 Portland Rising, the monthly news interview and arts program brought to you by the Portland Phoenix with assistance from the folks at the Portland Media Center and we're very grateful for their help tonight. Tonight we have candidates for the Portland City Council in the election that will be held November 2nd. Don't forget to vote. With me tonight I have candidates for the at-large seat on the City Council. To my far left I have Roberto Rodriguez and Brandon Mazer to his right and Stuart Tisdale. Thank you very much for joining us tonight. And I'll start just going around, we'll just answer questions. Roberto, I'll start with you. What is your reason for running? What is the top item you would like to accomplish as a Councilor? Thank you. And that's the fundamental question. I think the short answer is that I love this city. Over the last five years I've been serving on the school board and I've gotten passionate about the work that we've been advancing, work that's grounded on equity. Our equity goal of our comprehensive plan calls us to root out ongoing inequities and systemic challenges. And the work that we've done by allocating resources and trying to combat that from the school level has been magnificent. But these problems are large societal issues that the schools cannot solve alone. So I'm eager to get into the Council and be in a position where my impact could be broader and have a stronger push to advance equity in our city. Brandon, same question. Yeah, thank you Brandon Mazer. It's passion for the city and affordability. I've spent the last four and a half years on the planning board. I've seen good development. I've seen bad development. And I'm hoping to bring my experience on the planning board which implements the policy to really help address our affordability, affordable housing, family housing, public transit. The big topics that we really need to grapple with over the next three to five years as a city so that we can continue to prosper for all. Stuart, same question. Well, thank you. Well, Portland is my hometown. I've lived here for 60 years. I'm the guy who still lives in the town where he went to high school. Raised two children here. I've worked in the courtrooms of this city as a public defender. I've been in the classrooms as a history teacher, an English teacher. I see we're at a crossroads. So from my work as a lawyer, I know the good representation is essential. And I want to be the voice from the middle that ensures that balanced, community-based decision making will be the top priority. And as a history teacher, I must say that I also know that communities can thrive when they are together. They can have golden ages even. So I want to be the voice that makes sure that the collective good is not derailed by the interest and the agenda of special groups. Thank you, Stuart. And we'll do the next question in the reverse order. What are the top qualities that the council should be looking for in a new city manager? What is your model for how that hiring process should work? Stuart? Well, I would say the top quality has to be somebody who listens and listens to everybody, sees who they are, doesn't otherize people, and works towards pragmatic solutions. Top quality would be somebody who—this would be the quality that I would see for everybody in government, everyone—that they are like a teacher who stands in front of the classroom and knows it's his duty to meet the needs of everyone in the classroom to the extent that that's possible. So I would look for a city manager that I could trust based on his resume and recommendations and everything that I could trust to be that kind of person. Thank you. Brandon? Yeah. Thank you. I think we have to understand that the Charter Commission is currently looking at this issue and whether or not we have a city manager, whether—how much power that city manager may have. Assuming that we do continue to have a city manager, we need somebody without an agenda that can come in that can get very detail-oriented with management of staff, guiding the mayor and the council on budgetary processes, and make sure that the day-to-day business of the city gets done in a responsible way. Mr. Beartill? I would look at a lot of the positive experiences that I've had working as an elected official with the superintendent who has a very similar position as the city manager has, and the process that the school board went when they hired the superintendent, which was a transparent process that included public input. What I'm most proud of, the relationship that we've had with the superintendent is our ability to stick to the comprehensive plan and be able to guide all of our decisions, be it policymaking or budget allocations, to that comprehensive plan. And as I said earlier, that comprehensive plan is centered on equity, and that's how we've been able to be so successful by having aligned visions. So that's what I would look for in a manager, one that shares the same vision to solve the problems that we've all highlighted are critical in our city, affordability and equity. One of the major problems in the city—and we'll start with you, Roberto—is the lack of housing for the middle class and workforce. What steps should the city take to solve this problem? So I think, first of all, it's important to acknowledge that it's not a problem unique to Portland. It's a problem that we're seeing throughout the state and throughout our country. And so, again, broad impact is what we need to be looking for as an outcome. And so I believe that right now, with the state committee to look at the gap in housing, it's important that we could collaborate with them and we identify ways that the whole state can bridge the gap. In short, here locally, we need to work hard and aggressively to rezone and allow for multi-family development to take place, and we need to eliminate a lot of the barriers that are in place for developers to jump in into these opportunities. Brandon? Yeah, I think there are a lot of tools within the city's tool bag that we can use to help address some of our affordability issues. One of the biggest processes going—taking place right now is Portland's Recode Phase 2. We are doing that work looking at the different zones, up-zoning, down-zoning. We can get aggressive on our core corridors, the Forest Ave, the Bright Nav, where there's one, maybe two-story buildings where we could see some density. And since they are on core transit corridors, we may be able to lower some of the parking requirements because people will be able to get around. Smaller lots, which gets back to some of the zoning issues. And then, although the Green New Deal affected the inclusionary zoning ordinance, we can do quite a bit by incentivizing with our public housing trust fund. We just saw CHOM do two great projects over at the Mercy Hospital process for elderly housing and family housing, and we were able to subsidize that with some of the funds in our trust fund. So, just continuing to look at the new tools that we have at our disposal. I agree. We need to rezone to allow multi-family housing, especially off the peninsula. I mean, there are huge areas of Portland that have small single-family houses with really big lots, and we need to rethink that on the major avenues. I agree with that completely. With regard to the, I think we shouldn't let the developers who are doing the big developments by their way out of including affordable units in their projects. I don't think we should allow them to opt out by paying because they're just going to opt out, pay it, build a luxury unit, and still be able to sell it with people who will come in from out of state with out-of-state money, which everybody knows is bigger than in-state money. So I agree, zoning, and I would not let the developers opt out of affordable units. And I might change the definition of affordable unit, too, so that it allows working people and just beginning professional people to be included. And we'll start with Brandon on this one. Do you support the building of the large shelter out on Riverside? Would you support the building of smaller shelters? And how will you vote on the referendum on November 2nd? Thank you. Yeah, this was many years of work. So this process started back in 2016-17 when I first joined the planning board where we looked at the zoning. The short answer is yes, I support the shelter on Riverside, but this isn't an either or solution. What we have is an emergency shelter with wraparound services. Those services are going to be located all in one place so that those experiencing homelessness don't have to run around the city to find the needs that they have. Mental health, central health care, social services, job training will all be at one central location. Now, does that mean we shouldn't do other shelters? There are a lot of shelters and support services in different neighborhoods. Domestic abuse, women's shelters, family shelters. So I will be voting neither on the referendum because there's an A, B, or C. But the conversation needs to continue. I think some of our definitions can be made better. But this shelter is needed. We have a population that needs help now. And to delay it would be irresponsible. OK. Stuart, same question. Well, this is a really complicated question. And I've been going this way and that way on this question. Every expert, ostensibly knowledgeable person I talk to, opens a new vista on this issue for me. My head has been spinning. But I think now I think I'm fairly settled on the idea that for the solution to be co-extensive with the problem or as close to co-extensive as possible, ultimately the solution has to be regional. It has to be a state level regional solution. And it shouldn't be Portland's dime that's paying for a solution that is really caused all across the state and even outside the state. So I look at this shelter referendum as a short term. I mean, ideally what it would be. And I would advocate for this. I would use every agency of advocacy that I had at my disposal as a city counselor. But ultimately, the solution has to be statewide and regional. There is a state initiative underway to accomplish that, depending on who you talk to. Some say some funding is started, but other people say it hasn't started. But be that as it may, the solution has to be regional. So for the short term, I am favoring A, the small shelter. OK. Robert Hill. Yeah, so when I look at this issue, I rely heavily on my background as a health clinician, particularly working home health here in Portland. I've worked with a lot of our previously on-house members of our community. And what I want to focus on is continuity of care, quality of care, and access to high quality care for our on-house members. Often, that's where things fall apart. When you have to send someone to the hospital, because either their blood sugars are out of control, blood pressures are out of control, some other medical issue. And then the entire plan of care falls apart. And then we have to discharge someone. ER doctors have influence into medical profiles. And everything goes out of whack. We lose track of people. Continuity of care is what we need to worry about. How do we keep people engaged in their care? And how do we keep clinicians and interdisciplinary teams communicating clearly about the needs of these folks? And that's going to be the case whether we have a 200 bed shelter or multiple small shelters. Quality of care and continuity of care should be the focus of our communication. OK. Next question. We'll start with you, Roberta. Just in the last two weeks, the city's politics has been awash in accusations with resignations from the school board by two members who criticized what they said was a device of atmosphere. What is your reaction to these events? And how can this atmosphere be improved? That's a great question. And it's a question that I'm intimately familiar with. I can tell you that over the last five years on the school board, as I said earlier, we started to tackle some long historical issues that honestly had not been approached with the sense of urgency that we had. And we expected there to be a pushback very similar to what we're seeing now. When we start asking hard questions and having hard conversations about race, about equity, about white supremacy, about what we called an impenetrable wall of whiteness, that's a quote and a theme that came out of a report that had the most comprehensive look at the experiences of our BIPOC staff members. It literally interviewed every member of our staff and those were the themes that came up. An impenetrable wall of whiteness and the smog of cultural racism. So I believe that if we don't focus that as a starting point of every conversation, we're gonna miss the mark. And unfortunately, when we've done that, people have perceived it as divisive. But in fact, it's just a really difficult conversation to have. Right. Brandon. It is divisive and I'm hoping to bridge that gap. This us versus them mentality doesn't solve our affordability problems, doesn't help our homeless population, doesn't get better public transit. We need to work as a city as a whole and listen to all ideas, whether we agree with them or not. There's a difference between disagreeing and not listening. And I think we really need to get back to the core city politics of addressing all of our needs as a whole and we need to work as a we, not as an us versus them. Stewart. Yes, I'm afraid it is divisive. I'm afraid it's coming across as divisive. And I don't like it when I hear that because I also, I'm sure, I know teachers and teachers are absolutely dedicated towards seeing everyone succeed. That's what they get up in the morning and go to work for is to see everybody succeed. So when I read how our test scores are so low compared to Lewiston or Westbrook or South Portland and Parvish white students and black and brown students, I mean, I'm appalled at that. That needs to be fixed and every resource available needs to be put into fixing that but I just can't believe it's the teachers because teachers are generous of spirit. That's what they get up in the morning to do is to help people. So if there's some other problem in the system, just call it to people's attention and I'm sure they'll fix it because everybody in education wants the kids to succeed. That's why they go into it. Okay, thank you. Back to some maybe quicker questions. And I'll start with Stewart. Would you have voted for the mask mandate that was recently rejected by the council? Why or why not? And this could be a pretty brief answer. Yeah, I would have, where the mask mandate just was Portland, only Portland, I would have said no. No. I would have also said no without some sort of better metric that would show when it would come back to not having a mandate. The results we're getting from the CDC are grouped, our hospitalizations are regional. So without a better metric, I would have been against the mask mandate. Rebares that. I would have supported the mask mandate. Wearing a mask is a risk mitigation strategy and it's something that you do to prevent the numbers from rising. So to wait for things to get worse before you're implemented seems counterproductive. Okay, Brandon, I will start with you on this one. Portland spent a lot of time and effort on the Racial Equity Steering Committee in the wake of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. Which, if any of the committee's recommendations should the city council adopt? And I realized from a previous interview that they may not be top of mind, but of course they wanted to strengthen the police citizen review subcommittee. They wanted to hand off some of the responses to mental health workers in lieu of police response. You probably remember most of them, but if that helps. It does help and I'll try my best. I had friends that served on that committee. I respect the work that that committee did. I think the recommendations of shifting the oversight committee makes a lot of sense. I think putting resources towards mental health is a huge need. So I don't want to say that I would have supported all of them because to your point, I'm not sure I remember all of them, but the key points, I think the work was incredibly important and we should seriously look, and I believe the charter commission is going to be looking at some of these things as well and I look forward to seeing their work. That's right. Roberto? Yes, I appreciate and I think that the work of the student committee was incredibly important and it was part of the commitment that the city made to address problems of inequity in our city. I think that the citizens review committees, the most obvious example of the recommendations that we should follow. And that's again, in an effort to bring transparency into our governance, transparency into the services that we provide our citizens. Stuart? Yes. I would absolutely, totally in favor of mental health, of having a mental health team involved with the police. That should be implemented immediately. So yes on that, on the police review, that's a little stickier for me because I think what I want a board of non-teachers to judge me as a teacher, or what I want a board of non-lawyers to judge me as a lawyer, I think the voice of a citizen voice or two is important to be on those review panels, but it needs to be a majority of police who are on the review because they know, and you have to, I assume they're operating in good faith and they want to stamp out bad policing for the good of the community as much as anyone else has, but they know the subtleties because you don't really know all the variables of a job unless you're in the shoes of somebody do it. And I've, I mean, I used to sue the police on occasion when I had a case. I brought a number of police brutality cases, some even against Portland. And I used to sue the Department of Corrections for brutality against inmates in the prison. So I'm not interested in whitewashing anything, but I just think it's fair. It would be unfair to have a review panel made up of non-police or not a majority of police. You have to trust there in good faith. Next question, start with Stuart. Are you satisfied with the city's ranked choice voting system or in light of this year's charter commission election where a commissioner who trailed badly in the first tally was ultimately elected, do you think it should be revised or revoked? Well, as a candidate in this election, I'm looking at that very hard. As a citizen, I was halfway, I was not so bad because I thought it would encourage moderation in candidates because candidates, if they would try to play for, if I can't be your first choice then I could be your second choice. That might encourage moderation in candidates. But I'm, and the charter commission election was fluky because 84% of the voters stayed home. So I'm not sure that was a charter commission, totally a charter commission. I mean a totally ranked choice voting. I'm gonna say right now that I'm trying to work with it. Okay, thank you, Brandon. I generally support ranked choice voting. I do think with what we saw with the charter commission in that very specific election, we learned that there were some weaknesses when you have multiple openings with multiple candidates. I think it worked the way we had drafted it but not how we maybe intended it for a situation like that. So I think in that situation we may wanna look at tweaking it and either doing each round, each seat as a ranked choice or not have such a high threshold of 51. If you have four open seats, really that threshold probably should have been 25%. But overall I think ranked choice does give people the option and I am supportive of it. One last question. The city of Portland and we'll need answers briefly and it's a very big question. So the city of Portland is threatened by climate change. I don't need to tell you the effect so I'll abbreviate the question. What steps should we be taking to address this problem for Beartow? Great question and I think it's one of the most pressing issues that we have to deal with and there's so many areas that we can have an impact. I think that the most quick and immediate thing is to continue to lower our carbon footprint in the city and to lower our emissions. And there's work in the way we just need urgency behind it. But again it's like many of these other issues is not unique to Portland. So we need a broad coalition of folks. We need to work with folks like the main conservation voters fund who have been doing advocacy and holding people accountable for years. I think that we follow their lead and we use partnerships. This is a problem that's gonna impact all of us, particularly our youth. Okay. Brandon. I think it goes back to one of our original answers. Zoning can have a huge impact. We need to anticipate rising sea levels, incorporate electric vehicle charging stations, solar panels. We also need to support regional initiatives. They're looking at funding, dredging the harbor and that could open up an amazing 25 to 40% depending on the war for our working waterfront, which will also help. So really looking at broad scope and tools that we can encourage people to continue to attack our climate change. Stuart. I think very creatively about how we can use mass transit more effectively because car emissions are a big cause of pollution. Very good point. Well, we've come to the end of our time together. I wanna thank you all very much for Berto, Brandon and Stuart for being here with us tonight and for putting yourselves forward to run for council in the city of Portland. It's a great thing to do. And if you'll stay with us, we'll be right back with our district candidates. Now we're back with the candidates for the district races for the city council election on November 2nd. For district one, we have Sarah McNevitt and Anna Travarro will join us via Zoom. And for district two, we have John Hinck and Victoria Pelletier. John, I'll start with you. What is your reason for running? What is the top item you would like to accomplish as a counselor? Good evening. I think the reason I'm running is because I have something to offer to the city that I really greatly love and appreciate. I have served previously for three years. I bring a bit of experience, but I'm still ready to help make significant change. And right now, one of the biggest things that we face is the cost of living, the cost of housing in this city. And I would like to be part of tackling that difficult challenge. I think it'll need a lot of different approaches and a lot of different solutions when I previously served on the council. I helped get us inclusionary zoning and that's just one little development that is helping to some degree, but we need to do more. Thank you. Victoria, same question. Yeah, I think it's interesting because I love Portland, I love living here. And so I think because of that, I wanna be in a position where I can give back as much as I can and I can really tackle some of our issues. And affordable housing, of course, I think that's everyone's issue and I think that that is a huge piece of what we're trying to solve so that we can continue to live and work in Portland. And I'm somebody that lives in Parkside and I'm somebody that is continuously concerned about whether or not I'll continue to be able to live here in Portland. And so I think it's really important that we're electing leaders that are actually living the issues that we're trying to solve and being able to speak to it from a personal perspective when we're bringing solutions to the table. Excellent. Sarah. Yeah, so I'm running for district one because I feel like we need good people with balanced perspectives to step up and take collaborative work into their hands and really focus on creating balanced solutions that are proportionate to Portland's needs. I've been advocating for my community in Bayside for the past five years and there's pretty much no area of city issues that I haven't touched in that way. And that's given me the opportunity to work with the city and the city processes on almost every level. And so I've been able to see some of the deficiencies and the strengths in how we conduct our business. And I think the number one priority for me is getting our arms around how popular we are. We really, we just need to get a grip on our own popularity and how to keep Portland livable for the people who make it popular. We need to make it possible for people to live, work, raise families and age in place in Portland. And the three words that come to my mind are keeping it affordable, livable and sustainable and in all the aspects that go along with those three words. Anna. So my reason for running, I now I have eight years of experience on the serving on the Portland School Board. Prior to that, I was on the charter commission in 2009. And so I think I have almost a decade now of skills and experience to bring to the table. And I'm hoping to use that to work on a number of key issues. I think the biggest issue I'm hearing about, I think is kind of obvious to everybody. It's housing affordability. Portland is undergoing some rapid changes and becoming a place that's more challenging for the working class than even people making professional level salaries to be able to afford. And I want Portland to be a place where people can both live and work. Okay, starting with you, Sarah. What are the top qualities that the council should be looking for in a new city manager? What is your model for how that hiring process should work? Right, so I think the top qualities absolutely need to be professionalism and transparency and really strong communication skills. There's so much interface between the departments and between staff and counselors and being able to run that system in a way that allows for dialogue is incredibly important for keeping everybody on the same page and keep us heading forward in the direction that we intend to go per the council's goals and the comprehensive plan. And that process to me, I think one of the key components is having citizen involvement, having neighborhood involvement. I'm a member of the neighborhood association I'm part of that participated in the hiring process for the previous city manager. So just in hearing how that worked, it just made a law of the sense in the world to me to have people at all of the levels that the city manager interacts with be at the table and that includes constituents. Right, Victoria. Yeah, I think a great city manager is gonna be somebody that understands what happens when a large town actually turns into a city. And so the city manager really needs to understand that process because Portland I think of as a large town and now we are turning into a moderately sized city. And I think it's really important that the city manager is somebody that's gonna keep the city equitable and not just kind of using that word because I know that it's extremely popular but making sure that we're pushing with that with the laws and the policies that we're putting into place and also making sure that Portland can remain a city for everybody because I know that we have a lot of people that are working class, essential workers in service industry, folks that are the backbone of the city. And so as popular as we are, I really wanna make sure that we are also advocating for the people that have been here and wanna continue to live here and raise families and put down roots. And I also think that the conversation around hiring a city manager should be community-based. I do all of my work with community as a community advocate and as somebody that is really championing other people to get involved in local issues. And so I think it's really important that if the city manager is going to be somebody that's leading the city of Portland, that the people of Portland who live here have a say in the process, understand the process and that we're very transparent about how we're going about electing a new person. Well, I actually was co-chair of the last superintendent search committee. And so I have some experience in hiring executives. And I think that we did, I'm pretty proud of that work because we hired for strategic vision. And when superintendent Botana came on board, the first thing that he did was to get the entire district from all areas coalesced around a vision. We kind of looked at, well, who are we as a district? And what are our values? And we built a comprehensive plan around that with some key concise goals. And that became the driving force of all the work that we do. So I would be looking for a city manager that has those qualities to be able to do that assessment of who are we as a community in Portland? What are our values? And how can we bring those together to shape the work that we're facing? All right. John. This is obviously a very important role of the city council. We'll be getting a city manager to be in charge. Of course, with the charter commission underway, we're not sure what the future organization of our government will be. So it adds some complexity to the decision nonetheless, there are certain skills we want to get, whether it's an interim city manager or long-term city manager. I think the core competency of running a city our size is number one, someone who has experience delivering services or being part of a team that delivers services, preferably someone who's been a city manager elsewhere. But then other issues are also important. We would like a city manager who recognizes what the residents of the city of Portland think is important. And that is where a process that brings in community involvement would be very, very helpful. We have a number of challenges that there's some consensus on affordable housing. We want the city manager to understand how important that is, fixing the lights on the peninsula and elsewhere. Of course, making sure the snow is picked up, but also moving a city to being more pedestrian and bike-friendly is something many people in Portland agree with. I could go on, probably you don't want me to, but these are the kinds of things that city councilors and community members would convey to candidates when they come in, and that's an important part of the process. Following up on the same question, and in a little different way, we'll start with you, Victoria. Are you in favor of giving more executive power to the mayor as opposed to the city manager? I am, and I know that the Charter Commission is discussing that. I think that there's an interesting power balance between the city manager and the mayor, but I am in favor of the mayor ultimately having the power and doing a strong mayor system versus a mayor and city manager system. I think it's really important in the reflection of the city, and like I said, how we're distributing power. And so, again, I think that is a perfect example of a community conversation about what are we being served if we have a city manager and a mayor? Are they working together collaboratively? Do they both have different agendas? And I am definitely in favor of a one mayor, no city manager system. You know, I was on the Charter Commission back in 2009, and of course, at that point, that's when we came up with the structure that we have now. Back then, the impetus behind an elected mayor was really that there was a sense that there were all these sort of projects that got started and then kind of got put on the shelf. And so we were looking for somebody who would kind of move the ball on policy priorities. And I think that, you know, we, I think the kind of compromise position that we have now is better than what we had before because it does have accountability, but it didn't quite meet the goal of giving the mayor enough tools to be able to move those visions forward that we had talked about. So my leaning is, yes, I would be in favor of giving some more authority to the mayor, some more executive roles, probably removing the mayor from the council into an executive position. And when you do that, you know, it's the more authority you give the mayor, the more administrative the manager becomes. So it wouldn't entirely eclipse the manager position. I think that would still be a significant role for the city, but it would allow the mayor to have kind of the first crack at the budget, for example, because ultimately the budget is a policy document that reflects the values of the city. Sarah. Yeah, so I tend to come down on the side of feeling that a professional city manager is the best way that we can get the business of the city done efficiently and effectively. A city manager, such as the one we have now, that's the person who is receiving reports who understands what's going on on a day-to-day basis and so in terms of budgeting, they're able to really be fine grained about where resources should go. My concern with a strong elected mayor is that there's more room for that to be a position that's influenced by one particular demographic, the voters, it's a position that is ostensibly answerable mostly to the voters who elected them. And I think there's just a lot more room for it to be less responsive to the entire constituency. That said, I think there can be better communication and maybe a little more transparency in the interplay between the two roles than we have now. And I think that's actually about it, sorry. Okay, John. I have faith in our city and I think we'll do well regardless of which form of government we end up choosing both the Charter Commission and of course the voters. The Charter Commission is going to propose something and the voters are gonna decide whether that's implemented. So I'm willing, of course, to go with either approach. I did write an op-ed based on my own experience. I should say I've lived here for 25 years, almost 26. And so I've seen the strong manager system working here and I think by and large it has over time worked fairly well. I also, in my lifetime, have lived in Philadelphia, Seattle and San Francisco, all cities with strong mayors and sometimes they have good mayors and sometimes they've had terrible mayors. And I wrote an op-ed on the experience of living in Philadelphia with Frank Rizzo, not only getting elected, but getting re-elected in a city that was more diverse than Portland is today, perhaps more progressive than Portland is today. Quite a revolutionary spirit and nonetheless was led by somebody who had the lowest common denominator in his approach to the people of the city. So I have seen politics get subverted. So I'm not convinced that if we have a strong mayor that we'll always have the best choice. Thank you. Just in the last two weeks, the city's politics has seen a swirl of accusations and there were two resignations from the school board by members who criticized what they called a device of atmosphere. What is your reaction to these events and how can this atmosphere be improved? Sarah, I'll start with you. Yeah, I think it's really unfortunate that it has come to that level of polarization. I think it's very disheartening. I don't think that politics in a city like Portland should be that divided. There seems to be a narrative now that disagreement means division and it shouldn't have to be that way. I'd like to see people have more collaboration and balance and be able to give each other a path back toward the middle and that's not what we're seeing right now. And I think part of the way that we get there is by electing people who are willing to have the conversations and willing to have give and take and willing to accept imperfection and understand that we're not all always going to get what we want but we are all as a city trying to move toward a place where we're all doing better together. Assume good intentions. Right, Victoria. Yeah, I think the word divisive is interesting because I think what people call divisive is just difficulty. It's just a difficult conversation. And to say divisive is kind of actively pushing a narrative that people who have been historically undervalued and disenfranchised shouldn't speak up for themselves and shouldn't advocate for the needs that they require in order to feel like Portland is a city for them. Excuse me, so when I see the word divisive it's frustrating because I think it's really just hard conversations that we need to have that many of us said that we were ready to have especially last summer with the murder of George Floyd. And so I think when you get into politics but not just politics, just general life, I think that these hard conversations need to exist. We can't advance without them. We can't go forward without acknowledgement and accountability and also understanding. And to have a difficult conversation doesn't mean that it needs to be yelling or screaming or insulting, but it does need to have a level of accountability. It does need to have a level of understanding, especially when we use terminology like white supremacy and white privilege and equity and really people who are advocating for the things that they've never had. So I think it's extremely important to continue forward with conversations, even if they may be difficult because if we're not going to do that then I don't understand how we can advance together and come out on the other side together and really state that Portland is a city for everyone. John. Yes, Mary, do you mind telling me again how that question began? Okay, just in the last two weeks the city's politics has seen a swirl of accusations, resignations from the school board by two members who criticized what they called a divisive atmosphere. What is your reaction? How can this atmosphere be improved? I will say that I have paid attention to those events as reported in the newspaper, Portland Press Herald and elsewhere, and online. And I probably will always pay attention to the cross currents, but I don't think they define us really. I see mostly people participating who care about our city. They care about objectives that they have and they would like to see play out. And I agree with Victoria that these kinds of discussions can and should take place. We should be making sure that there aren't people who are frustrated because they haven't felt, they have a voice. We want to have a vigorous debate, a vigorous discussion. And I would also hope that in the end we would tend to come together. Anna? You know, I don't know that I can agree that my lived experience currently on the school board is that it is a divisive atmosphere. I think that we are actually very focused on the Portland Promise, which is the district's comprehensive plan and the goals of that, particularly equity. Equity has been the driving force behind all of our policy, making an all of our budget priority decisions for the last five years since we hired the current superintendent. So, you know, I don't know. It's political season and people become activated around messaging, but in my lived experience, I think we're actually very focused on significant and important priorities on the school board. Okay, different, moving to a much different topic. And again, I'll start with Victoria this time. Fairly quick answer. I think would you have voted for the mask mandate that the city council just rejected? Yes, I would have. I think it's important that we continue to wear masks. We talk a lot about Portland being a very popular city. And so if we care about the city, we need to protect it and its people. And I understand that some people are going based off of the low numbers, but I think if we're not wearing masks to prevent the spread and waiting for something to happen, that's an irresponsible thing to do to the people that you love in the city. Right. Yes, I would have. Well, I've been to other cities over the summer. I've been to Boston. I've been to Hartford everywhere you go. They have indoor mask mandates. And some cities are going as far as New York and Los Angeles now I think are doing vaccination mandates to get into basically every business. So I think that we need to, we have a responsibility to do everything we can to protect public health. Cheryl. I think I would have very narrowly come down on the unknown, simply because if we are the only ones doing it, it makes it very hard, I think, to gauge whether that's what's having a positive impact or not on the numbers. You know, I think we need more data and not so much regionalized data if we were going to make sense of the results of a mandate. Sean. Yes, I'm willing to back the decision that's been made so far by the city council. Probably had they made the opposite decision, I'd say the same thing. If I was making the decision, I would end up reviewing a lot more of the public health data that I assume was available to them, maybe available to me, but I have not been spending that much time with it. I'm a civil libertarian and I don't encourage, don't look for government mandates when they're not necessary. On the other hand, there's a balance, an important balance here because it's a serious matter of public health, so it's a tough call and so far I see no reason not to back the city council. Portland spent a lot of effort and time on the Racial Equity Steering Committee in the wake of the 2020 BLM protests. Which, if any, of the committee's recommendations should the city council adopt? And if they're not top of mind, some of their recommendations included strengthening the public citizen police review committee using mental health responders more than to substitute for some of the police responses and a whole suite of proposals that are being considered by the council. So what is your thought and should any of those recommendations be adopted? You know, I can talk more generally about equity. I haven't reviewed all of the recommendations indeed. Well, just to maybe help refresh, they wanted to strengthen the, you know, the Portland, you know, the present committee that reviews the Portland and that's, you know, the Portland police review committee. They wanted to strengthen that committee and give it more powers to review the police as well as trying to integrate new models of responding to certain incidents that would be more geared towards mental health among other things and many other recommendations. You just didn't have them off the top of my head like that, but you did refresh my memory and I would support those. I would support, you know, putting a lot of weight into that report and really addressing equity the way that we ought to. On the school board, we as a board underwent professional development around anti-racism and really looking at the ways that internal bias affects our policy making as elected officials. I would love to see the city council undergo similar training and really commit to looking at every policy decision through an equity lens. Sarah. Well, I think the office of, was it the office of racial equity and I apologize if I'm getting this wrong, but within the city council that they proposed, that I was interested in that, but I wasn't sure where it might be redundant with the office of economic opportunity that we already have. So I was curious about that, but again, would want to know what would the differences be and is it therefore necessary? The police citizens review subcommittee, that I think it could be changed because right now their purview is to review internal cases and how they were handled and not the complaints themselves, which is a subtle distinction, but I think it's very hard for a group of folks who don't have direct understanding of police procedure and to make truly informed decisions. So I think you have to have a mix, you do have to have law enforcement in that mix, but that said, citizen oversight is extraordinarily important and we should continue to look at how to best serve Portland with that model. Now, but the one that I think is really interesting is this idea that we should add a mental health unit to policing because I think a lot of people don't seem to know that we actually, we have that. We have had a behavioral health liaison, a substance use liaison. We now have a alternative response team. All these things have actually been in place. Portland has been a model for that for a long time. There's always room for improvement, but it's set as if we're not doing any of those things and we are and we're very good at it. Okay, we're gonna move through this and a few other questions fairly quickly. Same question, Victoria. Yeah, I agree. I think it was great that we had the racial equity steering committee and I think that the citizen oversight review is important, especially given the tension that was created, prior to last summer, but definitely magnified last summer with the Black Lives Matter protests and the attendees of the protests and the police department. So I think that's important, especially for a city that wants to champion itself on leading with community. And that's the first step to leading with community. I also think that mental health services, we need to continue with this because we have a huge population of people that aren't being helped, that aren't being treated, that are unhoused and I think just taking a one, kind of like going forward with thinking of one solution that would fit everybody is not gonna work. And so I'm very much in favor of the mental health services. I'm very much in favor of making sure that we're treating every person with what they need and not just making assumptions. And so I think that this oversight committee and I think that the mental health challenges or mental health support would be a huge help. Thank you, John. Yes, I hope that Portland can always be in a place where we are able to back our first responders because we obviously need to recognize that they do a difficult job. Part of that is proper oversight. And I'm not convinced that historically we've had enough oversight. I think a citizen review committee doing oversight of police is a very good idea and I think they should have some actual authority. Perhaps they would need to be trained a bit as well to serve in that role because it's a very significant role and it can cause difficulties and tension with the police but it's needed. I also support having more mental health professionals engaged in first response. There are definitely times when the professionals that are called for are more in the mental health area than in the weaponized police area and I'm not so sure that Portland has gotten that right consistently and we should. Okay, this is a big question but we are gonna be finishing up so try to just hit some highlights if you can. Victoria, the city of Portland is obviously threatened by climate change. It's in a unique situation that's a vulnerable. What should the city be doing? What specific steps should the city be taking to address this problem? Yeah, I think it's really important to mitigate climate change and to reduce our carbon emissions but I also think we really need to start with education. I live in Parkside and predominantly black and brown neighborhood that's arguably going to be the neighborhood that is the most impacted by climate change and the same with the Bayside area and the same with the waterfront and so I think taking an equitable approach to mitigating climate change is huge not just making assumptions that we can just put more EV chargers around as if people can afford EVs. I think we really need to make sure that we're educating and make sure that we are leading with a community based model to provide that education from city council to the people of Portland so that we can all work together to mitigate the change rather than just kind of using these high level solutions without taking into consideration that there is a large demographic of people that are continuously forgotten about in these conversations and they're most often the most vulnerable populations. Great. John, top ideas for what the city should be doing. I see it in two areas. I'd like to address both of them but I'll try and do it quickly. One I call adaptation and that's responding to climate change and it has to do, for example, with flooding. We may also see the hottest days that Portland's ever had and high heat can often mean that people will die and we're not prepared. Typically manors don't air condition. I've never had an air conditioner in this city and I'm not looking forward to the days and we may have to do that but we also have to realize that some people are going to require extra help to keep them alive if we have those kinds of days. There's a lot more to say. I know there is a lot. But on mitigation, we need to do our part. We can't solve the climate crisis but Portland needs to do all it can to reduce its carbon footprint. Thank you, Sarah. Yeah, basically we need to reduce our impact and mitigate the changes that we do have. There's a lot of low, mid and high level solutions. I think kind of touched on a few of them. We seem to be running out of time, so. Yeah. Well, thank you. And thank you all. Thank you for joining us tonight. Don't forget to vote on November 2nd. We have John Hink, Victoria Pelletier running in District 2 and Sarah McNevitt and Anna Trevorrow running in District 1. So thank you all for joining us. Join us next month on Portland Rising and we'll see you then. Thank you. Thank you.