Portland City Council District 2 candidates forum

In 2022, Portland residents voted to drastically change the city’s form of government. That includes using ranked choice voting to expand the city council from five seats to 12. Another change is the creation of four geographic districts, with voters in each district electing three candidates to represent them on the new council.

District 2 covers most of North and Northeast Portland, including neighborhoods such as Irvington, St. John’s, Kenton and Cully. On Oct. 17, “Think Out Loud” convened a District 2 candidates forum at Oakshire Beer Hall. We invited the 12 candidates with the largest number of donors who contributed to their campaigns. They include: Marnie Glickman, Mariah Hudson, Sameer Kanal, Debbie Kitchin, Mike Marshall, Tiffani Penson, Elana Pirtle-Guiney, Dan Ryan, Jonathan Tasini, Nat West and Nabil Zaghloul.

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’re going to spend the hour today listening to part of a Portland City Council candidate forum that we held recently. It was for District 2, which includes most of North and Northeast Portland. We did it in front of an audience at Oakshire Beer Hall. As for all of these forums, we made the decision to limit the number of candidates on the stage. Invitations were based on the number of individual donors who contributed to their campaigns. Eleven candidates joined us. I started by drawing a name at random.

Miller: Nat West starts us off. He’s the founder of the now shuttered Reverend Nat’s Hard Cider. Welcome.

Nat West: Thank you. Thank you. Used to sell a lot of cider here.

Miller: What do you see as the most urgent issue facing District 2?

West: Outside of homelessness?

Miller: You can answer the question however you want.

West: Yeah, I’m going to go with homelessness, but as it relates to housing prices as well. We’re short on the number of housing units that we need. There’s currently about 500 units under development citywide right now. State economists think that we need about 5,000 or 6,000 per year for the next bunch of years.

The real challenge with that is as we run out of housing, as housing gets tighter, our rents go up. It’s more challenging to find another house to move into. And then more importantly, the concept of affordable housing changes. Naturally, affordable housing, older housing stock stays inhabited by people who have higher incomes because they don’t have anywhere to move into. It’s a real challenge to build housing in the city of Portland right now because our permitting is extremely slow, the time to receive a permit. There’s uncertainty around design reviews. So you might submit a proposal for multifamily housing and not know if it’s going to get approved, even though you just built one last year.

So a lot of work that we need to do in the city of Portland to increase housing stock, which will have a big bleed over effect on housing prices overall, which will heavily affect homelessness.

Miller: You may answer this if you want to. I can ask you a different question, but if you want, you have a chance to say what else you would do to address what you see as the biggest problem of homelessness and housing, or I can ask you another question.

West: Yeah, I’ll tie a little bit more into that. One of the big problems that we’re actually in the process of solving right now is creating a combined permitting bureau. I have a story some of you may have heard before where I spent three years locked in permit hell, negotiating a disagreement between Portland Water Bureau and Bureau of Environmental Services. When you’re a food and beverage manufacturer, you have to have your sewer system approved by the Bureau of Environmental Services to make sure you’re not sending heavy bio waste through your system. They wanted me to build my sewer this way and the Water Bureau wanted me to build it that way, and they wouldn’t agree.

I elevated it to the ombudsman. I even called Earl Blumenauer. He used to drink a lot of my cider, which was nice. [Laughter] And he used to work for the city of Portland. So I asked him, I said, hey, can you help me out? He couldn’t. But I ended up finally negotiating a peace between those two bureaus … and we’re getting rid of that. We’re combining all the permitting into one bureau. Carmen Rubio did a great job on that and there’s still work to be done.

Miller: Nat, Kip P. asked, “Would you support an expanded police force recruited to better reflect Portland’s population to establish a high saturation cops-on-foot patrol model?”

West: Woah, there’s a lot there. I’ll say that the current … it’s something like 70% of Portland police officers don’t live in the city of Portland and that’s wild. The current crop of sworn police officers that just graduated … was it two weeks ago, Dan? I think, yeah, last week. That’s a very representative of Portland class, more women, more People of Color, more Portland residents than we’ve seen out of the police force as a whole. So I think we’re already making some progress on having the police force be representative of Portland.

There are about 100 budgeted, unfilled positions in the Portland Police Bureau, so I don’t think we need to add more money to solve the police staffing problem. The Portland Police budget is the highest it’s ever been. And we have about 2014 or ‘15 levels of staffing. So money isn’t necessarily the problem. There are other problems with getting more police in our communities.

Miller: What are those problems that you’d want to address?

West: Yeah. Well, a lot of it is recruiting the right kind of people. We don’t want folks from like Washougal, right? We want people who live in District 2 to help make District 2 safer. And so a lot of that’s about recruitment as well as retention.

Miller: Nat West, thanks very much.

Sameer Kanal is inclusive policy manager for the city of Portland’s Public Safety Service Area. Same first question to you. I should say the same first question to all of you: What do you see as the most urgent issue facing District 2?

Sameer Kanal: Yeah. So the lack of a fully implemented, holistic, preventative community safety system. Holistic means that we’re investing in the services necessary to meet everyone’s needs because community safety is a society where we all have our needs met. And preventative means that we are focusing on the things that we need to do to make it so that you don’t have to call 911 in the first place. And so when we do have a need for a response, we need to make sure that we’ve got the staffing and the technological support for 911 necessary, so that calls are responded to quickly – with the national standard of 90% of calls being answered within 10 seconds. And then the preventative side is making sure that we’re fully funding things like our Office of Violence Prevention.

Miller: How would you, as one member of the new 12-person council, accomplish what you’ve just outlined? How would you solve that problem?

Kanal: Yeah. What I bring is that I’m a consensus builder and I’ve worked in the city for three years. I did actually leave the position to campaign full time now. I was a project manager for the Police Accountability Commission, which is a group of 20 people that work together across different ideological and other backgrounds. And I’m really proud that they ended their work on time and on budget, but I’m particularly proud that they ended unanimously. And I think taking that approach is what I would do to my future colleagues on city council, so we can build a seven and ideally 12 votes in favor of things like fully funding the Office of Violence Prevention, making sure that we have 24/7 Portland Street Response citywide. [applause] Yes. And also making sure that we do get those 911 response times down and address those things that sort of support a holistic, preventative community safety vision, like ensuring everyone has a roof over their head.

Miller: This is a question that came, I think from online: “Portland needs many more affordable living units. How specifically will you find the money, land and political will?”

Kanal: So actually, little known fact, the city owns a lot of land right now and a lot of it is available. I think we’re also going to build more land with the Albina I-5 lid, without doubling the width of the freeway. So that’s the land part of the question. In terms of where we do it, I support social housing. We should be getting a bond together to have a replenishing fund that can do the seed money for social housing. If you’ve followed along with Mitch Green in District 4, he talks about this a lot. We have very similar proposals on this.

Miller: Please describe what you understand to be the role of a city councilperson under the new form of government. And what are your qualifications for that role?

Kanal: Yeah, up until a couple weeks ago, I was inclusive policy manager for the city of Portland’s Public Safety Service Area. The job was connecting community engagement to policy development processes.

The question was, what do city council members do in the new system? In my view, connecting community engagement to policy development processes because we need to build a city that listens. It’s not enough for us to vote in Portland like it is in other cities because we see that what you vote for gets undermined over, and over, and over again. What we need is a city council that’s going to implement what you vote for in ballot measures and not undermine it, and make sure that what you talk about actually affects the policy decisions that we make.

Miller: How are you going to implement it if you are essentially a lawmaker, and the implementation largely is going to be to the mayor and the administrator?

Kanal: Yeah. So the administrator and other bureau directors, we need to do oversight. We need to call folks in and say, what are your metrics? We’ve developed metrics through policy making processes and ask you, not in a punitive way such as why didn’t you meet the metrics? But what can the city council do in terms of funding, or in terms of structures, or things like applying for grants for the state and federal level to help our bureau directors and our administrator get to that point. And having worked in the city for a few years, I think I’m uniquely qualified to help do that.

Miller: You have about 20 seconds left to tell voters here something else they should know about you.

Kanal: I used to perform at the Saturday market. I was a drummer at the Skidmore Stage. I’m a season ticket holder for the Timbers and Thorns. And yeah, happy to be back in Portland and where I was born in Overlook.

Miller: Thanks Sameer Kanal, thanks very much.

Dan Ryan is a Portland city commissioner. Dan Ryan, welcome.

Dan Ryan: Thank you.

Miller: Same first question to you: What do you see as the most urgent issue facing District 2?

Ryan: Well, citywide, countywide, I think we’re in denial. We are in denial about our drug crisis on our streets. And so we have to get out of denial about that and really tackle it by having withdrawal centers – not deflection centers, but actually withdrawal centers – with medical supervised people there to monitor that really excruciating process. And then allow people at the end of that to decide to choose recovery, hopefully. Then go from worst to first when it comes to recovery services.

Miller: What would the city’s role in that be? What you’re describing to me traditionally sounds very county-like.

Ryan: It is. But that’s the thing. We basically have handoffs all the time between the city and the county. So if the city doesn’t ask for things and doesn’t advocate for things, it’s really hard for the county to get out of their denial.

Miller: So, what would you do as a future member of the city council to make that happen?

Ryan: Well, I’ve been pretty relentless on it, so I’m not going to stop. I’m in a family of people in recovery, and so the five of us that are still alive are in recovery. So I know it’s a big deal. I think we’re not seeing what the North Star can be. Getting people from being dependent on drugs and alcohol, and to being dependent on government services is not the way I think most people want to live. So it would be great to really have a North Star that we can all get behind from the state, all the way down to the city, which means that you’re actually independent, and you’re back in the workforce, and you’re independent of government services, and you’re living a happy joyous life and connecting with Portland at places like this … drinking non-alcoholic beer. [Laughter]

Miller: Let’s take some questions here from our randomized stack ...

Ryan: Can I say one about the local, like just District 2?

Miller: You can.

Ryan: So the Columbia and the Willamette come together in District 2. And that’s a beautiful thing. But it also means when there’s the big one, we’re going to be very vulnerable to a natural disaster. And so we really have to look at where the cut goes through as you get towards St. Johns because that area would become isolated. So the Office of Emergency Management has to have a much better plan, because I don’t think we have a very good one right now, that really looks at this and makes sure that we, as a representative, as a district go hard on that and demand answers at the council meetings. [Applause]

Miller: What have you learned that has surprised you as you’ve been canvassing for this new job?

Ryan: That everyone’s confused about ranked choice voting. [Laughter] And I think, really, what I just keep hearing over and over again is that it’s more expensive to live here than ever and my services are going down. So we, when we’re elected, have to be customer service zealots and get people to return a phone call, return an email, listen … because it’s all about listening, learning and then acting. And if you don’t listen to your constituents, you have no idea what you’re acting on.

We’ve allowed too many special interests to tell us what we’re supposed to do. When I go door to door, you hear people from all different ideologies say the same thing. This is a nonpartisan race for an issue. People want the 911 call to get picked up. They want the police to show up on time, meaning right away because when you call 911, you’re not there to talk about the weather or the Duck game last weekend. And so you just really need to make sure that you pick up the phone.

Miller: Thank you.

Ryan: You’re welcome.

Miller: That’s Dan Ryan.

Nabil Zaghloul is the director for social service programs at Multnomah County. Welcome.

Nabil Zaghloul: Thank you. Thank you for being here. You could have been somewhere else, but thank you.

Miller: What do you see as the most urgent issue facing District 2?

Zaghloul: As I go canvassing, people are really frustrated and tired with homelessness – a crisis that is unmanaged, lack of order and rules. Seeing that people and small businesses are really hurting. We are witnessing startup businesses and entrepreneurs leaving our cities, going to our neighboring cities like Vancouver or Beaverton.

We really need to start asking the uncomfortable questions, the tough questions about homelessness. And I asked, why are we providing items like tents, while we have a high rate of vacancies in shelters? This is not against the homeless population. It is not against outdoor and voluntary outdoor living, but rather, it is about the wellbeing of the entire community. It’s about safety for everyone, it’s about cleanliness, it’s about hygiene. So we really need to get our act together and address the homelessness. And I can tell you a high performing homeless program that I have been running here in District 2 for the last 30 years. I could tell you about proven track records. When you combine transitional housing, mental health and treatment, they work.

I was just canvassing and I knocked on this door, this lady who bought that house with her husband in 1967, and she worked for 911 for 40 years. I gave her one of those [inaudible] pieces, and I said I would love to earn your vote. She looked me in the eye and said, “Why should I vote for you?” That is the right question we should be asking. And she said, “By the way, I am not interested in vague policies, or great ideas, or empty promises. I want you to tell me what you have done to make our district better, what you have done to make our city better?” And I said, “Thank you, ma’am, for asking the question. For over 30 years I run primary care clinics here for Medicare and Medicaid. I run harm reduction measures here in District 2, mental health, drug and alcohol, and counseling, and also large economic initiatives that support thousands of residents in this District 2, that reduce homelessness and increase home retention. Also, I run and manage here, in District 2 a youth program service, because they are the key demographics for the local economic growth. We need to invest in youths, in young people.”

[Laughter] So I will stop there, or do you want me to go?

Miller: No, let me ask a question. From Jeff D. who wrote, “I’m afraid of siting a Bottle Drop in my neighborhood…” The bigger question here is how you would approach siting various things that some neighbors might not want – a Bottle Drop or a new shelter site. How would you make those decisions?

Zaghloul: About shelters?

Miller: Yeah. And how would you deal with neighbor opposition?

Zaghloul: OK. Well, it’s really about inclusion. I talked to folks, and they said, Nabil the city, the county passes these orders, these bills. I was not even involved. So we need to increase participation of the citizens, of the residents in those initiatives.

We don’t have enough shelter. So we need to increase shelters. We do have a high vacancy rate. We need to basically increase those … because we don’t have performance metrics. That basically says we’re going to reduce 15% of the unsheltered population. We need to focus on building affordable housing. I’ll be happy to talk because we’re all talking about these different things.

Miller: You’ve got 10 seconds left.

Zaghloul: OK, go ahead.

Miller: No, you’ve got 10 seconds left. [Laughter]

Zaghloul: OK. So I would love to talk about different policies. But at the end, it’s not about taking Portland where it was back. We need to move forward. It’s about making a vibrant community, but we need to have law and order.

Miller: Nabil Zaghloul, Thank you very much.

Zaghloul: Thank you.

Miller: Jonathan Tasini is an organizational and communications strategist. Welcome.

Jonathan Tasini: Thank you for having me.

Miller: Same first question to you: What do you see as the most urgent issue facing District 2?

Tasini: So let me start, first of all, by thanking everybody for coming. This is amazing. And let me answer that questions by asking folks a little poll. Raise your hand if you’ve been a union member or you are currently a union member. That’s incredible.

The real challenge in this city is the gap between rich and poor, and the wage gap, and the wealth gap. And I want to give you a couple of points to understand what is happening in our city. So today, I was at a demonstration by PSU AAUP. They are trying to stop the layoffs that were forced upon them at PSU. Not too long ago, I was on the picket line at Fred Meyer where working people, hardworking people, UFCW members are trying to get a decent wage. I’ve been on the picket line for the folks, many of them young folks who are trying to organize a union at New Seasons. The folks at Boeing are out striking at Sandy just trying to get decent pensions and wages. There’s a picket line just a week ago at the Water Bureau. That’s a city facility. AFSCME members are just trying to get a contract, enough to feed their families.

And the last example I want to give, because I think it’s relevant to the homelessness we talk about, and really, frankly greed that is pervasive throughout our city – 500 OHSU members are being laid off, while the CEO of OHSU is making $1.5 million. That is immoral and that should not happen in our city. [Audience claps]

Miller: Let me ask you, or do you have a lot more on the list?

Tasini: I’m going to stop and say this is why it’s relevant to the 2nd district, because when I go and knock on doors – and I’ve knocked on 10,000 doors already – when I go, whether it’s in North Portland, or Cully, or in the middle part of the district, people understand that the inequality and the power of big corporations, particularly the polluters, who have essentially … If you take Zenith Energy, for example, where the city council approved a permit that is going to endanger every single person standing here, every single person’s kids, by trucking through some of the most dangerous products. That was this city council, majority vote, did a backdoor deal to endanger every single family.

Miller: What would you do as a member of the city council about all those issues you’re talking about, whether it’s OHSU or PSU, where there aren’t the same kind of votes, say, for Zenith Energy?

Tasini: So number one, I believe that we have to raise the minimum wage in this state to $25 an hour. And we have to rally the people in this city and throughout the state to do that. In order to afford a two-bedroom home in this city, the minimum wage needs to be $32 an hour … and it’s only $15.95. If you want to talk about homelessness, it is not about addiction, it is not about mental illness. Those are effects of an economic system that is making it impossible for people to have universal shelter, which should be a right in this city.

Number two, no contractor – I obviously have to get a majority – that comes and that abuses workers in this city will get a dime of your taxpayer money. They will not get contracts. And if those contracts exist, I will move to cancel those contracts, because frankly, people, we have to look out for each other. We have to make sure that people get a decent wage.

Miller: You got about 20 seconds left. What else should voters here know about you?

Tasini: Well, as I said before in the introduction, the most important economic movement in my lifetime has been the labor movement, along with the women’s movement, the LGBT movement – because that was about economic rights – and the civil rights movement. Labor must be strong in the city. The people, not the big corporations, but the people should run this city. Enough is enough.

Miller: Jonathan Tasini, thanks very much. That’s Jonathan Tasini.

Marnie Glickman is a public interest advocate. Welcome.

Marnie Glickman: Thank you for having me.

Miller: Same first question to you: What do you see as the most urgent issue that District 2 is facing?

Glickman: Homelessness is the most important crisis, not just in District 2, but across the city. And I believe unsheltered homelessness is solvable. I think we need to do that by bringing people together to solve problems. And I believe we can do that in Portland.

Miller: What specifically would you do?

Glickman: What specifically would I do? Well, a variety of things. First of all, I believe that housing is a human right, so that we need to have affordable housing, deeply affordable housing. So if I’m lucky enough to be elected by all of you, I would focus on deeply affordable housing for people who earn less than $40,000 a year, and that housing needs to have supportive wraparound services. I also believe in social housing. The Portland Housing Bureau’s strategy is really good, and I would support the implementation of that as well.

I would do one more thing. I also know that some of you have been reading the news about the new move on the city council to pull out of the Joint Office on Homeless Services. And I respectfully disagree with Commissioner Ryan, Mapps and Gonzalez. I do not think it’s time for a messy divorce when people are on the streets. And as your city councilperson, I would help bring people together to create metrics and to work together. We have to solve this problem working together.

Miller: Here’s a question we got from our audience: “Portland streets, including arterials, are in terrible condition. Why? And what will you do to address this?”

Glickman: Well, they are in terrible condition. And it’s putting people’s lives in danger. This year, 14 people were killed in traffic violence in District 2. That number comes from the Portland Police Bureau’s data. And so I think we need to focus on ways to make Vision Zero real. So Vision Zero, for any of you who don’t know, is the city’s plan to eliminate traffic deaths. And it’s not working, so we need to figure out what we need to do better.

Miller: Our listener, Greg, asked, “What’s your vision for an integrated mental health, healthcare and housing program for the unsheltered?”

Glickman: Well, I will go back to my brief mention of the Joint Office on Homeless Services. My plan is to work together to figure out a plan for us to cooperate effectively for taxpayers with Multnomah County, with the state of Oregon and with the federal government. And so this is about one person. I used to be a school board member and at school board school, they taught me, you’re only one of five. And so I would only be one of 12, and humble and modest for all of you, but I think our new city legislature needs people like me who have experience on dealing with these hard problems.

Miller: A listener online asked, “How do you propose to help arts and culture organizations still struggling for audiences after COVID?”

Glickman: Sure. Well, arts and culture is really important to me. I think that we need to increase the amount of city funding. I have a proposal to create a fund of $10 million for medium-sized arts groups, so that we can make sure that those organizations can continue to thrive. I also have been public about my support for independent music venues. I was there to fight against the Live [Nation]-Ticketmaster venue.

Miller: Live Nation.

Glickman: Yeah. Live Nation, owned by Ticketmaster. And it’s an example of something I would do differently. I would not support this decision – 40 state attorney generals are suing Ticketmaster and even our attorney general. So I think that that would be a difference between me and some of the other opponents.

Miller: Marnie Glickman, thanks very much.

Glickman: Thank you, everyone.

Miller: Elana Pirtle-Guiney is a policy and advocacy consultant. Welcome. Good to have you here.

Elana Pirtle-Guiney: Thank you. Good to be here.

Miller: Same first question to you: What do you see as the most urgent issue facing District 2?

Pirtle-Guiney: So we’ve heard about a lot of issues already, and homelessness, and public safety, and the wage gap are incredibly important issues that we need to tackle statewide. But when I think about specifically what disproportionately affects District 2, I think about resiliency. Because in District 2, we not only have the rivers alongside us that have ground that will liquefy in an earthquake, we have a community right across the river from the Critical Energy Infrastructure Hub – the CEI Hub – which not only in an earthquake, but in a wildfire in Forest Park or any other number of disasters, could explode. Depending on how bad an earthquake is, either three or five neighborhoods will be completely cut off from the rest of the city. We have the levees along the north part of our district.

Emergency management resilience preparation disproportionately affects our district. And the reason I think that’s an important thing to bring up is because it is the type of issue where we have to say there is a problem and we can’t deal with it all at once. And that’s a scary thing to do. It’s scary to look at all of you and say we have a crisis, an impending crisis that we can’t afford to address today and that leaves you all at risk. But until we say that, and start our emergency management plans, and make sure you all know what those risks are so that you can have your family plans as well, we’re not going to get anywhere. And I think this is one of many challenges at the city, where we have to name the problem, even if we know we can’t fully address it today, which takes boldness, and guts, and I bring that type of leadership.

Miller: After naming it and acknowledging that it can’t be fixed in two years or four years, what would you do in the near-term as a member of the council?

Pirtle-Guiney: So on CEI Hub, the state is starting to look at where we can move those facilities to, that would be a more secure location. The city has an important role in pushing the state to move faster and making sure that that project doesn’t stall out. Along the levies, we have funding to replace those, but we need to make sure that the neighbors right along those neighborhoods and those communities are part of that process. And we have a lot of work to do to make sure that our transportation funding includes funds set aside to make sure that we have safe routes in and out of all of our communities.

Those are just a couple of easy things. There’s a lot more we can do as well, including listening to our emergency management directors, who I know sometimes feel like their concerns aren’t heard.

Miller: Whether it’s a renovated or wholly new Keller Auditorium, the possibility of a major league baseball stadium, how would you approach votes on big civic infrastructure projects that may come to you?

Pirtle-Guiney: So, a couple of things. First of all, where these are funding issues, we need to look at how we weigh the funding for those projects with the need for basic services in our community. And there are times where we can afford to do projects like that, and there are times where budgets are tight and we can’t afford to do projects like that.

When the question is not funding, when the question is policy or making sure that the projects can move forward – as with not Live Nation, but the other venue that is in discussion right now in Portland in District 2, actually – what I look for our partners who are willing to live up to the standards we’ve put in place around our environmental standards and our workforce standards. Who can we work with that is going to pay a living wage to the folks who they are employing? Who can we work with that is going to be a good contractor? And if we do put dollars on the table, then I think what we need to do is demand those types of standards, demand that these are living wage jobs … because we shouldn’t be subsidizing work that doesn’t allow somebody to live in our community and that they really live up to the values that you all hold.

Miller: Elana Pirtle-Guiney, thanks very much.

Pirtle-Guiney: Thank you.

Miller: Tiffani Penson is the people and culture manager for the city of Portland. What do you see as the most urgent issue facing District 2?

Tiffani Penson: So everyone touched on most of the things, and when we talk about housing, it is inhumane to have people living on the street. And we need to really just look at that from a humanity standpoint. I think one of the things that bothers me the most is that we’re not really looking at it from this heart thing. You can’t have people living on the street. We’re in one of the richest countries, so we need to figure out the resources and things that they need. And also, we need sobering centers. We need shelters, we need temporary housing, and all of the above.

As the Portland Community College School Board member, we just opened up 42nd Avenue right here, Opportunity Center. And the good thing about that is that it’s going to have affordable housing. So when you think about ways to ensure that people have access to education, career pathways, affordable housing, that’s a good example of how you bring partners together. Home Forward, NAYA. It will have day care and it will have 84 units of affordable housing. And right now, our board, we are looking at other opportunities throughout the city by our schools to create more properties like that.

I also was also born and raised here. I live in the house that I grew up in. At 9 years old, I used to take the bus from that house all the way to Catlin Gabel safely. Not a care in the world. And one reason I was able to do that is because it was safe. We had good public safety. You knew if you called 911, someone was gonna answer. You knew if you needed the police, they were going to come. You knew if you needed [the] fire [department], they were going to come. I’m experienced enough to know, yes, are there systemic and cultural issues wrong with policing? Absolutely. And we have to address that. But the data point, no matter who you are, what you want is safe, well trained, accountable police. It is not real to think that you can have a thriving city without a good 911, fire and police.

So those are some things. And then around maintenance, this was the cleanest city. I don’t even spit on the ground because my father used to say, “Little chief, don’t litter, don’t spit, take care of where you live.” [Applause] Yes. Yes. Yes. The thing that hurts me so much is like the filth on our city streets. The human feces … this city is too beautiful for that. And so I’m really about delivering on the basic services. Our regular maintenance, maintaining our roads – like potholes are a symptom of a much larger problem, which is the lack of maintenance, right? I grew up where everything was always well kept. Our parks, out in North Portland, two pools closed out there. I mean, that’s not real. I grew up Peninsula Park. You went to Peninsula Park, you could swim, you always had activities and things like that, and our public spaces should be well kept and welcoming because they serve all economic levels.

So I’m really about the basics. I’m very experienced in creating policy in the city. I create a policy that supports women, minority-owned businesses, providing technical assistance and access to city contracts – and that’s key. We are built on small business, we have to take care of them. And they are struggling. So expanding policy makes sure that small businesses have opportunities to thrive. If we don’t have them, we have nothing. So yeah. [sighs] [Laughter/Applause]

Miller: Tiffani Penson, thank you very much.

Mariah Hudson is a senior health care communications specialist at OHSU. Welcome.

Mariah Hudson: Thank you.

Miller: What do you see as the most urgent issue that’s facing District 2?

Hudson: Well, I’ll start with: the Portland we love is safe, affordable and sustainable … and that begins with safe. I look at that as a parent and I have a child that goes to Beaumont, just up here on 42nd. He rides the TriMet bus to Beaumont because he decided he needed to play the biggest instrument, a tuba. [Laughter] So he takes his tuba on the bus.

But safety means three things to me. It means having the first responders we need there when we have an emergency, and appropriately staffing for that. It also means roads that are designed, intersections that are daylighted, so that people like my son, whether you’re ,9 or you or 90, you feel safe in our public spaces. And third, it means providing the resources and the shelter spaces to help people off of our streets, so that our public spaces are accessible to all of us. And I have the experience doing that.

Miller: What would you do, specifically, to make all of that – or any, choose any one of those – a reality?

Hudson: Yeah. So I think, I hear at the doorsteps that homelessness is first on people’s minds. Many of us, because it’s very visible in our city. And helping people from tents into shelters is something I’ve done as the chair of the Northeast Coalition of Neighborhoods. I worked with neighbors and a neighborhood, the county and the city to help stand up a shelter. It’s still there at the corner of MLK and Killingsworth. Having that resource is a first step and I know from working at OHSU, the next steps are having the sobering spaces that we need, working with the county on that, and having the transitional housing in place to help people through the pathway to recovery, to jobs, to long-term stability.

Miller: How are you going to assess, for yourself, if this whole new system of government is working?

Hudson: Well in two years, what we need to see is a real difference on our streets. We need to feel a cultural difference. It’s time for Portland’s comeback, and Portland’s comeback starts in our neighborhoods. It starts with engaging you, our neighbors, having a voice on our city council, having three representatives that are listening to you and affecting your policies. We’ll know that succeeding when we see those policies changing at our city level, and we see it on the streets with clean, safe and available spaces.

Miller: Current city council members have six or seven staff members. If you’re elected, you might just have one. How would you prioritize their time? What would you have them do?

Hudson: Well, there’s really two roles for our city councilors in the new system. One is legislative, so I think a lot of time and effort needs to be spent on that, especially kind of considering the current issues on hand. And also constituent services; and, that’s very important to me as somebody who has worked extensively with our neighbors, our neighborhood associations and community organizations [to] have that real voice.

So in terms of prioritizing that, it’s going to be working across the three of us within a district. There’s probably going to need to be things like focus areas and task forces so that, yeah, we have three staffers, but we’re covering a lot of ground, and we’re going to have to work very closely at the bureaus and the county as well.

Miller: We got this question from a listener online: “I’m very concerned about the way money creates non representative legislatures. Please speak about your relationships to PACs and donors. What can you say unequivocally?”

Hudson: Unequivocally, I’ve spent my career in public service. And I chair two important budget committees – Portland Public Schools and also the Portland Bureau of Transportation’s Budget Committee – because I want to bring transparency and accountability to our city. So I can say unequivocally, those are my values. And in terms of my supporters, I can say unequivocally three things. One is I will have an open door to our communities. I will listen to our communities and I will vote my conscience. Thank you.

Miller: Thank you very much. That’s Mariah Hudson.

Mike Marshall is the co-founder and executive director of Oregon Recovers. Good to have you here.

Mike Marshall: Great to be here, Dave.

Miller: What do you see as the most urgent issue facing District 2?

Marshall: Yeah. My colleagues articulated a lot of great things. For me, it’s public safety, but it’s a really broad sort of look at that. Particularly around three things: our addiction crisis, our policing issues and our poverty rate – and we’re really not talking about that very much.

Addiction … I’m a person in long-term recovery. Come January, I will be 17 years clean and sober. [Applause] Thank you. And I run an addiction policy organization. So I’m an expert on what it takes, and we don’t need just one sobering center in the city. We need four sobering centers. So it’s easier for a cop to drop someone off at a sobering center than in a jail cell. We need a triple detox capacity. This morning, at our two detox facilities, we turned half the people away who lined up who wanted to get well. They were asking for help. We told them to come back tomorrow. That’s been going on for 10 years. And addiction is such an underlying issue, and all the other issues we’re talking about, and it is a huge part of our public safety problem.

And then we need someplace for people to go. So we need 1,000 more sober beds in group homes. None of this the city would really even have to pay for. It’s Medicaid reimbursable. There’s two existing organizations that run our detox centers, but nobody at the city has been focused on the fact that we don’t have this infrastructure. Eighteen percent of the people in District 2, 12 and older, are addicted to substances. It’s a huge issue that we’re not dealing with, number one.

Number two, policing I think is a huge issue. Response times are terrible. And people don’t feel safe walking down the street, going to the parks. Also young Black men don’t feel safe walking down the street. So policing – we have to come at it in the context of how do we make people feel confident in the fact that it’s a safe community. As has been said before, we need 200 more cops, but we need to hire cops that live in Portland, that are raising their families in Portland, are from Portland. When 70% of our police force live outside the city, there’s no way we can have community policing if people don’t live in the community. [Applause]

And the last thing I just want to say real quickly is 12% of the kids in District 2 live below the poverty level; 20% tonight experience food insecurity; 40% housing insecurity. If we want to know why we have such high addiction rates, and high homeless rates, and huge mental health problems, it’s because we have so many kids being raised in poverty. Those three things are sort of an incubator for all those other issues. During COVID, the federal government cut the national child poverty rate in half, by 50%, in 18 months. We know how to deal with this. It turns out when you give parents money, they spend it on their kids and lift them up. [Applause]

Miller: Here’s a question that came from somebody in this audience. I wish I had thought of it. Which of the mayoral candidates do you feel you would best be able to work with? Thank you whoever wrote that. [Laughter]

Marshall: Really? Ten people went up before me.

Miller: Yeah, it’s the luck of the draw.

Marshall: So, first of all, I want to acknowledge all of them that are running. The fact that we have a stripper running is so Portland, it’s great. Personally, Carmen Rubio is my friend and I think highly of her, but I understand that a lot of people have lost confidence in her. I wouldn’t and I haven’t.

I’ve also gotten to know Keith Wilson during this campaign and I really have come to have a lot of personal affection for him, as well as real regard for the passion he’s bringing to the homeless issue. I don’t agree with him on what his solution is, but I agree, we both agree, that there has got to be a solution. And if he gets elected, he will have a mandate to bring it forward. I think he’ll work with whoever the 12 people are. I think he’s extremely able to work with anybody.

Miller: Mike Marshall, thanks very much.

Debbie Kitchin is a co-owner of a general contracting company. Welcome.

Kitchin: Thank you. Glad to be here.

Miller: What do you see as the most urgent issue facing District 2?

Kitchin: Well, I think that many of the issues have been covered. There are so many in Portland now, but the one I want to focus on is housing and homelessness. We’re never going to solve the homelessness issue without more housing. That’s just the bottom line. And I want to work … especially because of my background in the housing sector for 30 years. And the fact that in my previous career, I was a regional economist, doing forecasts of housing, industry and buildings. Those are all skills that I want to bring to city council and in addressing this housing shortfall.

We have not been building enough housing for decades and we need to build more, especially low income but also middle-income housing. People are being squeezed out. And I think many of my colleagues have addressed some of the issues, some of the impacts that we see when we have housing shortages, housing insecurity, food insecurity. People are under stress, and it does lead to a lot of the social issues that we’ve talked about. So I want to make sure that we’re looking at the existing low income housing and preserving that.

I want to make sure that we are preventing homelessness as much as possible. So that includes more rent assistance and eviction prevention assistance. Right now, a person can’t get any assistance to avoid eviction until it’s almost right up to the time they’re going to be evicted. So we can’t … this is not a way to deal with this. We need to change how we approach this issue and give people assistance much earlier, because prevention is the best way to go.

Miller: Portland went from being a national darling to a national symbol of chaos, and fires, and homelessness, and drugs. And both of those are wild caricatures, but they’re narratives that have power. They do lead to people coming here or people leaving. Separate from all the policies that folks have been, and you were just talking about, how do you change the narrative of the city?

Kitchin: I agree that the narrative before the pandemic was that Portland was this nirvana, a great place to live. But, we had a lot of problems then. We weren’t really seeing a lot of the problems. We had homelessness then, we had poverty then, we had addiction then. It just wasn’t at the level that was so visible. So the awareness wasn’t as high, but we did have these problems. So I think it’s important that we don’t try to go back. We need to go forward, and we need to really bring true equity and opportunity for everyone in our community. I think part of it is we need to convince ourselves first. We need to convince ourselves that this is a great place to live.

I think many of the elements are here in Portland to have a great community. As I’ve gone around talking to people throughout the district, it is incredible how much great work people are doing, how much people are engaged in their neighborhoods. People love their small business community. Portlanders come out for small business, and I’ve been a small business champion for 30 years. I see this all the time. We love our small businesses. We just need to back it up with action that gives support. We need to do the basics. Our small businesses can’t survive if they’re being broken into, or experiencing theft, or experiencing vandalism over and over. So there are a lot of things in the basics that we need to take care of and that’s what we need to start doing. And when we can convince ourselves, we can become that better city. I think that’s what we need to start working on

Miller: Debbie Kitchin, thanks very much.

Kitchin: Thank you.

Miller: We finished the forum with a lightning round – a series of quick, often less serious questions intended to give voters a better sense of who these candidates are. Here is just a taste of it.

Miller: What is your favorite way to get around Portland?

Tasini: Jonathan Tasini. Bicycle.

Miller: All right. What do you think is Portland’s best season?

Marshall: Mike Marshall, and I will say summer.

Miller: From a listener online, “Do you support Portland’s stated goal of having 25% of trips be by bicycle, by 2030?”

West: This is Nat West. Yes. And I rode my bike here today. I ride my bike every day. [Cheers]

Miller: What is your favorite Portland bridge?

Glickman: My favorite Portland bridge is the St. Johns Bridge. [Cheers] Marnie Glickman.

Miller: Do you have a political hero?

Penson: So, Tiffani Penson, and right now it is Stacey Abrams. [Cheers]

Miller: What was your favorite concert?

Kanal: This is Sameer Kanal. I would say Foo Fighters’ Friends and Family Show in the Valley, about 15 years ago.

Miller: What would you name Portland’s new WNBA Team?

Kitchin: Oh, all right. I love this question. I’m Debbie Kitchin. And, we have the Portlandia statue, and I’ve heard it suggested that we should name them the Tridents because she’s holding a trident.

Miller: If you could time travel to another century, which one would you choose?

Pirtle-Guiney: Yeah, I’m going future. I’m going like 200 years from now to see if we save the planet.

Miller: Would you support a ban on natural gas hookups in new construction?

Zaghloul: What do you think? [Asking the audience] Yes, you are going to have to ask the constituents. OK, I go with you. Yes. [Applause]

Miller: Where should naloxone be available?

Hudson: I’m Mariah Hudson. I’ve got an eighth grader. I roll with the Boy Scouts sometimes as a parent volunteer. I think it should be available as widely as possible for our community.

Miller: What is your go-to karaoke song?

Ryan: Dan Ryan. Wish I was Dolly Parton. “9 to 5” [Applause].

Miller: That was part of the lightning round from the Portland City Council District 2 candidate forum that we held last week in Northeast Portland. A huge thanks to the Oakshire Beer Hall for hosting us.

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