a thing. She said before, she’s morally opposed to using jails as a way to get people into housing, which is something that other cities around the country are doing. Not because we want to get people into jail, but we want to have some sort of leverage to get people to make the right choices. So I’m happy that she’s moving more toward the center.

That being said, I think we need to, likewise, have a similar policy for the county for those unincorporated areas or areas outside of Portland that need to get that same similar help. You know, nobody wants to jail anybody. Even in Boise, Idaho, where they enforced these laws, they went from issuing a bunch of citations where people, once they got the citation, actually moved to shelters. They went from 400 citations in a year to only six a couple of years later, because people realize, well, now there’s repercussions to not following the law. And guess what? They actually went to those shelters, they got those services and Boise reduced them. So I’m in support of that county-wide.

Miller: Meghan Moyer has your policy on this changed?

Moyer: No, it hasn’t. And I’ve been consistent. There’s a difference between criminalizing the status of being homeless – that is a status offense. I don’t support that. I don’t support making it illegal to be without shelter. I do think refusing to follow the no-camping ban, and refusing to get up and leave, understanding that conversation and refusing to follow the directions of a police officer, is not the same as the status offense. I’ve been consistent about that and I think that’s an important line to draw.

Miller: You’ve both, now, talked about a sober center or a drop-in center. This is something, as I noted briefly, that folks in the county have been talking about for a long time. And it does not exist right now. Vadim Mozyrsky, what would you do, as just one vote on, essentially a county legislative body, to make that a reality?

Mozyrsky: Well, I think it’s more than just one vote. Julia Brim-Edwards has been pushing for this for quite a while. I do believe that Vince Jones-Dixon, who’s been elected in East County, agrees to that. And he has been very supportive of my campaign. I think we can vote together on that. And then, of course, in the north there’s still a contested election.

The legislature gave us $25 million to set up a 24/7 drop-off center, which is actually what the police need. Once again, nobody wants to take individuals into jail because they have a drug addiction and mental illness problems. We need a place for them to go though, that’s not an emergency room, or a jail, or the streets. Since 2019, we haven’t had one of those places. The old one from Unity treated about 7,000 people per year, and those people are now on the streets suffering and hurting themselves, sometimes hurting other individuals. We need a place to take people where they can sober up and make some rational choices for themselves.

Washington County has broken ground on the Sobering Center. That’s done with public/private money. They didn’t have to tax people anymore for that. They’re building out over 80 beds, where people can sober up and then have transitional housing for a little bit until they get on their feet and then they can go to other services or housing. We need to do that here as quickly as possible. We’ve had a couple of reports over the years as to how to do that. We just need to follow what those reports say and I’m a firm believer that we can make that happen quickly.

Miller: Meghan Moyer, what would you do to make it a reality?

Moyer: I think we absolutely need both a 24-hour drop-off center and a sobering center. But they’re not the same thing, and you could co-locate them, but I think it’s important that you shouldn’t mix populations. I believe the county has not acted with a sense of urgency. That is profoundly frustrating to me and, I’m sure, a lot of other people who believe in these services, have seen them work successfully.

I’m a huge supporter of what Deschutes County has done. They have a crisis de-escalation center – which I think needs to be a component of this – specifically targeted at serving people who are experiencing severe mental illness. Theirs is actually located very close to their police headquarters. Police drop people off all of the time. Those people become regulars and have engaged in services.

So when I think about how we make sure we’re addressing this on every level, you have to have a sobering center. You have to have a drop-off center. You have to have crisis de-escalation. And all of these projects need to be able to be gotten off the ground. At the same time, this is a crisis. And I feel like Multnomah County is only talking about one issue at a time, one possible service and wanting it to be the be-all, end-all for everything.

Where my perspective is we have to do all of these things. They don’t all have to exist in the same project or the same building. But we have to have a sense of urgency. There is no excuse that we don’t have a sobering center and it’s been five years. There’s no excuse that we don’t have a comprehensive crisis de-escalation center. These things have been stood up in other communities in a matter of months and we’re spending years debating the minutia.

You cannot let the perfect become the enemy of progress. And my priority with the Multnomah County Commission is to bring that sense of urgency. Get things out of the executive level and the theoretical level, and into operation and on the ground.

Miller: Last month, for the second time, Commissioner Julia Brim-Edwards tried to make it so the income thresholds for high earning people, who are subject to the county’s Preschool For All tax, would go up with inflation. That did not pass. But you both did speak up in favor of it. Vadim Mozyrsky, first – do you see differences in the way the two of you would approach county-level taxes?

Mozyrsky: Yeah, I definitely do. So, a while back, both my opponent and I got a form to fill out from an advocacy organization for Preschool for All. And that form said, “Do you promise not to lower the taxes? Do you promise not to extend the time for these taxes to be filled? And do you promise to not listen to,” I think they called them, “Evil business organizations that don’t care about children or only to us?” I didn’t take that pledge. I’m a firm believer in Preschool for All. I think that we should have it statewide, in fact, in order to save money here in Multnomah County. Because statewide, they obviously have already experience with school systems, as well as federal programs in that regard. But I would not take that pledge because, as a representative in the county commission, I have to listen to everyone. And if something’s not working, we have to be able to change it.

My opponent took that pledge and I don’t know exactly how you reconcile indexing for inflation, which our own county chair said might lead to less money being available for Preschool for All, whereas the pledge says you can’t lower that tax. I advocate for indexing to inflation because I think right now with inflation rising, people’s salaries rising, there’s less money available and middle class families are going to be impacted by this tax.

Also, I’m in favor of broadening into the state because I keep hearing that people are moving away from Multnomah County because the taxes are too high here, and they’re going to Washington, Clackamas and Clark counties to save taxes. We need to make sure that people stay here, that they can afford to live here, they can afford to put their kids into school, and that they can afford to save for college and retirement.

Miller: Meghan Moyer, do you see differences in the way you would each approach taxes at the county-level?

Moyer: Yeah, definitely. What I testified to and have consistently said … In fact, I have a statement on my plans for Preschool For All on my website. Because I do actually think that there are some concrete ways I’d like to streamline it and reach people faster. I really think those of us who are paying for preschool … I’ve got a 3-year-old. He started preschool this fall. I’m paying $1,800 a month for that preschool. I’m a middle class person. My wife and I have one other child. That’s equivalent to our mortgage. And it’s a real crunch. And I think that’s true for so many families in Multnomah County. So I am a huge supporter of making sure that we are getting universal preschool for families.

I’ve been a childcare advocate for years. I served on the Governor’s Commission for Childcare. I represented childcare workers when I worked at SEIU. And I believe that that work is so important for the development of our children. And the workforce needs to be treated with respect and valued. So what I said was that I believe that we must fully fund the program. I think there are efficiencies to be had. If there is extra, where would I target a tax cut? I would tie it to inflation with a target on the middle class.

I say that because if you were a single mom … and I was a single mom at one point, and I did not quite make $125,000, but it was the highest … I don’t make that now. But when I did, I could have been subject to this tax while I was paying a full mortgage, while I was paying my son’s child care, which was preschool at the time, and I was going through a divorce. I had to borrow money from my family. So I do know that sometimes $125,000 isn’t what it was, even 10 years ago.

And so I do want to focus … when I look at tax relief, I look at the middle class. I want families to be in Multnomah County. I want a vibrant workforce in Multnomah County. So, for me, I’m less interested in tax relief for people who are making millions of dollars a year than I am for single moms who need every penny that’s coming in.

Miller: Meghan, let me stick with you. There’s been a lot of rancor on the Multnomah County Commission in recent years. In fact, over 15 years or so at various times, it has been a body that has been known for, if not dysfunction, then some interpersonal conflicts over the years. What would you bring to the Commission, temperamentally?

Moyer: I think having been an advocate for a lot of my career, I have learned some wonderful lessons that I think, sometimes, you don’t get until you really get to know policymakers. One of which is [that] there’s so much more that unites us than divides us. I’ve had the pleasure, working at Disability Rights Oregon, where some of my biggest champions for different pieces of legislation have been Republicans. And I got to know Senator Knopp, [R-Bend], quite well over issues related to trying to end shortened school days for kids with disabilities. He also helped champion a piece of legislation that I was working on to end discrimination in how we prioritize what we cover on the Oregon Health Plan.

Having relationships across the aisle and finding those things that unite us. He and I don’t agree on a woman’s right to choose, we don’t agree on this or that. But to have an issue and connect and work effectively together, I think that’s what every elected official needs to bring in working with their colleagues, that there is more that unites us than divides us. And I am really focused on being effective and making change. And that requires listening to others and finding compromise.

Miller: Vadim Mozyrsky, what do you think you would bring to the Commission in terms of temperament?

Mozyrsky: So I don’t come from an advocacy background. And I think that that’s actually pretty important. As a judge, you have to weigh different issues and see what works. And that’s what I bring to the table, sort of that practical analysis of how we spend our money, how we set our policies. And I think that really probably stems from being a refugee from the Ukraine. My family came here with nothing. You have to make do, you have to find out how to pay for things, and make sure that you’re using common sense to do that. So that’s kind of been my guiding light, both in my career as well as in my public service.

I’ve been on a couple organizations that have overseen the police. And I was on these organizations during the racial justice movement when we had protests in the street and we also had riots in the evenings. We actually reached out to people that were writing, but we also reached out to people that wanted to have more police services during that time because of the crime rate … and try to find commonality and make recommendations to the mayor about what that would look like. Some of those were taken up. Some of those were not. Nonetheless, that’s what it takes.

So if you look at my website, votevadim.com, I’m endorsed by several of the mayoral candidates, leading mayoral candidates, a bunch of the people that are running for City Council as well, including Dan Ryan, who’s on City Council right now, several of the past and current county commissioners. And that’s because I’ve worked with these people. It’s not about me advocating or lobbying them or anything. I’ve worked with these individuals in the past. They know they can trust me. They know we can work together to get things done. And I think that’s important. That’s the experience that we need.

Miller: What do you want to see – Vadim, you can take this first – in terms of the relationship with the city. It’s had its ups and downs but I think, as listeners know, the city government is about to undergo a massive transformation. What do you want to see in terms of the relationship between the county and the city, and what would you do as a member of the Commission to further that?

Mozyrsky: Well, I’m actually surprised you said it has had its ups and downs. For the past few years, it seems like we’ve had a lot of downs, a lot of finger pointing – the city blaming the county for closing the winter shelters too early; the county blaming the city because they didn’t have enough volunteers. Then, of course, the join-ups of homeless services, where I think this week the city is actually discussing whether they want to stay in that agreement with the county, about how we pay for and address homelessness, drug addiction, mental illness in our streets.

We see a lot of discord. And what we need to do right now – and I’m sure everybody will agree with me – is to work together better. The question is in the details. How do we do that? And there has to be transparency and accountability. Right now, the county has a lot of closed-door meetings, whether it’s about the deflection center in the Buckman neighborhood, where all the decisions were made amongst the few individuals without public input. A very similar thing happens with the Joint Office of Homeless Services. A very similar thing happens with our public safety entity, the Local Public Safety Coordinating Council (LPSCC) that the county is on.

There’s a lot of secrecy going around. We need to open it up, have those frank discussions, get buy-in, not only from our elected officials but from people that live, work and visit Multnomah County and Portland. So we can’t have this thing where the budget is provided a day before we actually need to vote on it. We have to have input, we have to have a transparency. And then we have to make sure that people understand where the money is being spent, what’s being done, so later on, they can keep me in the job or fire me depending on how I’m doing, rather than trying to understand whose fault it is.

Miller: Meghan Moyer, what would you want to see going forward, in terms of this partnership? And what role would you play in it?

Moyer: One of the critiques I would make [about] the relationship between the city and the county, but also in every “plan” that’s come out – and I use quotation marks for that – is we’re not getting specific about what shared goals we have. How are we measuring success? What is everybody’s individual role? And how will we hold them accountable for that?

And for me, I think we have to be radically transparent with voters because we have lost faith in our ability to address this crisis. So I really believe that this is a historic moment. We’re going to have a totally new city government. We’re going to have a lot of very new county commissioners. It is a moment to come together. Let the past be the past, and let us adopt a very clear, measurable, transparent game plan of how we’re going to address homelessness. We have to get real that the same approach does not work for every population.

So we’re going to have this overarching, clear goal of how we define success. I have been clear that I would like it to look at incremental levels of success. So it’s not just, did we get you off the street and into a shelter? Where are you in six months? Where are you in 12 months? Where are you in 24 months? That’s how I want to measure success. And then I wanna make sure that we’re looking at each subgroup. And ultimately, when we’re delivering service on an individual level, how do we get you there? How do we get you to the most secure, long-term successful placement, wherever that is for you, in 24 months.

I believe if we can come to agreement on what those goals are, and how we’re going to measure that, and we are very transparent with voters about that, we can hold each other accountable. And that will reduce some of the finger pointing. But it will also allow voters to have a sense of, “Oh, this didn’t work. That was a county responsibility.” “Oh, that was a great success. Way to go city.” And I think that will help, hopefully get some of the finger pointing out, but also that we are on a shared goal and understand our role and how it impacts our city partners to get to where we want to go.

Miller: Meghan Moyer and Vadim Mozyrsky, thanks very much to both of you.

Mozyrsky: Thank you so much, it was great being here.

Moyer: Thank you.

Miller: Meghan Moyer and Vadim Mozyrsky are both running for the seat of District 1 of the Multnomah County Commission. Vadim Mozyrsky is an administrative law judge for the Social Security Administration. Meghan Moyer is the director of Public Policy for Disability Rights Oregon.

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