In Their Own Words: Portland City Council Mayoral Candidates On The Issues

OPB asked each of the candidates running in Portland's mayoral race to fill out questionnaires on their qualifications and positions on key issues. Here is a look at some of their answers. Not all of the candidates responded. Some answers have been edited for typographical mistakes and length. 

How has the coronavirus pandemic changed your priorities? Has it changed your view of the role city government should play?

Related: In Portland Mayoral Race, Ted Wheeler Faces Challenges From The Left

Ted Wheeler: The pandemic has not changed my priorities so much as it has increased the urgency around making progress on them. Inequities that existed previously around health outcomes, economic prosperity, and access to housing have been amplified by COVID-19. We moved quickly and aggressively to limit COVID exposure, provide economic relief to small businesses (with an early emphasis on businesses owned and operated by people of color), and economic relief to low-income Portlanders in their housing.

The pandemic underscored the important role the mayor can play in convening partnerships and working collaboratively. Having a mayor with a track record of bringing different groups and stakeholders together to get things done is that much more important now. My administration has demonstrated that we can work well with partners around the region, something that is increasingly vital. Regional planning and cohesiveness is a must for emergency response and effective recovery.

Sarah Iannarone: The policies I've proposed throughout this campaign are more relevant than ever in the wake of COVID-19. Even before the pandemic struck, my Green New Deal for Our Portland, Rethinking Public Safety, Housing for All, and Good Government plans reflected a deep understanding that uncertainty and instability have become the new normal and that progressive cities like Portland play an important role modeling how to stabilize communities in the midst of global economic and political upheaval.

Truthfully, the “normal” we’re leaving behind wasn’t working for most Portlanders anyway. Increasing homelessness, rising housing costs, stagnant wages, traffic congestion, air and water pollution, systemic racism, rising greenhouse gas emissions, big money in politics, and neighborhoods divided by overgrowth was our everyday reality.

I launched my campaign for mayor because I understand that city government is one of the most important levels for problem-solving. As a city, we have the power to improve outcomes in our residents’ everyday lives while leading on solutions to global crises like the rise of authoritarianism, climate chaos, and staggering inequality.

For Portland to achieve our goals we must ensure we have a healthy democracy powered not by big money and special interests but by community-based politics.

Teressa Raiford: The pandemic has compressed and accelerated the negative trends of income insecurity, wealth inequality, housing insecurity, inadequate health care, and the hollowing-out of neighborhoods and small local businesses. In a few months, we've essentially fast-forwarded to a preview of how these challenges would otherwise have worsened over the coming decade.  However, this isn't just a preview. When the pandemic ends, we won't magically return to the situation as of 2019; these changes will remain with us. This means that Portland's city government in 2020 now has to rapidly make the changes that it was too-slowly inching toward making over the next ten years. I work with communities who were "already there" – already suffering from the conditions that the broader population is now experiencing. We know what we need to do, and now we need to do it faster and more decisively than the current city leaders have ever imagined.

Ozzie González: COVID-19 has taken our world by storm and shown us a lot about what makes us strong, what makes us vulnerable, and how much we depend on others for our daily needs. Locally, this pandemic has shown us how important local leadership is to our daily lives, how important it is that government and industry cooperate for the social good, and has given me a lot to think about with respect to how I will use the position of Mayor.

Aside from moving the entire campaign to digital platforms, my policy platform has remained intact. Resilience, disaster preparedness, and bolstering local production of critical supplies has always been on my policy agenda, but now the list of items that people consider critical is becoming much easier to define and much more urgent to address.

What has changed for me now is where the economic development focus should be. We clearly need to get back out working and living our lives again, but not everything will come back at the same pace or in the same form as before. Food production, first aid supplies, personal hygiene products, and emergency supplies will become the first line of industries I will make sure to position local production capacity for. Establishing better strategic plans with our region's industry partners and better emergency preparedness protocols with our agency partners is something I will make sure happens as Mayor.

Cash Carter: This crisis opened up my eyes to the fact that what we originally thought were secure types of employment such as ones in the food industry, are not in fact as secure as we thought and are some of the hardest-hit industries. I would like to invest in bringing more companies to Portland that offer work from home positions moving forward. Having these types of positions will increase the workforce for those who have disabilities or childcare issues.

Mark White: It hasn't changed my priorities, though I believe it has increased the importance and need to expand some components of my program models, such as the connection to and engagement of vulnerable populations.

For example, I plan to greatly expand our food industry and address food insecurity. I also have a program model that provides a tuition-free two-year online college degree in exchange for community service, titled the Portland Youth Corps (PYC). One part of increasing food security is a coordinated effort to glean fresh food from around the City for donation to those in need. PYC participants can provide much of the volunteer effort to obtain and distribute those foods, including residents in adult residential care facilities. One of the additions we can make is to have PYC participants collect data from residents and staff on what their needs are and how the City can quickly connect them to what they need to have and know in the event of an emergency.

However, my biggest priority will be to protect and fully support the needs of the upcoming Charter Commission, to make sure Portlanders can determine government structure without interference by City Council as was the case with the 2011 Charter Commission. While that is underway, I will be working to ensure government is working at maximum efficiency with absolutely no waste of tax revenue and solely focused on ensuring the safety and empowerment of citizens, which is even more critical now as a result of COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shut down construction. What are the specific steps the city can take to prevent this crisis from worsening the housing crisis?

Ted Wheeler: Development of housing, both market-rate and affordable, continues even during the COVID-19 pandemic. The permitting process was quickly shifted to a decentralized model (to allow for physical distancing) with a priority on healthcare-related projects, affordable housing projects and construction projects which were already underway. The City Council took early steps to provide rental support and funding for essential household supplies. My administration has continued to push forward on planned housing and development projects.

Sarah Iannarone: While COVID has had an impact on all industries, construction was deemed essential and has seen a fraction of the layoffs of the hospitality, service industry and "eds & meds" sectors. This suggests that housing stabilization initiatives will need to focus on the demand side: ensuring robust protections to avoid displacement at all costs by implementing tenants' right and anti-speculation policies, enforcing short-term rental policies currently on the books, and ensuring adequate resources are in place for rent and mortgage amnesty before eviction moratoriums are lifted.

In the longer term, Portland will need more creative and cost-effective solutions to bring a wider supply of housing options online as quickly as possible. I encourage you to visit my “Housing for All’ plan at sarah2020.com/housing for examples such as 3.a Senior home-sharing programs and 4.d Investments in community land trusts.

Teressa Raiford: The pandemic's greatest impact on housing, by far, is the loss of income for tenants and owners of existing housing. The impact on construction, which affects growth in future housing supply, can be mitigated in the short term by recognizing construction as "essential" with appropriate workplace precautions and ensuring that the city Bureau of Development Services provides uninterrupted permit and inspection services through the pandemic. BDS' permit process must be more streamlined and more efficient; this should have been addressed before the pandemic and the city should address it with more urgency now.

Longer-term, the major impact on housing development will be economic obstacles: the recession will limit the availability and increase the cost of project financing, and will reduce the financial ability of tenants and buyers to afford the higher-priced housing that represents the bulk of recent construction. A more rapid and predictable permit review process will help with the first obstacle by reducing project costs. To address the second obstacle, the city and private industry can prioritize the development of lower-priced housing, discourage removal of existing lower-priced housing, and encourage rehabilitation and re-use of existing structures.

Ozzie González: We need to continue with the development of housing even if it means moving the work to shops while all this settles out. My plan is to shift the focus of housing development to creating modular, pre-fabricated design standards that allow vendors to begin production of  building components immediately. Doing this not only allows us to continue providing jobs for people, it also accelerates the pace of building new housing once a site is selected.

The model of housing development we had in place before the pandemic was already showing to be more expensive and time-consuming than anticipated, so the pandemic has only accelerated the need to updated the process to perform better. Creating modular design standards, beginning production of modular systems, and defining building configuration prototypes with pre-approved site layouts are all things we can do today to make siting, permitting, and building housing much faster when the moment comes.

My policies for Transit-Oriented development and the Residential Infill policy are both examples of the other piece of this equation: we need to incentivize the development of housing. The bond should not be the only source of housing stock development, so making the private sector part of this plan is key to delivering housing at the scale needed.

Cash Carter: Convince the large management groups to freeze rent. I'm the only candidate who offers an alternative to paying rent. My plan includes having tenants only paying utilities included in rent (water, garbage, maintenance etc) and not held accountable for the remaining balance or unpaid rent being added up. This plan would keep apartments up and running during this crisis and is simple mathematics. You cannot be in debt if a recurring balance isn't being accumulated. We need the management groups to stop being greedy and do the right thing, hopefully we can get them all on board.

Mark White: City Council as it currently exists will be very unlikely to take any actions that might risk lowering business tax revenue further, but I believe this is the perfect opportunity to incentivize affordable housing construction. Rolling tax credits that could be applied to business tax debt owed to the City over the course of multiple years may be one possible option to jump-start construction with a specific focus on affordable housing.

That being said, we will need leadership that is willing to make the difficult decisions to strip government down to what is real in light of our current situation, instead of what is ideal. This will mean reductions in some areas and additions in others. While I believe we are in a very good position to rebound quickly with little reduction in services, I think it is also important to recognize that COVID-19 is a virus that so far, even with the limited anecdotal and confirmed data collected to date, shows it has the potential to be long-lasting and incredibly devastating around the entire planet. We should not lose sight of this as we try to adjust to a constantly changing new normal. Plan for the worst and hope for the best will need to be the government’s mantra, especially in light of the nonexistent leadership from the federal government. Most notably with regard to testing that will have a profound effect on what we can do to move forward post-pandemic.

What bureaus do you want to control? What qualifies you for those assignments? For mayoral candidates: Which bureaus will you keep for yourself? Why?

Ted Wheeler: I will assign bureaus based on three factors: First, how specific bureaus should be clustered together to maximize communication, collaboration, efficiency and innovation; second, the experience and skillsets of individual Commissioners; and third, the passion and interests that individual Commissioners bring to specific subject areas. I will remain open-minded and make these decisions after we know who the commissioners will be and I have the chance to discuss the above factors with them.

Sarah Iannarone: As a community leader and city planning expert, I am running for mayor largely to leverage my expertise for better coordination of urban development processes; I plan to keep those bureaus necessary to maximize gains in affordable housing provision while meeting our climate justice goals.

In addition, I will keep the police bureau initially to oversee the establishment of functional community oversight of policing and help rebuild trust between the bureau and public.

Finally, I plan to streamline multiple civic functions and possibly merge bureaus to establish an Office of Community Resilience to better prepare our community to survive future disasters (including a Cascadia Subduction Zone Earthquake) and mitigate the impacts of climate change on our most vulnerable residents.

I believe I have the experience and values needed to fulfill all of the duties of being mayor. Unlike the incumbent, I have the experience starting and owning a successful small business, being a working-class single mom, running a childcare co-op, leading a classroom, and successfully navigating the complexities of Portland’s city government from the ground up. No one is happy with the direction we are currently headed, we need elected officials with different experience than the wealthy status quo we currently have.

Teressa Raiford: Housing Bureau, Police Bureau, Development and Planning Bureaus. There is a lot of work to be done and these systemic issues have harmed Portlanders for generation. It's time to utilize a holistic approach to getting the work done.

Ozzie González: The bureaus I have selected for me represent the best fit with my policy agenda and leverage my technical background in design and land use policy. They are:

Asset Management & Facilities – To convert the vehicle fleet to renewable energy and upgrading existing city buildings to be more accessible, resilient, & green.

Development Services – To streamline the permitting process and ensure the development incentives for priority uses are in place and functional.

Environmental Services – To facilitate public/private infrastructure projects and align them with proposed land use programs and permitting procedures.

Parks & Recreation – To expand the role of parks in the city beyond the recreation aspects to include more social, cultural, and environmental service components.

Planning & Sustainability – This department serves an area of great interest and great expertise for me.  I see my impact on this bureau as one primarily focused on re-invigorating the message around the City’s Climate Action Plan to create incentives for the private sector to engage in climate actions on their own.

Transportation – This department is a critical one to the City’s livability and my land-use and design expertise make this a very important bureau to my plan for Portland.  I intend on leading this bureau through a process of optimizing the use of right of ways and implementing congestion management strategies that improve safety, access, and multi-modal mobility.

Cash Carter: Portland Police Bureau, the City Budget Office, the Office of Management and Finance, Portland Housing Bureau, the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, Portland Parks and Recreation, Community & Civic Life and Prosper Portland. The reason I chose these bureaus is that they have the most impact within the city which go hand and hand. I would like to implement changes to Portland Parks and Recreation which would include gang outreach programs and provide better protection at all parks to reduce gang activity.

Mark White: My plan for governance is to keep all Bureaus and Offices under the Mayor's Office, but have the entire City Council provide oversight as a team. Oversight of all Bureaus and Offices will take place in Council Chambers, will be open to the public with opportunities for public testimony, and recorded for public access, similar to what is already being done for City Council meetings.

This level of transparency and collective oversight will remove some of the more corrupt aspects of the current system as well as the ability to find millions of dollars that are currently being wasted and can be used to plug as many funding gaps as possible resulting from the pandemic.

What bureaus do you not want?

Ted Wheeler: Every bureau is important but some are more challenging than others. I will remain open-minded, as I stated in the previous question. I am overseeing more than the usual number of bureaus right now due to the passing of my friend and colleague, Commissioner Nick Fish. After his successor is elected, I plan to re-assign some bureaus based on the criteria I laid out in the preceding question.

Sarah Iannarone: As mayor, it will be my responsibility to collaborate with my fellow commissioners to ensure each oversees bureaus which play to their strengths and interests. I am willing to oversee any bureau but am also willing to delegate any bureau to a commissioner who has expressed interest in leading on climate action, racial equity, and affordability goals and is committed to being a good steward of our public resources. I've been impressed with what Commissioner Hardesty has accomplished in the Bureau of Emergency Communication and what Commissioner Eudaly has accomplished with the Rose Lanes project in the Portland Bureau of Transportation.

Teressa Raiford: N/A

Ozzie González: The ones that are performing great and know exactly what they are doing next are of least interest to me. There is no individual bureau I would NOT want since I see room for improvement all over the place.

If I had to pick one, it would be the Auditor's Office. I like the separation of oversight powers from administrative. (Editor's note: The Portland city auditor is an independently elected official.) 

Cash Carter: As mayor, there should NEVER be a bureau you do not want

Mark White: I believe one of the primary responsibilities of government is to tackle the big stuff that is not possible for an individual or small group of citizens to address or resolve on their own. To do what is right and best, not what is easiest. Public service is not about what you want or don't want. You do whatever is needed regardless of how difficult, unpleasant, or how poorly it might reflect on you.

What’s one decision the City Council has made in the past four years you disagreed with? What would you have done differently?

Ted Wheeler: During the last four years, prior to my taking office, the City of Portland entered an expensive contract for the RegJIN data system deployed in police cars. The program was deeply flawed and didn't work well. It is in the process of being replaced. It has cost the City of Portland millions of dollars. I would not have approved a contract without an escape clause for the City in the event the product was flawed.

On a more positive note, I believe the City Council does many good things, too. At a time when our federal government is stymied by partisanship and our state legislature is plagued by walkouts, I am pleased with the collaborative leadership undertaken by all members of the Portland City Council. We have different backgrounds, lived experiences and priorities, but I am continuously impressed at how often we are able to find the middle ground and move the agenda forward for everyone.

Sarah Iannarone: I opposed the decision in 2019-20 FY Budget to eliminate the jobs of over fifty Portland Parks and Recreation staff —  people who lead exercises for our elders and teach our children how to swim and in the same stroke, to fund over 100 unfilled positions in the Portland Police Bureau. Budgets are moral documents. This decision had significant impacts with real implications for City workers who count on these jobs to feed and house their families as well as Portland's most vulnerable families who depend on the vital programming for health, wellness and childcare these workers provided.

(Allowing thirty small business owners to be displaced without a succession plan while the Marriott Corporation broke ground on a Ritz-Carlton in a tax-exempt Opportunity Zone is a close second.)

Teressa Raiford: The Joint Terrorism Task Force was a huge mistake. It undermines the values of sanctuary in our city and plants a seed of suspicion on People of Color and our marginalized community members. I would not have allowed the JTTF in the city of Portland, would not have given FBI access to law enforcement or bureau access to the residents of Portland for investigations.

Ozzie González: The decision to cut parks employees and close parks amenities was a devastating moment for our City.  I would have saved those jobs by finding ways to improve the financial outcomes of the Parks Department and working with police and the public differently to keep from growing the security budget so much.  I believe the growing security budget and the shrinking parks budget are related to one another in that both indicate a type of leadership that values reactive measures like armed protection above proactive measures like crime prevention and community service.

Cash Carter: I wonder why the role neighborhood associations have with the city government was put on hold. With the housing and homelessness crisis in full effect it is counterproductive to have done this. Neighborhood associations need to know that they have the full support of the city council and by doing this it shows the complete opposite. We all need to work together on this and as Mayor, I would have pushed this through instead of pushing through a vote on widening I-5.

Mark White: Not fulfilling its duty as an elected body to fully implement the 2011 Charter Commission by splitting it in half and never convening the second half. I would not have split it into two "halves," but instead provided unconditional support. This is my sworn guarantee that I will provide unconditional support to the upcoming Charter Commission.

Despite the city’s efforts on Vision Zero, people keep dying on Portland streets. Why are we failing?

Ted Wheeler: I was proud to support both the reduction in speed limits to 20 mph on city streets, and many new engineering, education and traffic enforcement initiatives. My personal belief, based on data, is that if we want to meaningfully decrease impaired, distracted or speeding drivers, the area in the most need is additional resources going toward traffic enforcement.

Sarah Iannarone: In many ways, Vision Zero in Portland is a classic policy implementation failure. Central to Vision Zero is a shift in responsibility from road users to system designers. Portland's elected's approved the idea in 2015 but failed to adequately fund the mandate, educate the public, or hold people in positions of power accountable for failing to meet our goals of eliminating traffic fatalities by 2025.

These failings disproportionately harm the most marginalized members of our community. The majority of our city’s most dangerous roads and intersections are located in low-income neighborhoods in East Portland. Youth, seniors, Portlanders with disabilities, unhoused Portlanders, and transit-dependent Portlanders living in low-income zip codes are statistically most susceptible to this unacceptable level of traffic violence.

We simply haven’t seen political leadership that treats the fifty-one Portlanders killed on our streets in traffic in 2019 as an epidemic worthy of considerable investment or attention. As mayor, I will act with urgency to lower traffic speeds, reduce drunk driving, and improve street lighting, with a focus on areas scoring high (7-10) on PBOT’s Equity Matrix. I have also proposed a funding plan for community-led revitalization of ODOT’s deadly “orphaned” ODOT highways into livable city streets.

Teressa Raiford: Intersections, transit facilities, street crossings and bicycle facilities must be improved for pedestrian safety. The city should learn how to increase traffic speed enforcement with strict safeguards against racial bias. We should improve transit and bicycle commuting conditions to reduce automobile traffic, improve the safety of large trucking operations in the city, and ensure that funds are directed to the areas of the city where the needs are greatest.

Ozzie González: We are failing because we have not arrived at the ideal solution for mixed mobility devices all sharing the same right of ways. We are also failing because we have made moving around Portland very confusing — we have a hodgepodge of different roadway designs and we are changing them constantly! We have many different striping and roadway designs for different neighborhoods and it is challenging for regular motorists and cyclists to navigate through them all without making a mistake. For visitors to our city, using the right of way incorrectly is almost a price of admission to Portland. We have right of way conditions in our city that exist for only three blocks and are found nowhere else in the state. This combination of unique conditions keeps us not only guessing and making mistakes, but it has also cost too many pedestrians and cyclists their lives.

I see us doing much better in this area by establishing a set of roadway standards that we will use consistently throughout the city and by designating transit corridors to physically separate motorized from non-motorized uses.

Cash Carter: Substance abuse issues are a major problem involved with this. People just don't hold themselves accountable for the actions they make and the consequences which follow. There is a severe lack of sympathy and empathy going on in the city of Portland and we need to fix this. I applaud the all City of Portland employees for the hard work they do behind the scenes implementing Vision Zero.

Mark White: I would offer the following as one example of why we are not successful on that front. About $5 million was set aside by the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) for the installation of safety infrastructure on Powell Boulevard in Outer East Portland. ODOT considers the intersection of Powell Boulevard and SE 122nd to be the most dangerous intersection in the state of Oregon. This substantial amount of money sat unused for 5-6 years and when finally spent, the majority of it was used to pave the road with a few pieces of safety equipment installed, not exclusively to install safety infrastructure as it was intended.

I can only assume that because of all the time this money went unspent and what the majority of it was spent on that no effort at all was made by City Council to advocate for spending all of it on safety infrastructure as quickly as possible.

This forces me to conclude that any statements by the City on public safety are disingenuous and at best, are done for optics, not public safety.

Government actions and activities can, for the most part, fall into two categories — protection and empowerment. If you can’t even do that, then it is time to step aside and let someone lead who can and will.

Do you support the widening of Interstate 5 at the Rose Quarter? Why or why not?

Ted Wheeler: This area of I-5 was poorly conceived, designed and built. The construction led to massive displacement of the historic Albina neighborhood and its largely African-American residents.

Today, it is one of the top 20 bottlenecks in the United States. It remains a high crash area in Portland. Even if every vehicle on the road is zero-emission, it will remain an engineering and traffic nightmare without improvements.

I have engaged on this project with other local and regional leaders to ensure that the project is done right, including making sure that bike and pedestrian improvement happen in Phase 1, that a full study is completed on highway caps that could restore the connectivity of the Albina neighborhood and support the Albina Vision. I'm also committed to supporting MWESB contracting on this project, as well as larger efforts to study and implement congestion pricing.

Sarah Iannarone: Climate leaders do not expand fossil fuel infrastructure.

40% of Portland’s carbon emissions come from transportation.

ODOT has not demonstrated that this project is in alignment with Portland’s Vision Zero, climate action, air quality, or racial equity goals, and as such it should be removed from Portland’s 2035 Transportation System Plan.

Teressa Raiford: I believe the funds currently earmarked for the Interstate 5 project should be redirected to road, transit, and pedestrian/bicycle improvements that will have a much greater positive impact on our city and its residents and neighborhoods, with a priority being greater involvement of local, minority and women-owned contractors.

Ozzie González: I do not support widening it as a climate mitigation measure and I believe it was shortsighted to present it as such to the public. I do support widening it as a commercial corridor, but the ideal solution is to build a commercial route away from the city and separate local from commercial transport.  The commercial corridor functions of the I-5 are vital to the movement of supplies across the western edge of North America and is a vital trade route for Canada, the US, and Mexico. The problem with the I-5 commercial corridor is that it cuts right through the heart of Portland and competes with the local commuting services it provides people who live and work in our region.

If building a commercial route around the city is not an option, the widening project will bring new opportunities for jobs, for rebuilding our severely lacking local transportation infrastructure workforce, and for completing the Albina Vision project which will invest in community amenities for the Northeast Portland community.

Cash Carter: In the beginning, I thought it would be a good idea to widen I-5 because of all the population growth in the city and the concerns surrounding it. But after learning more and researching, what really changed my mind was seeing all the people, especially the youth rallying against this. I'm a strong believer in the power of the people and seeing the people stand up for this made me believe widening I-5 is the wrong decision.

Mark White: My preference would be to move it underground and have development done in coordination with a mixed-use development plan above that focuses on a variety of family-friendly affordable housing options.

However, I would need to study detailed environmental and geological reports before making any kind of recommendation above or below ground.

What’s one thing you want to ensure is in the new Portland Police Bureau officer contract?

Ted Wheeler: Enable the Police Chief and Police Commissioner to make discipline stick (no appeal) provided the discipline was consistent with the agreed-upon discipline guidelines.

Sarah Iannarone: My Rethinking Public Safety plan highlights the numerous ways that our city spends an enormous amount of resources in the name of "safety" that don't actually provide our community with the safety we deserve. Even though Portland is a Sanctuary City, many residents remain threatened by repeated incursions from right-wing agitators that go unchecked (or are even sanctioned) by local authorities. Polls suggest that the majority of Black and Hispanic Portlanders are not satisfied with our police force's ability to protect them from violent crime and feel that policing isn't currently addressing their safety or needs.

So many of our initiatives to attempt to hold local law enforcement accountable to the needs and concerns of everyday Portlanders have been stymied by the enormous power wielded by the Portland Police Union. It is imperative for elected officials to deliberately make room for these voices to be heard in the negotiations of this substantial contract. I’ve been heartened by the leadership of Unite Oregon, Jobs with Justice, and the Albina Ministerial Alliance Coalition in the past few months to draw attention to the need for an independent civilian agency with explicit jurisdiction in deadly force cases, and equal treatment in which officers under investigation receive only the same privileges as the general public. Unfortunately, I will not be in office while this contract is negotiated in the upcoming months, and the contract likely won’t be revisited until 2024.

Teressa Raiford: I would absolutely ensure that we removed SRO's from schools as well as ending community policing. These relationships are shown to violate civil liberties as well as causing over-representation for minorities, Portlanders with disabilities and children.

Ozzie González: Accountability to the public good in the form of representation across gender, race, religion, and sexual orientation. I want to make sure the bureau reflects the people it serves and that its officers have an interest in the well being of those communities they patrol.

Cash Carter: Requiring comprehensive drug testing for officers is mandatory and needs to be included in the new contract. This would help officers gain back the trust lost by citizens towards the Portland Police Department over the years.

Mark White: A mandatory requirement for the annual continuing education of police officers that emphasizes de-escalation techniques and the use of nonlethal weapons as a first response instead of a firearm unless the suspect fires first. If that is not possible, then the unconditional right for City Council to have the authority to fire any officer who uses a firearm against an unarmed suspect after public discussion and review during City Council sessions to investigate the incident.

Do you support changing Portland’s form of government? If yes, to what?

Ted Wheeler: Yes. As I have stated many times, I am determined to be the last mayor to serve under the commission form of government, and changing the way we operate in the City of Portland is one of my top priorities moving into a charter review year. I am interested in looking at various models of government and reviewing the good work of groups like the City Club and the League of Women Voters. The primary model recommended prioritizes a City manager position as the person in charge of bureau oversight and moves to districted elections.

Sarah Iannarone: Portland's outdated governance models aren't equipped to handle the increasing chaos that the 21st Century is unleashing on our community. Cities work best when those making decisions reflect the experiences of the people whose lives they're affecting. Our current system of citywide at-large elections has meant that a small fraction of Portlanders are able to win local elections. As a result, our elected officials on the City Council have historically been whiter, wealthier, mostly men, who tend to live west of the Willamette River.

Portland’s most vulnerable community members bear the burden of preventable traffic deaths, unaccountable police, dangerous forced displacement of human beings, and other inequalities because of our city’s outdated and unaccountable governance models. As mayor, I will bring my unwavering commitment to spatial and social justice, equity, and inclusion to the process and will help lead the city to transition to a form of government that will work for current and future generations of Portlanders.

Because I have closely followed repeated efforts to update our form of government and have seen each attempt fail, I will be heavily involved in the upcoming charter review process in 2021 to ensure that changes will be widely accepted by the community. This goes beyond the weak mayor commission form of government to include a range of civic and government reforms. My complete package of reform proposals is available at sarah2020.com/goodgovernment

Teressa Raiford: Portlanders should elect city commissioners by district instead of at-large. A city manager should be tasked with the management of day-to-day city bureau operations. The city manager should report to the mayor, be closely monitored by the city auditor, and be accountable to the city council. Commissioners should be able to devote full time to representing their districts and crafting legislative and policy solutions for our city's challenges, rather than attempting to manage bureaus.

Ozzie González: Yes, I do. A district representation based council with an at-large mayoral position and a City Manager is what I advocate for. As mayor however, I would not be advocating while in office and would entrust a community coalition to manage the process for evaluation options and making a recommendation.

Cash Carter: I support the style of government voted in by the citizens of Portland. I don't think we should all jump on the bandwagon to change the form of government thinking it will be a quick fix. People seem to think that giving more power to the Mayor will solve all the city's problems. But with all the complaints against Mayor Wheeler currently, would giving him more power be the best idea moving forward?

Mark White: The only way for this to be addressed is for it to be an issue taken up by the upcoming Charter Commission. This will allow for vigorous city-wide public discussion and debate on the subject and ultimately result in a community-vetted structure for Portlanders to vote to approve or reject. The government should not be allowed to determine its own structure, but implement what the public determines to be the best structure to ensure its goals and values are reflected in government decision making.

Are homeless sweeps smart policy? If not, what else should we be doing to address unsanitary conditions? If so, what else do we need to do better?

Ted Wheeler: I do not believe maintaining homeless camps in places where they are safety, environmental or public health risk is a humane policy. I support moving camps that are in unsafe locations if the removal is performed in a humane, responsible and smart manner. More importantly, we need to continue the work of having a safety net of resources for those experiencing homelessness to access. This includes investing in transitional services, affordable housing services and networks of support for individuals experiencing mental health and addiction issues.

Sarah Iannarone: Last month, the CDC issued guidelines for how local governments should conduct sweeps: don't displace people unless housing units can be provided. "Clearing encampments can cause people to disperse throughout the community and break connections with service providers."

This is a principle which people experiencing homelessness and their advocates have espoused and which I have tried to amplify using my limited platform.

Forced displacement is wasteful, traumatizing, and inhumane. We simply don’t have enough safe spaces for unhoused Portlanders to be able to keep their most basic possessions — IDs, medicine, food, cell phone, clothes — safe and secure. The incumbent insists that he only sweeps the homeless when it’s for safety reasons. I would ask: safety for whom? As a city, our policies make living in poverty incredibly difficult when instead we should be providing relief for our neighbors who have fallen on hard times including access to clean water to drink, hygiene facilities, and a warm, dry, secure place to sleep at night.

Everyone can agree that the answer to homelessness is not ending the practice of forced displacement. We also can agree that those living without homes who wish to have other options than camping should have those options available to them. However, while we solve the housing crisis, we cannot promote inhumane and trauma-inducing solutions.

Please visit the “Restoring Public Safety” section of my Recovery & Resiliency Plan at sarah2020.com/recovery

Teressa Raiford: Portland and Multnomah County need to do much more to help people emerge from homelessness and not become homeless in the first place. This includes greatly expanded mental health and substance abuse care; job and skills training; housing, income and benefits assistance; secure shelter and transitional housing; far more new construction of affordable and lower-priced housing; and protection of the existing affordable and lower-priced housing from gentrification and redevelopment to high-priced housing. Our progress must be much faster than it has been in the past decade and sustained until no Portlander needs to be homeless. Until then, the city should increase the number of temporary, organized and sanctioned villages where homeless persons can be sheltered and receive social services and sanitation in a safe and humane manner that minimizes contention with other priorities and populations in our city. Homeless sweeps are the symptom of a failed policy.

Ozzie González: The sweeps are ineffective as conducted today and NOT smart policy. We are not helping people on the streets by ignoring their condition and merely push-brooming them around from one place to another with no answer for where it's okay to go. We criminalize survival such that it is more likely for a houseless person to break a law than they are to qualify for support services. If we enforced the laws broken every day by people trying to survive on the streets, we would have a pipeline to incarceration that would be beyond inhumane. There is so much to fix about this!

I have a plan to do this whole thing differently beginning with accepting that housed and houseless people in the city need to find a way to co-exist. I’m advocating for a code of conduct that makes camping and defecating in the streets an enforceable breach of the law but I am also providing designated safe locations throughout the city to sleep and meet your basic human needs. I have a robust plan to end camping in the streets for good on my website.  The plan is human-centered, focuses on creating pathways for people to integrate into society, and turns sweeps into interventions for help.

Cash Carter: Sweeps are necessary to ensure the safety of everyone involved, those camping and those in the immediate vicinity. I'm the only candidate besides Mayor Wheeler who supports sweeps. Where Mayor Wheeler and I differ is that I believe when you have these sweeps we need to have somewhere to place those displaced by the sweeps. Various candidates have ideas that I support that include designated areas for camping, but how do we make sure people arrive at those destinations if we don't have sweeps? I believe in a more aggressive hands-on approach to solve this homelessness crisis, with myself as Mayor taking part in a number of theses sweeps personally. Something Mayor Wheeler or the other candidates have offered to date.

Mark White: No, they are not smart policy.

I believe we need to redefine what it means to be progressive, specifically what a fiscally progressive approach to spending is. For me, this means not wasting a single dollar and requiring measurable outcomes for all government activities. Every dollar saved is a dollar that can go to providing Portlanders with the tools and programs needed for them to thrive and live their best life possible. Allowing waste is the equivalent of depriving someone of their best future and depriving us of their unique contribution to the community as a whole.

This lack of a fiscally progressive approach to spending is a key contributor to the state of homelessness in our City. We can’t seem to do anything unless it costs millions of dollars. So, we do things slowly and poorly. And I say ‘we’ intentionally as we are complicit in the actions of our government so long as we continue to elect people who are connected to money and others in power, over those connected to the community.

No, they are not smart policy.

Despite years of work, homelessness continues to plague Portland. What is one specific step you would take in this effort?

Ted Wheeler: In a second term, I plan to continue focusing on three strategies I believe are crucial to continuing to mitigate the homeless crisis: Connecting Portlanders experiencing chronic homelessness to supportive and transitional services, expanding mental health and substance abuse services, and building and creating more housing opportunities. In the next four years, aggressively pursuing all of these initiatives and continuing to implement the good work the City is doing on this crisis will be key.

Sarah Iannarone: We must treat our emergency with urgency, I've called for a Five-Year Strategic Plan for Ending Portland's Housing State of Emergency (2021-2025) led by the Progressive Task Force for Housing All Portlanders. This makes me the only leading candidate to propose undertaking an immediate and comprehensive analysis of what's working and not in Portland's current approach to affordable housing. But a task force is not enough, we need innovative policies immediately as we move forward toward more permanent solutions.

One of the most innovative aspects of this plan is the creation of Urban Development Innovation Groups (uDIGs). Through cross-bureau and cross-sector partnerships, we will more rapidly deploy appropriate technologies, innovative design, and emerging land-use models to lower the cost of construction and build new housing and climate-smart communities faster— all while meeting the needs of the city’s changing demographics. This effort will prioritize innovations that enable us to permanently transform sites in the urban core adjacent to active transportation infrastructure and high capacity transit and/or that help us meet the immediate need for temporary housing, especially for survivors of domestic violence, LGBTQ+ youth and other highly vulnerable community members, including but not limited to emergency shelters such as Right2DreamToo, safe parking plans for car and RV sleepers, and transitional housing such as self-governed tiny house villages.

Teressa Raiford: See my previous answer.

Ozzie González: I have a robust plan to end camping in city streets once and for all. It begins with designating sites for temporary and overnight transitional services for people and establishing a legal standard for "Transitional Emergency Services" as permissible land use. You can download a copy of my entire plan for Housing and Homelessness on my website www.ozzie4pdx.org.

Cash Carter: One of my major plans is to hold a week-long Homelessness Fair every year in the Portland Metro Area. Events would be spread throughout each neighborhood and would offer a number of services catering to the level of care needed. This would include Oregon's Employment Division, Staffing Services, Health care resources, Treatment & substance information, On the spot referrals for social services, TedTalk style seminars, Identification assistance, Ready to rent/rent well program information. During the week music, arts and entertainment would be provided by special guest performers and artists with some of the proceeds going into a fund for rent assistance. Those experiencing homelessness will also be given a chance to participate in similar events. This week-long fair would end with a weekend event held at Waterfront Park featuring food vendors, entertainment and rides. My approach and reasoning behind this idea is to maximize all resources available while placing  those experiencing homelessness in a position to succeed

Mark White: I would immediately begin negotiations with the Bybee Lakes Hope Center prior to taking office to quickly expand their operation at the former Wapato Jail to include as many of the City's homeless as possible in an environment that is humane and safe, but temporary in scope. City financial resources should be focused as much as possible on providing access to permanent affordable housing, and preventing homelessness.

What are steps city should be taking now to avoid dramatic budget cuts if the pandemic causes a big economic downturn?

Ted Wheeler: Freeze COLA and STEP increases and materials and services budgets. Clawback any current year under-expenditure or position vacancies. Negotiate with labor unions to freeze COLAs and furloughs. Do business differently and smarter by collaborating effectively and using new technologies, like the Portland Online Permitting System.

Sarah Iannarone: Portlanders have worked hard to create a sustainable economy, so while we will take big hits in areas such as parking and gas-tax revenue, we are less reliant on sources such as sales and lodging taxes to make ends meet.  Our biggest concern in the mid-term (4-6 quarters out) will be housing displacement and we should do everything in our power now to keep people in secure housing.

We must turn challenges into opportunity. While we respond in the short term, we must be prepared to act boldly and decisively for the future (traits we’ve not seen in the current administration) to forge robust intergovernmental partnerships and seize opportunities coming our way for infrastructure investments including Community Development Block Grants, transit and active transportation infrastructure, municipal broadband, and public housing. As we enter what might be one of the best possible times to make large municipal investments in a more sustainable future, we can put people back to work with good union jobs building the public infrastructure we need to reduce carbon emissions and seismic vulnerability while improving accessibility, equity, and resilience.

In contrast to the spirit of austerity that has undermined government effectiveness and our social safety net for the last half-century, we need a vigorous expansion of the public sector with spending on the things that improve our collective existence and make us safer and more resilient in future crises.

 Teressa Raiford: We should be working with our state and federal representatives to secure federal emergency assistance. This country should not be bailing out large corporations and investment companies while ignoring state and local governments. Locally, Oregon and Portland should diversify and broaden sources of revenue in a non-regressive manner. The city must re-invent how it delivers services to do more with less. One example is the streamlined and more efficient BDS permit process I mentioned above.

Ozzie González: One step we can take is to unleash private dollars in the form of tax incentives and impact investment funds so that any government services the City is unable to provide directly can be delivered through a vendor, an investor, or a donor who would like to fill a need for the city. This will enable access to fast funding models and provide the most flexibility for government to adjust to this evolving reality.

A less drastic but equally important step is to begin leaning the operations of the City and finding cost-cutting measures that do not reduce the ability of the City to provide services but reduce the cost of providing the service itself. I would sit down with bureau directors and other council members to itemized the services and costs to determine where the greatest cost-saving opportunities reside.

The last resort, in my opinion, is letting people go. We need people to help distribute goods, produce supplies, and provide essential services today, so shifting staff duties to address immediate needs is another way of preserving city staff positions even if it means temporary salary reductions in conjunction with reassignments.

Cash Carter: Securing federal government funding, building relationships with neighboring states (California & Washington) to create a vast network for assistance, consulting with bank leaders to realistically lower loan costs, and most importantly getting large management groups to agree to a rent freeze.

Mark White: Moving to a fiscally progressive approach to government spending as previously detailed is the best path forward regardless of the direction of the economy.

The City Council last year put off proposed major changes to the role of neighborhood associations in city government. What changes, if any, do you want to see?

Ted Wheeler: The Neighborhood Association structure should be kept intact, but we need to work with them more effectively to help them become more inclusive and representative of all of Portland.

Sarah Iannarone: Through my position on the board, I guided the Mt Scott Arleta Neighborhood Association through the 3.96 Code Change process; we were one of a handful of NAs willing to go on the record as supporting the proposed resolution as well as the direction that civic life and other bureaus are taking to broaden engagement citywide and make it more equitable. As a hardworking — some might even call us scrappy — neighborhood association along 82nd Avenue, we know how hard increasing diversity in civic life can be. We have learned that people cannot engage without adequate recognition of the costs of engagement in their daily lives. We encouraged our electeds to support and compensate historically excluded groups to enable their engagement in civic life and asked that they adequately fund the mandate for diversity, equity, and inclusion in the civic life of Portland citywide.

I hope that further code change reforms play out alongside the charter review process convening in 2021 which will be considering whether we should change the city's form of government. These structural considerations should be taken in tandem to improve outcomes rather than reinforcing the existing silos which result in sub-optimal outcomes in terms of government efficiency, efficacy, and equity.

Teressa Raiford: We should carry out the recommendations in the City Auditor's report, which were to improve and strengthen the neighborhood association system, to help the associations better represent the diverse and under-represented populations in their neighborhoods, and to better support representative community groups that are not neighborhood-based.

Ozzie González: We need the relationship between Neighborhood Associations and City Hall restored and expanded. Many of my policies require collaboration with neighborhood associations, so strengthening their role will include commissioning them for specific activities such as designating sites for transitional emergency services, identifying safety enhancement projects as part of my Safe Streets Initiative, and cooperating with community organizations on food pantry and community garden projects.

Cash Carter: N/A

Mark White: I believe the structure of our Neighborhood Association system is something the next Charter Commission should take up. This will provide the ability for all Portlanders to have the opportunity to discuss and debate the issue, and if Portlanders feel it is still a good fit for the City, then a community-vetted structure to be provided to voters for their approval or rejection will result.

As a former president of the Powellhurst-Gilbert Neighborhood Association, this is an especially personal subject for me. After the approval of the Outer Southeast Community Plan, my neighborhood was flooded with thousands upon thousands of new residents with a massively disproportionate amount of low-income individuals and families, disabled, elderly, people of color forced out of their historic neighborhoods, immigrants and refugees, among others. In the span of little more than a decade, Powellhurst-Gilbert became the most populated neighborhood in the City, estimated at over 31,000 residents based on data extrapolated from the 2010 census. At the time, my neighborhood had more unpaved roadways than any other in the City, not a single major roadway with contiguous sidewalks, over 50 adult residential care facilities, a free or reduced lunch rate that peaked at over 80%, over 67 languages spoken by students, and on and on.

To conduct community outreach, we received the same amount as the least populated neighborhood in the coalition, which had 170 residents. The amount — $1,000.

What are you really missing that you can’t do now because of shelter-in-place?

Ted Wheeler: Spending an afternoon at the beach or at Mt. Hood with my daughter.

Sarah Iannarone: I work best in the community; being around people increases my productivity and creativity. That's why I deliberately built a grassroots, people-powered campaign run by volunteers and fueled by small-dollar contributions. I have refused donations from big businesses and special interests and have run for office with nearly 2000 donors with an average donation size of $30 while my primary opponents accept giant checks in direct violation of the Honest Elections program which was approved by Portland voters with over 87% of the vote.

My campaign team is exceptional! They have pivoted our on-the-street army of volunteers into a multimedia powerhouse. Although we’ve made it a point to use our campaign resources to check in on our neighbors, I sorely miss the energy, enthusiasm and optimism I get from being in direct contact with the climate, housing, and equity-minded advocates who have supported me throughout this run. While I marvel at the act of global solidarity that our sheltering-in-place represents as an initiative to keep us all healthy, I am looking forward to the opportunity to serve as Portland’s mayor in a Portland where it’s safe to meet in public, shake hands, and rub shoulders with each other while riding the bus.

Teressa Raiford: I miss connecting with people I love - I haven't been able to see my parents since the first week of shutdown when I was delivering essentials to them. I miss hugs and connecting in person.

Ozzie González: Hugging my friends and performing for live audiences is something I cannot do and miss tremendously. My collection of stuffed animals, however cute, is too stoic an audience to replace a coffee shop full of Portlanders.

Cash Carter: I'm really not affected by the shelter in place order because I currently work at the Amazon warehouse in Troutdale and take public transportation to and from work every day. I see first hand on a daily basis what this crisis has done to the city of Portland and its citizens. One of the things I miss is the many interactions you have with people while being out every day, now it's like a ghost town. I know I'm in a position to still have employment and I appreciate that but it still bothers me knowing people are at home concerned about employment, rent, childcare, relatives, food and other issues brought on by this and I want to do more for them, the city needs to do more for them.

Mark White: I miss going to the movies, but desperately need a haircut and beard trim.