 Hi, I'm Greg Kessich and we're here at the Portland Media Center for the Civic IQ Series where we're meeting each of the five candidates for mayor of Portland. And today, my guest is Dylan Pugh, software designer for Gulf of Maine Research Center and welcome. So thanks, Greg. It's really great to be here. Thanks. So could you tell us a little about your background? You know, how you got here, what you do and. Yeah, so I'd be happy. No, it's great. Said it was your fifth one. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I'm Dylan Pugh. I'm originally from Eastern Washington and I left there on my 18th birthday and I drove out to Maine to attend College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor because I really wanted to change and I was immediately struck by Maine. I really loved it. And after my time at College of the Atlantic, I bounced around to a lot of places. I lived in New York, Washington, D.C. And I think I was really lucky to have a lot of different experiences. I started my own business in Bar Harbor after I graduated and I worked in some kind of business was that I was called Bar Harbor Tour Company and we did walking tours of Bar Harbor that focused on sort of an alternative history. So we did one that was about the literary history of Bar Harbor and another one that was about the haunted history of Bar Harbor. So the ghost tours, which people were excited about. And you went to college with the Atlantic. That's right. Yeah. And you've never run for a public office before. No, this is my first time. Right. Um, what's your what was your initial impression of Portland? When did you first get here and what did you see and what was it like? Yeah, I moved to Portland about 10 years ago. And I was immediately struck by how active people were in the community. I think having lived a lot of places, both large and small, Portland immediately felt different to me. And I think it was because people were so involved in the community and they were really dedicated to trying to make things better for everybody, whether it was addressing people that were unhoused or working for economic justice. I was really kind of shocked by how active everybody seemed to be. And it was kind of inspiring for me. I wonder if I could get you to turn the lens around and look 10 years into the future. What kind of city do you expect to see or would you like to see and what should we be doing now to achieve that vision? Yeah, absolutely. I think that vision question is really important. And it's obviously something I've been thinking a lot about. I think the first thing we need to sort of get ahead of is the affordable housing issue, because I think if I look 10 years into the future and nothing's changed, I sadly see a city where we've lost a lot of the character, I think, that makes Portland special. I think a lot of people will be priced out and all my friends have basically already been priced out. And so looking 10 years without any changes, I don't really like the way that looks because I think we'll lose something special. But the flip side of that, I think, is that if we're really bold and innovative and how we address that, we can be a model for the rest of the country to build a city that maintains its special character, but also is ahead of the trend of affordable housing. So you have a wide variety of people that live in Portland or invested in Portland and also have a housing market that is much more stable. So you're not having these huge swings and rents. You're not having to fight about rent increases all the time. So I think I want to see a city where people are secure in their housing because that then enables them to become really active members in the community and to do things they're passionate about and bring even more character to Portland. As you probably know, the position of mayor has been subject to a lot of controversy for a long time without having a directly elected mayor. And then ever since the position was created, there have been critics who say that it's either too powerful or not powerful enough. We had a charter review process and they came up with recommendations that the voters rejected. So where do you see what do you see as the role of the mayor? How does the mayor influence policy? How does the what is what kind of mayor do we have? And what job would you like to do? Yeah, I think it's really a unique position, the mayor of Portland, which is why I'm running for it's something that's really I think unique as far as the positions I've seen. And I think of the mayor is having two roles. The first one is to model the kind of relationships with people in the city, with constituents that are going to be able to cut through some of the divisiveness that we see. And I think that requires a lot of vulnerability, a lot of empathy and compassion and just taking the time to like really sit down with people and understand, hey, maybe you're angry right now or maybe there's something that you're concerned about. But what's beneath that? You know, what's the sort of core thing that's going on with you? And so I think the first thing is leading by example. And then I think the second role of the mayor is to take what they learn in that process and then expand that to the city as a whole. So whether that's working with the city council, whether that's moderating city council meetings or having larger community sessions, I think it's really the mayor's job to understand what's going on in the heart of the city and then to communicate that to all the other stakeholders, including the city council, city staff, everybody who's working on this stuff. We have had three previous mayors, very different administrations, different personalities. What have you learned from those experiences? Is there anything that you'd like to emulate? Is there anything that you want to evaluate? Yeah, thank you forward. Yeah, I think it's a really good point. I think we've had a lot of diversity in that. And I think looking at our current mayor, Kate Snyder, I think she has a really sort of even and mature leadership style that I think is something that I would do well to emulate. So I think that she comes across as someone who's very measured. And I think that if I look back, even Strimling, he's someone who is really, really passionate about issues and somebody who was very clear from the moral side of what needed to be done. And I think that having a fusion of those two things would be a real asset to the city, because we need somebody who is not going to be dogmatic in their positions, but who's also not going to lose sight of the real moral cost of what's going on in the city. So if you talk about the unhousing, the population of unhoused people, that's a real crisis, I think, and somebody who can hold that crisis, but not become someone who's entrenched in position and alienating people. I think that's kind of the fusion that you need to really make a difference. Before we get into policy positions, I wonder if you could just sort of zoom out again. And what are you considering the major challenges facing the city? Yeah, I think, you know, as far as issues, the number one thing I hear from people is affordable housing. And it's my number one issue as well. And homelessness is the second biggest one. Obviously, they're interconnected. And sort of, yeah, but just take a zoomed out sort of look at that. There are enormous economic pressures being applied to Portland that are not unique to Portland. They're sort of happening all over the country and all over the world. And I think what's happening in Portland is that we're a small city, but we're growing really rapidly and we're still not quite sure how to respond to these enormous economic pressures that are being applied. So I think the real challenge of Portland is how do we sort of establish? What are those pressures? Yeah, I mean, I think climate change is a huge one. So I think what you're seeing right now with people that are coming to Portland seeking asylum that is only going to increase. And I think we have a real solemn duty to be the kind of place that can invite people in, that can take care of them and help them get established in the community, because you're going to have an huge influx of climate refugees. And also sort of the global economic system is obviously at a point where it's producing enormous inequality. And we're seeing that to start to become stratified in the US as well. And you see it in Portland, right? You have people that are getting priced out, but also million dollar condos going up. So you have sort of this dual hurricane coming at us of climate change and economic stratification. And that's going to be continuing to apply a ton of pressure to Portland. Let's start with housing. What can we do to make housing more affordable? Yeah, I think there's two things that I'm looking at. The first is more of an immediate response, which is to look at zoning. We're going through this other recode process right now. And there's a ton of really, really smart people working on this. I was just at the Urbanist Coalition of Portland meeting last night and they have a lot of really smart recommendations to increase density. So I think there's some low hanging fruit in the regulatory environment that we can look at. Another one is looking at the percentage of affordable housing that we require to be built when we're talking about new development. I think we should bump that up to 50 percent. And I think we should also increase the fee in lieu of so if a developer doesn't want to build affordable housing, they currently pay a fee. I think we should bump that up as well. I think it just common sense because if you want to build here, you know, we're very welcome to do that and we encourage that, but we got to build affordable housing. So I think the first plank of that is looking at the regulatory environment and what can we do there? But the second one that I'm looking at is kind of a longer term thought, which is it's not just about housing supply. What we have to really do is change the fundamental power structure that's involved in housing right now, because if you build a ton of new units, but they're all controlled by one corporation, you haven't really changed anything significantly and you're going to have the same issue 10 years down the line. So what I'm really focusing on is how do we encourage home ownership? How do we invent some mechanisms to allow people in Portland that are maybe renting right now, but want to be homeowners? How do we facilitate that? So I think once you have people that are transitioning to being homeowners, you stabilize the market as a whole. You increase their individual agency and autonomy, which is hugely important. So I think that thinking about housing, not just in terms of affordability, but in terms of autonomy and having control over one's own housing is kind of the second big part of my line of thinking on this. You can talk some more about that. I think we're about 60 percent renters now. Do you see is there like a 50-50 or what do you see as a like the right ratio for us sitting this size? Yeah, I think probably 50-50 is a good starting place. I would even like to see it higher than that. 60 percent owners, 40 percent renters. The way I'm thinking about it is there's always going to be a core of people who aren't ready to buy or who prefer to rent because they don't want the headache. I'm a recent homeowner that's off of my mind right now. But my goal would be that anyone who works in Portland and wants to buy a home should be able to afford that home. That seems like a basic sort of ethical question to me. And I think it has a lot of benefits as far as increasing people's investment in the community and making people feel like they really are home in Portland. So I think I'm not sure of the specific number, but it would really be a process of figuring out what a percentage of people in Portland rent right now, what would like to own, but don't feel like it's feasible right now. And what mechanism would a municipal government have to achieve that? Yeah, I think we're going to have to be the leaders on this because I'm not sure that people have invented these mechanisms yet. So part of it is going to be I don't want to get into a situation where the city of Portland owns a huge amount of housing stock and administers it on its own. I think the goal needs to be to move it into the hand of individuals or families that want to own it. So I think the city of Portland can work with regional banks, regional credit unions, nonprofits to create financial mechanisms that give favorable mortgage terms to people that are looking to buy. We can provide workshops to people who want to organize maybe their apartment unit into a co-op. And I think on the local level, we can have some ordinances that provide a framework legally so that if people want to organize and buy their apartment, they have some guidelines and guidance on how to do that. Some of the characteristics of affordable neighborhoods of the past were dense development, walkable services in reach, employing employment opportunities within walking distance, public transportation access. And these are all things that bring per unit cost down. I think you'll probably realize like the irony of Portland is that the neighborhoods that fit that description have become wealthy migrants because they're so desirable. But at the same time, we have there's a lot of resistance on neighborhoods that have different development pattern that would prevent that kind of that kind of development. Right. And you talked a little bit about the recode, but is there like do you see a future where there's more walkable neighborhoods being developed in other parts of the city? Yeah, absolutely. I think that's really the ideal that we want to go toward. And I think looking at what we can do from a zoning perspective is really important. One thing is getting rid of parking minimums so we don't have more parking lots being built. And I would love to see a way where we could figure out what do we want like parking to look like in Portland, because I don't think really many people are satisfied with it right now. So I think encouraging a walkable neighborhood that has that mixed use development, so you have a business on the ground floor and then two or three units above it, you have pathways where one can walk in a nice area through a nice green space to park or work, knock down Washington Ave. I think that's a great goal. Sure. So as a municipal official, what would you say to a neighborhood group that doesn't want density added to the neighborhood as they've come to now? Even though it might be in the best interests of the city as all? Yeah, I think the first thing would be to talk to them and really understand why, because I'm not interested in going and talking to people that have lived in their homes for 30 years and telling them that I know better than they do, but I think what my goal would be and what my skill set would facilitate is understanding why, because I think that if we look at it on the whole, we all have the same goals. We all want a city that is safe and affordable, walkable, that has diversity. These are pretty much universal goals when I talk to people. But I think you're right that things get in the way so people think that by encouraging density, they're going to lose the character of their neighborhood. And I think you've had, you know, we had big problems with public development in this country. The way it's been done has not been well executed. So you've had people that have some kind of baggage associated with that. So my goal would be not to be prescriptive to people in the neighborhood, but it would be, let me understand why, let me understand what you love about your neighborhood and how do we find a win-win there where I can actually frame this as something that will increase what you love about your neighborhood and not detract from it. Let's move on to the, as you said, related, but separate problem of homelessness. And the level of people who have lived here a long time have never seen this level of homelessness. The tents are really shocking. And what is the municipality's role? Obviously, this isn't a problem that was created in Portland, but it's one that the city really needs to deal with. And how do you see the city navigating this very difficult time? Yeah, it's a great question. And I think you're absolutely right that it's not invented in Portland. I think it really does speak to those sort of outside economic pressures that we were talking about earlier. And that's what I've really heard from people is that the level, the acceleration of this issue has been kind of shocking to them. And I think we do need to treat it as a crisis because, you know, it's frankly shocking to me that we have a city in an economic system that allows hundreds of people to be outside in tents. That is really a humanitarian crisis. And I think we need to keep the language around it like that, because the human cost is enormous with this. And as far as what the city can do, I think the first thing we need to do is we need to empower the people that are already working on it. So like I was saying before, Portland has a huge core of passionate, smart people working on stuff. So Preble Street is an enormous asset to the city. They've been working really, really hard on this. And one thing that they've started to pilot is something called housing first, which is an approach that has been taken in other cities in the US and in Europe, which basically says we need to establish no barrier housing for people. So this is no strings attached, no cost housing for people that can that are currently on house. They can go right into it and they can get the services that they need. They can get stabilized and then work through the system to get back into society. So I think focusing on that, asking the experts at Preble Street, how can we support you in doing that? And then also a key part of this is going to be how do we bring in the region? How do we bring in Westbrook, Scarborough, South Portland? Because like you said, it's not a Portland centered issue. But historically, people have come to Portland because it's where they've been able to access services. And I think that's an honor to be a place like that for people, but we have to make sure that we're meeting that expectation. So bringing in the region is going to be really important in that as well. So housing first is a proven model and it's not a new idea. It's been in Portland for over a decade, but it doesn't expand. It's very expensive to get started. I'm wondering what we could do on the city level to accelerate the development of those kind of options. Yeah, absolutely. I think one thing is that we need to move away from a shelter based model. So if we're allocating funds to build a very large shelter, let's take that and let's put that into the housing first model instead of doing that. Did you support the service center that was on the ballot last year? The one that's over on Riverside Street. You know, it's not the model that I like to see because it's sort of on the outside of the city and it's that big shelter model. And what I hear when I speak to on-house people is that they don't feel safe in the shelter model and that they would sometimes rather be intense because it feels safer. So I don't think that having big shelters like that is the right approach. I think a smaller, more community based housing first controls the right way to do that. And where does the money come from? Is that a local responsibility or what do you see? You're talking about having some regional outreach. But yeah, is that what's the model? How do we do that? Yeah, I think it's sort of an all of the above situation. So we need to access municipal funds. We need to access state and federal funds. And the other side of this is how do we frame this as sort of a hotbed for innovation when it comes to housing technology? So, for instance, the University of Maine has something called the Advanced Composites Lab, where they just recently proved they could 3D print a house out of cellulose. And that's something that brings the cost way down the scalability way up for housing. So I think that we need to be looking at those kind of technologies and talking to people that are doing it and saying, hey, we will give you tax breaks. We will give you incentive. We will help you develop this technology if you come and do that in Portland. Because there's no reason why this can't be sort of a win-win for people that are working on this new technology as well. And I think one thing we also need to think about is, you know, this is something, as I said, as a new homeowner, we need to figure out a way of funding these things without burdening people that are already burdened by property tax. And so I think let's look at the enormous amount of money that's flowing through Portland on any given day when it comes to everyone staying in hotels, when it comes to everybody going to Whole Foods or everybody going to Trader Joe's, whatever it is. It's these huge corporations that benefit enormously from Portland. Let's create a mechanism where we can help make them actually pay their fair share to support the city that they're making a ton of money from. And what would that be? I think it could be something on a municipal level where we pilot an ordinance where if you are operating in Portland, say, take Whole Foods, for instance, your property tax has a provision built in for funding housing first. So whether that's, you know, I'm not quite sure of the percentages of somebody that we'd have to work out. But I'd like to see something like that where we can say, you're doing business here, you're getting a lot of benefit from this. You will need to contribute to making this a livable place for everybody. So that's something that I would think we should pursue, sort of focused on the people that are not paying their fair share right now. Intertwined with this problem is substance use, untreated mental health, normally considered state responsibilities. And as you pointed out, the services are based here, but they're they're often state services. They don't seem to be adequate. What can the city do in the face of this obvious failure in the state to take care of very vulnerable people? Yeah, I mean, thanks for bringing that up because those things are super intertwined. And I think one of the major issues is that we still have a stigma around being unhoused or struggling with substance use disorder. And I think the first thing we need to do is get rid of that stigma. And I think the city can be a leader in that and modeling that. And I think one thing that getting rid of that stigma does is it opens the door to more community based models of recovery. So many of my closest friends are in the recovery community. September is recovery month, actually. So this is sort of a similar thing where there are a ton of people in Portland who are super, super passionate about this and we need to make sure that we support them. So in the face of something where maybe we can't access state funds or maybe it's slow moving like it very often is at the state or federal level. How do we look at people that need support in Portland from a community? And how do we bring that model forward and say, no, we don't necessarily need to have a ton of paperwork. This is just a safe place that you can go and talk through what's going on with you or this is a safe place where you can talk to a social worker or a substance use counselor, somebody that has not the same kind of training as somebody at the state level, but consequently doesn't cost as much, but it's still as effective. Other cities in Canada, for instance, I've used safe injection sites as an opportunity to reach people who might be interested in treatment. Is there an option there for the city of Portland? Yeah, I absolutely support a safe injection site. I think, like you were saying, it's really it's an opportunity to both keep people safe, but also to make those really important connections with people that are so key when it comes to helping them get out of the cycle of poverty, the cycle of homelessness. And this is a similar situation with the encampments that were recently cleared, I don't support clearing encampments partially because people are going in and making those personal connections. So when you have a safe injection site, you have a place where people are going to come, they're going to be safe. And while they're there, they can access literature, they can access trained supervisors that can help them move from that to a pathway to recovery if they choose. So I think it's a really powerful model. And I think we have to be really forward thinking about implementing that. So you would leave the encampments intact? I would. Yeah, absolutely. I think people are already there and this is a home for people. And that's obviously a situation that it should be unfathomable for us. We should not have been in the situation already. But we are right now and bringing a bulldozer in bulldozing somebody's house does absolutely nothing to help them get back on the pathway to recovery. You know, I think a lot of the time we want to move these encampments and we want to move people who are experiencing homelessness out of the line of sight, we want to move them out to Riverside or somewhere where they're not seen. But honestly, they should be in the public eye. Everybody walking around should be confronted with that every day because it's not going away until we really take a leadership role in solving it. But about supplying more services, bathrooms, showers, field kitchens, do you see a sitting roll there? Yeah, absolutely. I think especially if we're going to leave the encampments intact, let's get in there, let's have regular trash pickup, let's build more bathroom. Yeah, let's have a field kitchen. Let's do everything that we can to not only increase the quality of the condition, to increase the sanitation, but also signal these people that we're not trying to get rid of you. We understand that you are going through an incredibly, incredibly tough time. And we as a city, we as a community want to help however we can. Maybe we're still figuring out the details, obviously. But we're here for you and we want you to become integrated back because you're already a member of our society and we want you to get help. So I think, yeah, absolutely support. Have you spent any time in the encampments? Well, I'm actually going to go tomorrow. I haven't personally, but one of my close campaign advisers has worked a lot in the encampments and she and I are going to go down tomorrow. Also related, but but not directly or maybe tensionally related is people are coming to the city every day across the economic spectrum from asylum seekers to very well off people. Yeah, remote work. So I could bring their jobs with them. And we try to welcome everybody. But I don't know if you look at the the census results, the population has been absolutely stable for decades. And that means somebody's getting displaced. Yeah. And I just wonder how you look at growth in terms of the desirability of the city? Like, did we want to get bigger? How much bigger? Yeah, it's a great question. You know, I think growth for Portland is inevitable. I think it's going to continue to expand. It's been it's been habitable for a while. That's been able to avoid it. Right. Well, I think it's exactly what you're saying. People come to Portland, they find it very inaccessible from a housing perspective, and then they go to a surrounding community. And, you know, some of that, I think, you know, we can't take everybody in the state, nor do we really want everybody in the state to come to Portland. But we're also missing out on a huge opportunity to have a city that is culturally and economically and ideologically diverse. And I think, you know, to your question, sort of who's getting forced out, it's always people at the lower end of the economic spectrum. It's recent asylum seekers. It's people that are just coming out of homelessness and are trying to get reintegrated, it's students, it's young people. You know, I don't know that I, if I were trying to come to Portland now as a young person, like I did 10 years ago, I don't know that I could afford it. I would probably have ended up somewhere else. So I think that growth is not a bad thing, but we have to be careful about what kind of growth, because I don't want to see growth meaning only luxury condos, only more hotels and six, you know, 6,000 breweries to accommodate tourists like we want to be, you know, we want to be careful that this is the place for real people live. Yeah. And we want to embrace that, because that's a great thing. Yeah. Yeah. Let's talk about the asylum seekers. What is the city's role here? In terms of welcoming people, at least for the first year or six months to a year, can't work. Yeah. It's a great question. I think that it's two things. I think we obviously want to be the type of place that can accept people because these are people that are fleeing unimaginable conditions. And so we want to be able to accept people, but we also have a responsibility to the people that we accept. We can't say, OK, you're here. Sorry, now you're in 10. Now you're in the Expo Center for a year. You know, we can't say that. So we have to be careful that our services and our ability to accommodate people is keeping pace with the amount of people that are coming in. And like you were saying, that issue with the work authorization is huge because it makes no sense that somebody comes here. Maybe they have a ton of skills. You know, I've talked to people that are doctors, engineers, and then they just have to sit around. And you know, what ends up happening is that many people are going to be working under the table. They're going to be because they're doing that more exposed to abuses at the hands of employers. So people are going to work because they have to. We have got to figure out a way to help them work in like an above board legal way, much more quickly, because I think the faster you can integrate people into our regular economic system here, the less you're going to have an issue with people having to find a place to stay with no money. So I think that's a really important issue. And any ideas of what we can do on the municipal level? As far as this work authorization. Yeah, I think this is another area where we have to be a leader, because I know that some of these regulations are on the state or the federal level, but let's pass an ordinance that says in a time of crisis we can co-op, we can sort of get around them. We can pass an emergency authorization that says, OK, you know, you came here, you got your paperwork, whatever, you can work now. And if people want to push back on that on the federal or the state level, when that's going to be actually a good thing, because we're going to have the conversation and we're going to make this a big issue that everybody can start talking about and everybody can see that, oh, this actually makes no sense at all. So I think that's one thing that I'd really like to see poor in the do is be a leader in pushing back on things that don't make a lot of sense one of the ways people have been pushing back is through referendums really setting the city agenda through direct democracy rather than through the representative democracy model. And I wonder what your thoughts are about that. Is that a good way to run the city? Yeah, you know, my thoughts on referendum as just like a voter and somebody who lives in Portland, it's totally overwhelming. I can't keep it straight. You know, we have I think another rent control referendum that's coming up. And this is the third in like as many years. So it's I think it's really overwhelming. But at the same time, I think every time a referendum is passed, it represents a failure of our government on some level to address the needs of people. So I don't think that people are out there drafting referendum for fun because they think it's a good time. I think they have a really genuine need that's not being heard by the government for whatever reason and that they feel the only recourse they have is to say, well, you know, I'll do it myself, then I'll go out with my friends, I'll get signatures and I'll get something on the ballot. So the way to get around referendums, I think, is not to limit them. It's not to say we want to make this harder. It's to go to the core of the issue. Why aren't people feeling heard? And how do you talk to those people and say, hey, it seems like you're not getting through to somebody at City Hall. You're not getting through. You don't feel like you have control over your own city. How do we address that? And how do we make the representative government work the way it's designed, which is to actually represent the people, which is something that people are feeling right now. It's. You know, the trade off is that if you pass a referendum, you get 100 percent of your idea as written by you. But if it goes through the meat grinder in the city council, it's going to be half a loaf to mix metaphors. But I guess how I wonder how you communicate this that half a loaf process is better than the 100 percent all or nothing. Right. It's a great question. I mean, I think the idea that it's 100 percent all or nothing is really not what's borne out in reality, because maybe you pass your referendum 100 percent and you get 100 percent of what you want for a year, but you have these constant challenges to it because you haven't addressed the root issue and we have this issue of divisiveness in Portland. And it's something that I've only seen intensified. So if I was going to go to somebody who is drafting a referendum and say, you know, I would, you know, I support your right to do this, but maybe we can figure out a better way. I would I would try to communicate to them that really what this is about is how do we figure out what our shared values are as a city? Because the more we sort of divide ourselves into camps and get entrenched in our policy positions, the less common ground we have and the less affected any governance is. So I don't think anybody wants to continually have to defend referendum or draft referendum to get what they want. I think what people really want, you know, their heart and their soul is a city that supports their core values. And I tend to think that these values are universal, but they're deep sometimes. And we have to do the work to get to those really deep shared values. And what is that work? How does it look? Yeah, I think it looks like putting people in a room, getting some coffee, some donuts, maybe and taking the time. You know, I think one of the things that as I become more of a participant in the city government that has stood out to me is that the way that we do feedback from the community is not conducive to getting to these core issues. You know, oftentimes people will come up, they'll have a 30 second prepared speech or statement that they've done before. They'll give it, they'll get cut off or something, and then it'll move on to the next thing. And I would have a whole series of different listening sessions than I would do this constantly throughout my term, where you would get people from different sides of an issue, perhaps, perhaps people that are a proponent of ret control and those who are opposed to it, and I would say, block out five hours. We're going to sit in a circle in a church basement somewhere. And we are going to talk through this in a way that is not implementation based. It's not technical in its detail. It's about what do you want? What do you want to see? And this is a kind of facilitation that I practice every week. You know, it's something that's really changed my life. And it's really my primary goal in running for mayor is how do you bring this values based, empathetic, compassionate facilitation style and upslide that to some of the hardest problems we're facing right now. Tell me about that. How do you use it now and use the process now? Absolutely. Yeah. So, you know, I think Monday night I go to a structured group where we practice empathy, we practice, we practice compassionate listening. And the whole goal of the group is not to give advice, which was hard for me in the beginning, but it's to listen and understand where someone's coming from. So if someone brings something to the group that's really challenging or it's in opposition to one of the other members, it's about practicing. How do I let go of what I'm feeling, for instance, and really hear what's going on with this person over here and doing that practice has been really transformative in my life because it's allowed me to kind of to see that commonality between people because even if there are people, you know, this is a group of a wide variety. So what kind of group is it? Is it a therapeutic group or religious? Yeah, you know, it's like this. You could call it a therapeutic group. Yeah. So it's not religious. It's basically it's essentially just to practice empathy. It's basically like an empathy practice. Yeah, it's, you know, and it's really been and part of the reason that Portland is so important to me is because I've been able to access this kind of support in Portland and that model has totally changed my life. And so that's, you know, something that I think a lot of people don't even know exists and I would love to bring that to the city as a whole and model that in talking to people. So an issue that's been subject to a number of referendums and as a number of different interests in the community that's been very thorny is short term rentals. Yeah. And I'm just curious, like what your approach with that would be? I mean, we have a lot of people who depend on that income. Yeah. A lot of people are very concerned about what it's doing to the housing stock and how do you address it? What do you think of where we are now? Yeah, I think the approach I would take to this is again, it would be looking for those shared values. And I think that you can talk to people and say, do you need this? Like, is this supplementing your income? Is this something that you need to pay your mortgage? And obviously we don't want to mess with that. That's someone's right. But at the same time, I would bring in the people that say, I wanted to rent a place in Portland, but I felt that everything was an Airbnb. So I couldn't find one. So I would really go to the core value, which I think is people need to be able to supplement their income to stay in their homes, but people also need to have their homes. And so from a practical perspective, what I'm thinking about is somebody who's renting out a room in their house, so an owner occupied Airbnb, for instance, I see no issue with that can be a great source of income for people. But if we're looking at people that are converting buildings to Airbnb's or anytime you have an Airbnb's that are displacing permanent, long time residents of Portland, that's something that we really can't allow to continue. Do you think the current regulatory setup is adequate? I think it's a good starting place. And I think what I would want to first assess is how thoroughly is it being enforced? Yeah, because one of the things I hear is that the existing regulations are actually not bad at all, but they're not being enforced adequately. And maybe we need another mechanism to fund that enforcement. So maybe it's a further tax on hotel rooms, you know, a penny or something like that, just something small to fund an enforcement officer. So I think before changing anything, I would talk to the people that are enforcing this and the people who have Airbnb's and the people that are concerned about them and say, is this being enforced? And let's get it to 100 percent enforcement and then assess how effective it's been. Another issue, we'll come at this innocently because you go to high school here. But there's talk about wanting to consolidate the high schools. And do you have any thoughts on that? Yeah, you know, as you say, you know, I go to high school here. So it's not something that I have a really close relationship with. And my thought is that I really want to know what are the parents think, what are the teachers think, what do the students think? I'm not really close to that issue. So it's something that I'll actually make a point of going to talk to people about. You know, a lot of my friends are around my age, so they have younger kids, but not somebody in high school. But obviously they'll be getting there, you know, in a couple of years. So I don't have a strong opinion on that, but I'm actually going to make a point of going to talk to people about it. And is that something you've heard in your trips around the city? Not that issues. Yeah, not specifically. I've heard stuff about the school board budget and funding sort of special needs students specifically, but I haven't heard that one. This is a grand choice election. And presumably you're going to put yourself first. Do you have any thoughts on who you'd pick second? That's a good question. Yeah, you know, I haven't made a call yet. I think a lot of the people on the council that are running, I have a lot of respect for Andrew Zara was my counselor. I like his platform a lot. He's also been very nice to just to talk to around the town. So I think that I'm going to have to take a much deeper look as we go on about how people are responding to these questions and especially as it gets really kind of more intense as we go on. But I think, you know, broadly Andrew Zara has a lot of great policies and he's broadly aligned with kind of what I would see, even if we would have a different approach to it. And last question for me is. It's really the essential question for any candidate is why do you want this job? Why do you want to be mayor and why should people vote for you? Yeah, you know, the core of this for me is that Portland is a really special place for me. I landed here after a really tumultuous period in my life and I was really lucky to receive what was really life saving mental health support here. And my feeling and my fear is that that version of Portland is slipping away. And I don't know that if I were to try to come to Portland now that I could. And my fears that we're going to lose something really, really precious. If that accessible, welcoming, open version of Portland no longer exists. So I'm coming at this really just as a citizen and somebody who cares about Portland and who wanted to see if I could help. And I think if you are thinking about wanting to vote for me, the first question I would ask you would be, do you want to see things change? Do you think that we're on the right track? Or do you want to see a more compassionate, a more empathetic style of leadership? And, you know, at the end of the day, that's really, I think what I'm bringing that's different than the other candidates is the way that I would facilitate things, the way that I conduct myself with constituents, the way that I would approach problems is really very values based and it's very much focused on empathy and on collaboration. So it's going to be an interesting leadership style if you elect me. It's not going to look like maybe what you've seen in the past. But you know, my sincere hope is that it can really change things for Portland by bringing us all together and having that sense of a shared value and a shared vision for what we want the city to be like. Well, Dylan, thank you so much for coming in. And thank you for putting yourself out running for office. Thank you. I appreciate that, Greg. It's great to talk to you.