 Good evening and welcome to a debate amongst the mayoral candidates for Portland. I'm Kristina Egan, the executive director of the Greater Portland Council of Governments. I'm pleased to be moderating tonight's debate hosted by the Portland Media Center as part of their Civic IQ project. I want to welcome our viewers tonight and thank the candidates for participating as well as for their willingness to step forward and run for the position of mayor. It's a major commitment. The Portland Media Center chose to have this later date for the last mayoral debate of the season. The organizers have asked me to share that when planning the debates in August and securing commitments from candidates, the center saw tonight as a valuable wrap-up to the debates. We wanted to be able to cover topics and ask questions that were not yet covered in previous debates. So tonight, we get to dig a little deeper and hopefully get to some more specifics. We hope this is helpful to voters. We are glad to have Justin Costa, Dylan Pugh, and Andrew Zaro. Unfortunately, city counselors Payas Ali and Mark Dion could not participate tonight due to a rescheduled city meeting. The center did not include George Rowe in fairness to the candidates that gathered signatures. The debate is focused on housing, land use, and zoning. It may sound boring, but I promise you it's not. We'll also talk climate, transportation, and the economy. The Portland Media Center developed tonight's questions, which I've lightly revised. To learn more about the candidates and Portland Media Center is also airing candidate interviews conducted by Greg Kessich on cable channels two and five. They can be accessed on the PMC's website at portlandmedia.org. Since there have been over ten mayoral debates, we will not have opening comments and we're going to delve right into questions. After the lightning round, candidates will be asked questions in reverse alphabetical order and that order will rotate with each new question. Each candidate is also offered four thirty-second challenges that they can throw down to make a point or to rebut a comment from another candidate. The candidate who's being rebutted will then be able to offer another thirty seconds of comments to respond. The first set of questions is a lightning round set of questions. We ask you to answer just yes or just no. In acknowledgement that there is a lot of nuance between yeses and noes, you'll each have one minute at the end of the lightning round to clarify or add anything that you see fit. Let's jump in. And Dylan, I'm going to start with you. That's great. And we're going to go right down the panel here. Do you support redesigning the Franklin Street corridor to make it a boulevard for cars, public transportation, walkers and bikers and to use some of the land for housing and redevelopment? Yes. Andrew? Absolutely, yes. Justin? Yes, but there's a lot. You can add more later. You got a minute. Dylan, has the Green New Deal been good for Portland? Yes. Andrew? No. Justin? No. Dylan, do you support Portland's rent control policy? I do. Andrew? Yes, but needs improvement. I respect it. Okay. Portland is creating a new unified development code to advance the city's comprehensive plan and equip the city to address housing, design, conservation, energy and more. Do you feel that the city's recode phase two as published meets the city's future needs and goals? Dylan? No. Andrew? No. Justin? No. Should Portland have the goal of regaining its 1950 population of approximately 80,000 residents? Dylan? No. Sorry, can you repeat that question? Sure. Should Portland have the goal of regaining its 1950 population of approximately 80,000 residents? Yes. No. Okay. Dylan, starting with you again. Should most new housing growth happen on the peninsula where density is already highest? No. Andrew? No. Justin? Yes. Maine recently passed a housing law. It's called LD2003. It does a variety of things, including up to four homes on lots and growth areas, or places served by water and sewer. And it also allows granny flats, also called accessory dwelling units. Will you support implementation of the new state housing requirements contained in this law? Yes. Yes. Yes. Portland has 12 historic districts, including the recently approved one on Monjoy Hill. Do you think more historic districts are needed in Portland? Yes. No. No. Is Portland a racially equitable city for housing? No. No. No. Is Portland's housing stock resilient enough to whether the disruption is caused by climate change? Definitely not. No. No. All right. Each of you have one minute to add or clarify anything on this yes or no set of questions. And I really thank you for your patience with having to answer yes or no to pretty complicated questions. Dylan, you go first. Thank you. And they are quite complicated. So just a few things that I flagged. I think the first thing is that I do support rent control because I think something absolutely had to be done. Rents are out of control in Portland. But I don't view it as a good long term solution. The kind of solutions that I'm looking for are things that will stabilize the market in the long term and focus on home ownership. Because I don't want us to be playing this catch up game where we have rents that are rising and us just being able to barely keep them in check. That's not a good long term solution. And in terms of recode, I think there's a lot of good work that's been done. I think we can come back to it later. I'd like to see it go farther, especially in terms of racial equity and that resilience question you spoke about when it comes to climate change. Those are, I think, big focus areas. And those were my clarifying thoughts. Thank you, Dylan. Andrew? Yeah. Sorry. There are a lot of this just. I know. That was rapid fire. That was a big rapid fire. Yeah, just a couple of points that pop into my mind. Obviously, Franklin Street's really important to me. I'm the one who brought it back to the council after years of it being shelved because there's federal investment to make it happen and reconnect a community that was removed in the 1960s because of urban renewal. I think this ties into the question about the population growth, which, listen, Portland has any city, not just Portland, any city that's adverse to growth is going to have a problem, right? But we need smart growth. And that's why I answered that the way, you know, I did because we have to be able to welcome folks, whether it's because of climate migration or just people want to live here. You know, the Green New Deal, I think the best parts of it, I'm sure we'll get into tonight, are the union labor components of it that I support. But it hasn't been able to shake out the way I think it was intended by the authors. And then Recode is missing the mark and it needs to be within compliance of LD 2003. And quite frankly, it's not. A planning board meeting right before this just decided it was going to be the most conservative version that it could be. Thanks. Thanks, Andrew. Justin? Thanks, Christina. A few things that I'll flag. First and foremost, I would say you asked about several of the citizen referendums. And I would just say that I respect the results of those. And I definitely prefer that we do zoning law and complex policymaking via a non-referendum process through the council so that we can really get into the weeds of those things. But it is not in any way a priority of me as mayor to be picking a fight with things that have been passed by the voters. And I certainly respect that they are on the books. In regards to Franklin Street, I just have to say that I'm certainly there if the funding comes through. But we've been talking about this since my first year on the council, which was back in 2015. And I'm very skeptical that we're actually going to get the federal funding. That is sort of the linchpin of that. So absent that, I think it's very difficult to see how that becomes reality. Thank you, Justin. Dylan, I'm going to ask you a follow-up to the yes-no's. I believe that you said that you would favor more historic districts in the city. Which do you have neighborhoods in mind or places that you think are appropriate for that historic designation? I don't personally, but I wanted to leave the door open. Because I think the most important thing here is how do we speak to people who want to preserve the special character of their neighborhood? And I didn't want to unilaterally take a historic district off the table as a tool to do that. So I think that we have a really good start. But I wouldn't want to say that we're at the maximum there. But it would really be about that community outreach for me to see. Are there places that we have missed at the city level? And what do the residents think about that? Andrew, I want to follow up with you on your recode answer. You said that it was not enough as currently drafted. Can you give a little bit more specifics about what you think needs to be improved there? Yeah. I mean, I'm not going to take a swing at state law that was just passed. But we have to implement this by January 1st of this year. We have to have our municipal version of it. You're talking about LD 2003. Correct, yeah. Sorry, I jumped right into what I was trying to get to. Recode, for the last three years that I've been on the city council, I've asked that the mayor appoint a recode committee. And every year the mayor, to her right, has said, no, we're not going to do that. We're going to let staff work on that. But what I've found to happen is a very significant lack of transparency of how we are using our prioritizing land use through the recode phase two process. And this is a once in a generation opportunity to really get land use right. What I have seen, and it's hard because the map hasn't been released, is that we're not doing that. You shouldn't need a lawyer to be able to understand our land use policies, whether you want to build an ADU on your property or you want to get to work on affordable housing in the city. And it's not going to be in compliance with state law, LD 2003 in its current form, in my opinion. Justin, you stated that you thought that the Green New Deal was not great for Portland. I believe I got that right, yes. Can you elaborate a little bit more? Yeah, I mean, I think there's significant evidence that the way a lot of the policies that have been passed over the last several years are playing out in practice is that they are having a negative impact on our ability to add affordable housing stock. And the only long-term solution to our affordable housing need is that we need to bring more housing onto the market at the lowest prices that we can make that work. And so I think the concern is it's not specific necessarily to the Green New Deal, although from my conversations with affordable housing developers, that's certainly the biggest concern, but it's how it interacts with every other piece of our land use policy. And I think the evidence is that new proposals are going down significantly over the last several years. So that's a major concern. Thank you. We're going to dig a little bit more into housing right now, which is one of the biggest issues facing the city of Portland, the greater Portland region, and also the state as a whole. I'm going to start with a question for each candidate, which you'll have two minutes to answer. And then I'm going to move to a set of questions which all candidates will be asked to answer for each question. So Dylan, I'm going to start with you. Dylan, you're a strong supporter of increasing the amount of affordable housing that must be included in new housing developments in Portland. Can you tell us more about how developers are going to be able to meet increased requirements, including who might pay for them? And if you've used another city as a model for your approach, can you share which one? Yeah, absolutely. I'm happy to. So I think there's a couple elements of this. I think the first is that we have to be really clear about what the right thing to do here is. When we're in an affordable housing crisis, where the things that we're building are largely luxury and we're not getting a lot of affordable, we, and especially as the mayor, you have to make a very clear moral stance on this. You have to say, we had to prioritize affordable housing, not at 25%, but I've said, you know, let's talk about 50%. How do we get there? And so I think the first thing that we need to understand is that this is the opening salvo in an argument, in a negotiation, if you will. So what we have to do is say, if you want to come to Portland, this is exactly what we need based on the needs of our community. And so when we talk about developers and how they can make money, that's, you know, a perfectly good conversation, but we need to have a backstop to that as well. Because what I've seen play out so far is that people will come to Portland, and some developers do a good job of this. In my opinion, others are not prioritizing the right things. So what we need to do is you need to say, we would love to work with you and we're going to streamline the permitting and approval process if you're able to work with us. But if you're not, we need to have our own backstop where we can step in at the municipal level and build more affordable housing at the price point that we can offer to people to actually move the needle for them. Because a lot of what we're building right now is not actually affordable for a lot of folks. Andrew, to help address the housing crisis, how many new homes do you think Portland needs to see built in the next 10 years or so? And where do you think those homes should be located? And if you become mayor, do you have a favorite specific policy change that will accelerate housing development to reach the goal that you're setting? Absolutely. You know, this has been a core part of my campaign since I announced in May. I've been talking about that we need to prioritize 10 to 12,000 units of housing in the next 10 years. And this isn't just a pie in the sky number that came out of nowhere. Main housing released a report about a week and a half ago saying that the state of Maine is about 84,000 units of housing short. About 20-something thousand of those are in the greater Portland area and nine or 10,000 of those are in Portland. This is not something that happened overnight. This is the result of decades of inaction in building and prioritizing housing. So what I've done is I've proposed actually a couple of paths forward that can get that number, can get 10,000 units of housing without compromising the character of neighborhoods, right? I live in Backo. I'm the district four representative. Certainly no one is saying build a tower, you know, off Peninsula. That wouldn't make sense. But what does make sense is building where we aren't going to impact our neighborhoods. So I wrote a piece a couple of months ago, months ago at this point, saying that we should look at our industrial zones right now, right? So that we have light industrial, moderate industrial zones right now where housing is prohibited. Parts of East Bayside where the breweries are and, you know, coffee roaster, parts of Warren Ave and Riverside Ave. We're not in an industrial use crisis. We're in a housing crisis, right? So we should rezone those. And while we're at it, I'd like to do that for the B zones be one, two, three, four. Make all of them B five. It's sort of the umbrella zone where you think about neighborhoods that make sense. I want to live next to a coffee shop in a four-unit building that I can hop on public transportation or bike or walk because we prioritize multimodal transportation. We need to build our city for people. I always say cities are for people. So in terms of where to build housing all over the city and we can do it in a way that doesn't impede someone's neighborhood. And I think that's really important for people to understand. Thanks, Andrew. Justin, there's no doubt that our housing crisis needs as much creative thinking as possible. One approach focuses on transit-oriented development and transit corridors as a big part of that solution. Do you support this approach and what will you do as mayor to increase the innovative solutions that we need for housing in Portland? Yeah, I absolutely support that. You know, I think the key issue when we look at this is that if what we're trying to do is get more affordable housing to market we have to look at policies. We can't be reliant on individual development proposals to help us meet our goals. So the two biggest ways that we do that are we look at the land use code and we look at funding streams that the city has a role in. And the biggest issue that I have seen consistently over the last several years is that we're simply not making changes in those two areas and that is going to come back to bite us in terms of our long-term goals. So what I have been suggesting throughout the campaign is that there are things that we can do that are the object of a lot of agreement right now specifically focusing on some of these corridors that have long been discussed in planning circles. So if we start with areas like Brighton Ave, Forest Ave, the area around Morrill's Corner there are opportunities to give incentives of the right kind for affordable housing developers that can get done quickly that is really the key impetus for all of this. As sort of implicit in your question, part of the reason I've suggested these things isn't because they're the be-all and end-all or get us all the way to where we want to go but it's because they have been long discussed so that every relevant entity that has any concerns or has been voicing concerns about planning over the last five to 10 years is going to say, oh yeah, that reminds me of this thing. That reminds me of this discussion, this task force. These meetings that we've had in the past and that's going to be key if we want to move quickly which is what I think we need to do. Thanks Justin. So we're going to stick with the housing and zoning theme but we're going to mix up the format a little bit. Each of you is now going to be able to answer each question with up to two minutes. So we'll start in reverse alphabetical order also. So Andrew, you'll be up first. How do you feel about Portland's current land use and zoning regulations and their impact on housing in the city? Do current city ordinances need to change? And if so, please give us some specific suggestions of how you advance regulatory changes in Portland to respond to our current housing shortage. Well, I'll start by just saying we absolutely need to change some of those ordinances as they currently exist. You know, I've been speaking to a lot of people, people who build affordable housing in the state of Maine and they want to work with Portland. They try their best but they've been really honest with me. And they've said Andrew, it's almost as if the city's job is to get to the word no. And so what we're starting to see is folks are trying less. They're going to Westbrook, they're going to Cumberland, they're going to Augusta to build because Portland is not known to be easy to work with on some of these ordinances. I think a big burden that is shared with me pretty often is the way our building, permitting and inspections department works. It's very cumbersome. People quite literally, I'm not being hyperbolic, have to hire someone from out of state to help them navigate our ordinance, right? And if you're in a housing crisis and you want to build affordable housing, I'm not a rocket scientist but I think that might be a bad idea. So I've been talking about how we need to reimagine this department. We need to make it so that it's a streamlined process. The city of Portland should be a major partner with affordable housing developers, with non-profit housing developers to do just that, to build affordable housing. So I think that is something as mayor, I would work very closely with the city manager on of totally reimagining that department and making sure that it is a streamlined, expedited process. But it's only going to be successful if we do that in tandem with our land use and zoning policies right now because at the end of the day, land use is the biggest tool in our toolbox as a municipality. It's also how we have to make most of our revenue, right? So even more of an incentive for us to make that priority when we're tackling this head-on. Thanks, Andrew. Thanks. Dylan. Do you kind of have the question again? Of course. It was kind of a long one. It's detailed. I appreciate it. Yes. Yes. How do you feel about Portland current land use and zoning regulations and their impact on housing? And do current city ordinances need to change? And if so, how would you do it to respond to our housing crisis? Thank you. And it's a great question. I think to summarize our current land use policies are kind of archaic. I don't think that they are reflective of the type of city that we are trying to build in the type of city that we should be hopeful to live in in the future. And the North Star really does need to be how do we build more affordable housing? That's the number one issue that we're all talking about. And it's the number one issue for people out there in Portland. So I think taking that forward as our directive, how do we get there? And I think there's a lot of little changes that we can do. I think the recode process has been a really good way of opening that up. And as Andrew said, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get this right. So it's really leaned into that focus on gentle density. I think that's a huge part because that way we can preserve the existing characteristics of neighborhoods, but also bring them in and allow people to age in place, invite greater diversity in those neighborhoods. That's going to be a real asset for folks. One thing I would really love to see is more of a focus on mixed-use zoning as well. So this is allowing low-impact buildings to be zoned for businesses in neighborhoods. I think back fondly when I first moved to Portland, I lived right next to Jet Video. Anyone remembers that? And it was great. It's like a wonderful, a wonderful character to the neighborhood. And that's also really important from an equity perspective because when people don't have to own a car to get to work, they can work in their neighborhood that removes an enormous economic burden from them. So I think there's a lot of really good things that we can do at an immediate term. The longer-term thing that we need to be thinking about is how did we get into a housing crisis in the first place? What are the factors here that are causing housing to be totally unaffordable? And the thing that I often talk about is it's not just about buildings, it's about who's owning what we're building. How do we empower Portland to be a city full of homeowners who have equity in the community and economic stability from their housing? We need to think about how do we move housing from a liability for folks into a real asset? And that's part of the conversation that's missing from zoning. And I would really like to bring that in because that's the number one thing we need for long-term housing and economic stability in Portland. You guys are doing such a great job keeping with the time card. So thank you for that. Justin. Yeah, I think unquestionably, our land use code is the single or at least one of the two biggest drivers of our ability to respond to the affordable housing crisis. And I think it's one of the primary reasons that I have decided to run because I've been frustrated by what I see as not a lot of progress in that area in the last few years. And so if we take a step back, you know, it is important to understand where we are coming from and what has been happening over the last decade plus is a pretty profound shift throughout the city of Portland not just in terms of the market but in terms of policymaking. So it had been decades since anyone had built any non-subsidized housing in the city of Portland. That only started to change a few years ago with Red Fern properties project out on Congress Street. And that has had a profound impact on the position of the city vis-a-vis affordable housing. So what the city government has been doing over the last decade or so is trying to rebuild policy structures that would create incentives for the creation of new housing that we could bring on to the market. So when I was on the council and Councillor Kevin Donahue certainly gets the lion's share of the credit but we brought forward and created the inclusionary zoning policy. Because of that, there's now funding going into the housing trust fund that the city uses to subsidize new developments. We reformed the TIF policy, the tax increment financing laws and you saw a massive spike in the following three years in terms of people coming forward to offer more affordable housing. We then did the first phase of the recode which was to redraft all of the legalese dating back to the 1960s. Phase two is about the substance and that's where we are right now. That's where we don't see a lot of progress right now and hopefully we'll keep talking about that. Okay. Dylan, I'm going to start with you next. Many of us remember years when little or no housing was built in Portland because of national economic troubles. And we all know how fast our communities are changing. My question is this. How frequently should city housing ordinance be reviewed and amended to ensure that Portland meets its commitment as a dynamic, secure, equitable, connected, authentic and sustainable city which is laid out in the comprehensive plan? Thank you. These are all great adjectives, by the way. I think something we can all get by. They came from the comp plan, yeah. Perfect. I'm glad to hear it. So the question of frequency, how often should we evaluate? I think there's two sides to this. One, we do need to be responsive. We don't want to be reactive. We need to be thinking about how do we do things when we are opening the books that really give us a lot of runway and look at structural changes that are not going to be subject to these fluctuations. And I think you mentioned a really important part which is we've had years in Portland where no housing has been built because of these larger economic trends. And this is something that is a main reason that I decided to get in the race because I feel like we are approaching this with one hand tied behind our back. And what I really would like to do is think about how can we in Portland be a model for how to build systems that are resilient even in the face of national challenges? Because frankly I don't like the idea that the interest rate of some bank in New York decides who gets a house in Portland. That doesn't sit well with me. And I think at the level of the city government, our job is to serve the people. Our job is to protect the people. And right now they are really, really at the mercy of these global financial systems, of these big fluctuations and of the profit motivation that is causing developers not from Maine to come in and extract an enormous amount of wealth from the community. That is real human cost. And what I would love us to see us do is design systems, design a new tool set that we can use at the municipal level to insulate people in Portland from this. To say even if things are going wild at the national level, we're going to keep building housing and it's going to be affordable. Maybe you can't get a good mortgage from a national bank. Let's work with local credit unions to give you a special Portland mortgage so you can still afford to buy a home. There's absolutely a way to do this and I think that Portland can be a leader on this. So I think that's a really important thing is how do we get this, excuse me, at a structural level so we're not so subject to these fluctuations. Thanks, Don. Justin, you're up. Yeah, so great question and thank you for it. I think that these should be reviewed all the time and that's part of my frustration over the last several years is I feel like we've fallen a little bit behind in that regard and so here's really how that works. I mean, here's the broad outlines. We don't have enough housing to support current housing needs. So the long-term solution, the only solution is that we need to get more units onto the market so that that pressure in the marketplace can be alleviated and that over the long term that rates start to come down. The problem with that, of course, is that if you're living in new construction or just think about it on an individual level, if you have friends and they tell you that they're living in a brand new built place, you're not wondering how they're doing financially. And so what has to happen then and what we are subject to is the only way that newly built units get affordable quickly is they have to be subsidized at some level and the way that we do that is a combination of support from municipal government, from state government, and from the federal government. Now, one of the key things that we tried to do when I was on the council is that we recognize that the city is not the biggest player in this. And so as other programs are changing, as federal programs change, as state programs change, as the priorities from different agencies change that give tax credits are the most notable one, but that give any kind of public subsidy to support the construction of housing, then the city needs to be responsive to that and say, okay, so if main state housing is changing their rules in this way, is our funding going to match that? Is what we're asking for the qualifications that we ask a nonprofit developer to meet, are they going to sync up with those? Because if they don't, then those projects never get built. And that's why we cannot overstate the importance of frequently all the time reviewing the policies that we have on the books, because that's the role of the city in this marketplace. So we're way behind the eight ball. We all know that the only solution to this is if we had had thousands of units built when all of us were in elementary and middle school. So we don't have a time machine. So we're playing catch up right now. And it's imperative that we go through this process on a very regular basis, because that is the only major way that the city can have a widespread impact in the short to medium term, in terms of getting more housing onto market. And that is the only way that we solve this over the long term. Thank you. Andrew? Yeah, I mean, this is a big question. I think there's just hearing both my colleagues go before my head spinning a little bit. I think overall, you know, for us, we have to be visionary when it comes to housing, because this didn't just happen over the last three years. I mean, we've been dealing with a pandemic, municipalities were absolutely knocked out just trying to make our constituents' lives manageable. Right? So on top of that, you compound 20 years of a lack of housing being prioritized and built. Here we are in COVID exposed. An already broken system. We had no idea what was about to happen. But I think this is where the comprehensive plan is a major tool. That was in 2017. It's, what, 2023 now? And we're, you know, recode phase two is just being rolled out. I mean, by the time this thing comes out, we're all going to be starting our new comp plan. So I think this is why we have to be realistic and consistent as a municipality of really having our thumb on the pulse of our housing market. And again, this is not just a Portland issue. This is a regional issue. This is a state issue. And one thing that I think is really important is that LD 2003 was the state's way of saying to every city in town in the state of Maine, okay, well, we're going to give you a bit of a permission slip here to act bold because you have to. We have such, those 84,000 units of housing that we need. You know, I think that, again, land use is how our city makes revenue. You know, we're always, we're going to disagree, right? We're running for the same seat. I get it, scarcity mentality. But it's not that we've done nothing. I mean, at the beginning of this conversation, we talked about Franklin Street, right? Once in a generation opportunity, federal funding. Let's meet the moment. And I brought that to the city council, right? So I think we need to be responsive, not just in terms of the policies in those tools we have. You're totally right with TIFF financing, for example. But also we need to then get in front and be proactive about, well, how are we going to work with the region, the state, and the federal government to actually move the needle on these initiatives and projects. Thank you, Andrew. Justin, I'm going to start with you. New housing often faces significant opposition from neighbors. Different neighborhoods often have very different ideas about what level of development is acceptable and where it should be located. As mayor, how will you address neighborhood concerns with new housing development? Great question. At the end of the day, the reason that I'm running and the reason that I was so concerned about this is that it's not about ideas and it's not about the debates that we have. It's about what are the actions that we're taking to follow through. And key to this is for the mayor to understand the political dynamics. These are, for anyone that has been around and been involved in these issues for any length of time, the dynamic is very easily predictable. And so if we go saying that we're going to build thousands and thousands of units off peninsula, we know that that is going to generate a neighborhood backlash. If, you know, we can go down the line and there's a number of examples and dynamics that play out historically. So the job of the mayor is to anticipate and try to minimize those dynamics that are going to derail larger efforts. That's why, again, to come back to what I have emphasized is that I think there are ways that we can begin to increase density of housing development off the peninsula that are non-controversial. So if we focus on those priority quarters that have been long discussed on Brighton and Forest Avenue, what we can do is we can give a series of tools to non-profit developers that they need to make their projects viable. So it's some combination of increased heights, reduced setbacks, reduction of parking requirements if they're near transit solutions. All of those things are on the table, but we have to make sure that the policy works with them and if we target it based on an agreement to meet affordability requirements and if we target it in neighborhoods, like I've suggested, we can minimize the opposition and actually get things done and that is ultimately what the job of the mayor is, is to get it done. Thank you, Justin. Andrew, I'm going to go to you next. Yeah, I mean, I feel like this is not going to be... Our housing crisis is not going to be resolved by any one neighborhood or one district on peninsula or off. I'm going to start to sound like a broken record. The good thing about LD 2003 is that four units, right? I live in Backo. Half of my street is R3. Top of my street is R5. You can't really tell the difference except for the size of the yards might be a little bit different. There are a couple of multi-units on the top of my street. It makes sense for the neighborhood, right? I think the entire city has to be a part of this, not just one section. So when we look at municipally owned vacant parking lots in the heart of the downtown of Portland, okay, let's go a little bit taller. That makes sense for our city. That does not make sense for off-peninsular neighborhoods and I don't think anyone that I've heard on this campaign so far has been arguing for that. You know, the issue is not about destroying the character of the art zones. You know, the issue is about alleviating the pressure on our residential neighborhoods that exists right now. I'm sure anyone watching at home is going to cringe when I say this word, but if anyone remembers Revaluation from 2021, that was my first year on the council. On the city council had not done a revaluation in 18 years and what happened was a lot of people's property taxes jumped through the roof. So we need to never do that again, but a great way to reduce property taxes is by building more housing, right? Overall, that is good for everybody and again, that is the revenue stream for the city. You know, I really also want to be very careful about talking about the character of neighborhoods. The character of the neighborhood is changing when you make it unaffordable and that's happening already. I want to see a city where on the same street you have grandparents and grandkids sharing space. They're not being priced out and I think if we don't do something now and we don't build smart, affordable housing, then that's the path that we're on right now and it's not going to be, you know, any one neighborhoods to solve on their own. Dylan? Thank you. This is a really important question and it really comes down to what is a core dynamic that I've observed in Portland because it's about trust at the end of the day. People in Portland feel very powerless. They feel powerless to affect the kind of change they need at City Hall. They feel powerless because they feel that their city is changing that they've known for years. And when I've spoken to people, it's been amazing because I'm consistently impressed by how generous and how forward-thinking people in Portland are. Even people who have been pushed to the brink by some of these issues, affordable housing, homelessness, they still want to help. They still, at their core, want to do the right thing and often they feel that they haven't been heard. So when I talk to people and they feel that they have to defend themselves from the city, they have to form a pact or they have to get a lawyer to sue the city, that to me represents a really profound failure of systems that we use to make these kind of decisions. And this is not meant to be disparaged to anyone because it is a systems level, you know. These systems are not designed so that people really feel heard. And I talk a lot about empathy and compassionate conversations because it's something that changed my life and it's something that I practice every single week. And I try to bring that to the campaign trail and that's exactly how I would start with this. So I think we really do have a set of shared values in Portland. It's really remarkable. I haven't experienced that in any other city that I've lived in. So I would start with how do we talk about these core values? How do we all feel safe? How do we feel that we take care of people while also making sure that we're taken care of? And there's an enormous amount of commonality there but we have to have the approach that can really bring that out. So when I go up and talk to folks, I'm not trying to come with a solution. I'm not trying to come with a way to fix what's going on. My first directive is just to hear them on a really deep level and that's the foundation. And once you have that, everything else becomes easier and you can find this commonality that can really start to repair the fabric of the city. And I think that's the number one thing that I would take into this. Thank you. Andrea, we're going to start with you for the next question. So many economists and planning experts have criticized the cost and inefficiency of suburban sprawl and the impact that it has on eating up our farms and our natural areas that make Maine so special. And yet housing prices are often lower the further you go away from Portland. So some families drive until they qualify for that mortgage in order to afford a home. What do you think Portland's role is in reducing sprawl in the overall greater Portland region? I think I could do this in less than two minutes. Build more housing in dense places. I used to work at the state's smart growth organization, Gross Smart Maine. And one of the coolest parts of that job was I was able to go all over the state and work with communities and talk to them about what mattered most to them, right? And I think the goal of a lot of the work that we did in a lot of the larger municipalities was tackling that very issue. Portland is the largest city in the state. We are the economic powerhouse of the state. We have the most people commuting in and out of the state. We have a wonderful public transit system in the metro. But we are creating an environment where people cannot live and work here, right? So what you just described is starting to happen more. So there's other threat. Nothing exists in a silo, right? So there's a climate impact of that as well. People are driving in the state of Maine. The two biggest carbon emitters are buildings and cars. So when people are not able to commute and use multimodal transportation, live within a city, then they're going to be commuting. And that's going to have a climate impact as well. So I think for us as a city, as the largest city in the state and as a leader in a lot of these policy endeavors, you know, this is not everything tonight will boil down to housing, but this absolutely does. We need to create a city where housing is for the people who work here, right? Otherwise, in 10, 15 years, we're going to see a city that is so unaffordable that it's just going to be, I mean, I don't want to get bleak here, but that does appear to be the path that we're on. If we don't have some systemic policy change to prioritize affordable housing. And, you know, that's why we need to also invest heavily in our public transportation system. As a region, Portland is a part of a greater metro for public transit. Again, I always come back to cities are for people that includes housing, that includes how people get in and around our city. Thanks, Andrew. Dylan, you next. Thank you. I think this really comes down to two things for me. The thing I mentioned before, I think comes back, which is this mixed use development. If you have folks that need to drive or feel that they need to drive to go to their basic necessities, that's going to change where they think that they can live. So focusing on how you have a complete neighborhood, someplace where kids can walk to school. You can walk down to the corner store, walk to the laundromat. That's hugely important. So I think if we focus on that approach and try to make Portland a place where services are really widely distributed and equitable for folks, that's going to be huge. And the second thing is that we as a city, we need to keep pace with people as they move through their lives. Almost all of my friends moved out of Portland when it came time to buy a house because of exactly what you described. You have to leave Portland to get a first time homebuyer's rural development loan from the government, for instance. It's the only, you know, city in the state that doesn't qualify for it. So so many people wanted to stay in Portland, but financially they couldn't make it work. And this is why I keep bringing up the issue of home ownership because I think that if we create a system where you're only able to rent in Portland and you're just barely able to rent, we're not going to be able to keep pace with people as they move through these life stages. And we want people to come into Portland, maybe they've rent for a couple years, and then they're able to buy a home and then they're able to have a family and then retire in place. We want to build an entire track so people can spend their lives in Portland because who wouldn't want to do that? So I think we have to think about how do we at the city level make home ownership more affordable? Maybe we have our own first time homebuyer assistant program on top of what you're able to get from the federal government because if we can incentivize people to stay, you know, actually we don't even need to incentivize and they want to stay. They're just not able to. So let's look at the whole life span of somebody in Portland and how do we support them at every stage along that? That's my support. Thank you. Justin? Yeah, great question again. So I think it does start, certainly with housing affordability. You know, I won't keep rehashing some of the points that we've been discussing around that, but that is the root of it. And if we can't get a handle on this and housing prices continue to rise, then we're going to continue to exacerbate this dynamic. I think Dylan's point that he was just making about home ownership is a very important one. And I think it's one of the things that the mayor, the council and the planning staff have to be very cognizant of because there is such an emphasis on affordability of housing. I think one of the things that has sort of flown over, flown under the radar, excuse me, over the last several years is that there's a little bit of a push to continually cannibalize efforts aimed at workforce housing and middle income housing development and increasingly taking the tools that have been initially designed to address that need in the market and turn them into another tool to support lower income housing, which certainly is necessary as well, but we need to be careful that we have tools in place to address all the different market segments if we're going to address those things over time. Another major piece of this is economic development. We can't talk all about one side of the coin. We have to talk about the holistic picture. The other way that we make Portland more affordable to live in for more people is we give them greater economic opportunity across the scale. And the more that we can do that, then the more we help people's real-world situations. The other thing, of course, that we have to touch on and I think we all agree on is we're just really an extraordinary moment for public transportation in Portland right now. If you look at the history of public transit across Maine, what Metro has been doing over the last several years and their ability to grow regionally, we have to take advantage of that moment and continue to expand with Metro everywhere that we can. We'll talk more about public transportation, so I know that was short on that. Dylan, I'm going to start with you for the next question, which is about short-term rentals. Short-term rentals are a hot topic for Portland residents. Portland currently allows the licensing of 400 non-owner-occupied short-term rentals. For context here, the total housing stock is more than 38,000. Are short-term rentals a notable contributor to the high cost of housing in Portland? And also, would you make any changes to the current regulations of short-term rentals? And if so, how? Thank you. I think that if you look at the number 400 on its face, you might think it's not a big issue. But one of the primary things that happens is you go on Airbnb and you see many, many more than 400 units. So there's an enormous enforcement issue that's not taking place right now. We have a lot of unlicensed Airbnb's and short-term rentals that are really, you know, they're depriving the city of revenue and they're depriving people of housing, frankly. So I would support changes to our approach to this. And the first thing I would look at is how do we get that enforcement tightened up? How do we work with Airbnb to enforce a mechanism where you can't actually list on the website until you've done the licensing with the city of Portland? I think that's a pretty low bar. I think it's something we can do pretty quickly and make a lot of effort or, excuse me, a lot of difference doing that. So the other thing is that I said before, we really have to take a very clear moral position here. We are in a housing crisis. This has really, really profound human effects. Every time I see somebody in a tent down a margin away, that's because there's not a unit of housing for them. Every time someone has to move out of Portland, it's because there's not enough housing. So it's not a theoretical issue. I say that to frame the issue, which is that I would be very open to saying, let's ban all non-owner-occupied short-term rentals. I have no problem with somebody who's making some extra income, renting out a room in their house. That's great. But when we have an issue that is so severe, where every unit of housing matters, I'm very open to taking additional steps so we can rein that in. So I think the very first thing is, let's get the enforcement right. Let's look at people that are abusing the system because that's not ethical. And then let's say, what can we do to free up many more units of housing? Because we have to have an all-hands-on-the-deck approach for this, I think. Thank you. Justin, you next. Yeah, I think enforcement is absolutely the key to this. I think by the letter of the law, the regulations that Portland currently has on the books are fairly reasonable, and the restriction of 400 units out of, as you noted, a total marketplace of more than 38,000 units is not that significant. But the key is enforcement. And if we're not going to enforce appropriately, or we're going to make the fines that are on the book simply a cost of doing business for unscrupulous operators, then that becomes a whole different issue. And at least anecdotally, I think every one of us can say that the people that we talk to in neighborhoods, certainly on the peninsula, have very severe doubts about the city's ability to enforce the ordinance appropriately over the last several years. So I think that's the key to it. Beyond that, you know, I think, honestly, my biggest worry is sometimes that I think we spend too much time on this issue. I mean, we've had multiple referendums over the last several years. You know, we've had numerous debates in City Hall over all of this. And I just worry that sometimes it gets in the way of some of these bigger issues, like funding policy, land use policy, all of those kind of things. And we certainly understand the impetus for it, but we have to make sure that we have a housing plan that is data-driven, that's going to be based on the conditions that actually exist in the city and the market and that we're spending our energy, commensurate with our ability to have an impact. So I do worry that, you know, I think we've seen over the last several years that this sometimes cannibalizes the broader conversation about how we're going to address affordable housing. Thanks, Justin. Andrew? You know, I am appreciative of this question because I believe it's the first time this has come up so far in our 300 debates we've had so far. But it's an important one. I was going for a walk the other day and someone stopped me to say, hey, why aren't you guys talking about short-term rentals? And they lived on the peninsula. You know, my colleagues up here have mentioned the 400 number for non-owner-occupied. And I saw a report from this summer that over 1,000, I believe it was 1,049 units were listed this summer. That tells me there's a problem. I agree 100% enforcement is not doing what it must do. If more than double the amount of non-owner-occupied units are being listed, we have a huge problem. And that's where the mayor has to work closely with the council to require city staff to enforce those ordinances, right? Those are city laws. And if you're breaking them, it's not like this is a brand new law and people are, you know, getting used to it. We need to have the three to five-year education. This has been on the books for a while. So if you're breaking that law and you were illegally posting a unit because you want to make a quick buck as a non-owner-occupied unit, that's a huge problem for me. That's got to stop. You've got to pay the fine. And the city really has the obligation to throw its weight around in doing so. And if it's an unpopular opinion, I'm happy to feel that way. Because it's so different from an owner-occupied unit for someone who's trying to cover their property taxes, right? Which I think most people come at this from a really good place. And they do want to follow the rules. And they do want to be educated. And they want to reach out to their counselor when they have a question. Those are very different use cases here. But there are cities doing some really interesting things. Even in the state of Maine, I've talked about how the city of Bangor implemented a vacancy fee. It's a little different. It was for vacant units that were more than 180 days. I think we have some different nuance here. We have the island community that certainly wouldn't be applicable. But I think if we're in a housing crisis and we have vacant units that are just sitting there, that's a problem. A report came out in the Bangor Daily News a couple weeks ago that from 2020 till 2023, one in five properties that were sold in Maine were investment properties. And that's very different from what it was before. So I think we need to enforce the laws that we have right now and start thinking creatively about how we're going to prevent this from exacerbating an already tough problem. Thanks, Andrew. Justin, I'm going to start with you for the next one. Portland's housing crisis looks very different to people of color to historically marginalize populations into those who are suffering economic exclusion and homelessness. As mayor, what will you do to address the specific housing difficulties these populations face separate from your overall housing strategies? Yeah, I mean, I think it's a great question. It's absolutely happening. And I think the fundamental thing that the mayor and the next city council have to do is we just have to make this a more explicit part of the way that we do any type of policymaking. And when I think about these issues, there is sort of a higher level policy kind of issue and there's the real world, which is how it really plays out. And what we see are the subtle signs of discrimination, the ways in which it is more difficult to get rental units if you have a certain type of name or you look a certain way or any of sort of the soft signs that we know happen in the real world. And I think the biggest and most fundamental thing that the mayor and council have to do is we just have to make sure that we're reaching out to marginalized communities and that we're hearing directly from them about their lived experiences. You know, I am Hispanic myself. I am the father to a Jewish son. I don't pretend that I share the experience of a lot of people in our community right now. And any of us, by definition, that have the privilege of serving in public office are pretty far removed from the feeling of powerlessness. And that's really where it all needs to start. It needs to be a compassionate response grounded in hearing directly from the people that are impacted by these sorts of things. And then we need to listen earnestly and take their feedback into consideration. So, you know, I know in some ways that's not a satisfying response, but I think it's important that we listen on issues like this more than we talk, at least initially. Thanks, Justin. Andrew? Yeah, I mean, maybe I'll be a little bit more blunt because this isn't just a Portland issue. I mean, our city has examples of redlining, right? Our city has examples through our zoning and over time in history where we've segregated people and that doesn't go away overnight, right? It actually gets worse over time. You know, we've seen that play out on the peninsula in parts of East Bayside. Not only that, but the redlining and racism that's shown up in housing and zoning policies has also transitioned over to environmental racism, right? So there's something called a tree equity score. I'm going to do a little tree thing tonight for you. We're parts of our city off peninsula, Deering Center, Backove, tree equity of 100, really dense, healthy area, lower temperature overall. East Bayside, tree equity score of four, right? That's environmental racism. And also, that translates right over to housing and quality of housing. This is a city of renters, right? And so we need to make sure that we are prioritizing their voices when we are talking about housing policies and zoning policies. You know, I'm not going to bring it up every time, I promise, but Franklin Street was a community that was decimated. It was the most diverse community in the city of Portland. And it was rolled over for urban renewal and removed. That's a great example of redlining. And that's why Secretary Pete said if there's federal funding that separated communities, there is federal funding to restore them. And that's why from a policy perspective, we need a mayor with a vision to reconnect our communities through housing policies, through zoning policies, through environmental and climate justice policies. I did this in my committee as the chair of the sustainability committee with our electrify everything phase two process where we worked intentionally with renters, non-property owners to help understand through the lens of race, equity, and justice how we could help them be a part of the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. And it was very successful. Thank you, Andrew. Dawn. Thank you. And this is a great question. I believe this is one of the first times this has come up as well. And I absolutely agree with my colleagues here. This should be at the center of all the work that we're doing. And, you know, this really has to be our directive going forward is how do we right the wrongs by first acknowledging the historical precedent here in Portland and nationally, as has been said. This is a huge issue. And these are populations of people that have had their trust broken by people in power, by systems of power over generations. And that takes a long time. But the first thing we have to do is acknowledge it and then center that work. And I think one of the most important things we can do here is focus on lasting agency, lasting autonomy. How do we empower people? Because very often it can be a difficult situation set up where folks that have been traditionally marginalized are in a position where they have to rely on government assistance in some way. And what we want to do is say that's really not the kind of relationship we want to have either. It needs to be about empowerment. How do we empower families? How do we empower new manors that are coming here to have agency over their own lives? And that includes housing. That includes economic development. So I think one of the things we can do is look at this through the lens of power because that's really what's at play here. And so I think that maybe we target these programs that I've been talking about when it comes to home ownership. Let's target those of people that have not had access to home ownership traditionally. Let's really focus on that so we can start to write that. Same thing when it comes to economic development. I think unions have played a huge role here organized labor is one of the best ways to get economic prosperity and stability in one's lives. So let's do a lot about education. Let's do a lot to take the people that are already working hard on these issues and connect them with the right people. I think the name of the game here is long-term stability because that is how you respect someone. Give them power. You help them have power in their own life and that will reestablish that trust. Thanks, Dylan. Andrea, I'm going to start with you for the next question. Each of you has identified a vision for affordable welcoming Portland that would enable us to welcome people who want to come here. We had some folks that came here from the during the pandemic who had more money. We've had asylum seekers arrive. We've had less money, but they all want to come here. How do we welcome folks while not displacing the people that already live in Portland and have had the great fortune to be born or to move to Maine already? I mean, yeah, Portland is an amazing city. Obviously, I think all of us up here are pretty biased. We think it's one of the best cities in the country. People want to come here and we've seen that increase. But we've also seen, for the last, what, 40-plus years, our population hasn't really changed. It stayed stagnant at around 68,000. We have a one-in-one-out situation going on. And so much of that is because we are not building enough housing, right? I want anybody who wants to call Portland Maine home or keep Portland Maine as their home. I want that for them. And I want to do it in a way that's not going to cost them an arm and a leg. We need folks to come here. We need folks to come contribute to our economy, to start a small business, to choose Portland for the next state-of-the-art innovation center for an academic institution. You know, we actually require that as a city as we grow. But we're not going to do that unless we really prioritize democratizing our land-use policies. I understand that that is the name of the debate tonight. But, you know, we can talk about who lives here versus who wants to live here all we want. But at the end of the day, if we don't get to the root of the problem, it's going to be harder for both parties if we don't start to really tackle our land-use. And so that's why, you know, not only building housing but building affordable housing and I'm going to keep coming back to, you know, people who currently live here, your property taxes. Unless we do something about prioritizing more housing, your property taxes are likely to go up. I don't want to do that. I want to make life easier for you by building more housing. And for people who are coming here and they're bringing jobs and their families, they're new neighbors and I'm excited to have them. But we need to make it so that we're not only attracting people who are going to buy a $1.5 million home, right? We need that low, moderate income, young family, missing middle folks. And, you know, I think that's the future that I see for Portland. Thank you. Dylan, next? Thank you. I think density really is the name of the game here because it is about housing affordability. It's about housing supply. I think the dynamic that could set up which has been mentioned is that people are coming in and then other people are being forced out or feel that they have to leave to have better economic stability. So I think that what we've talked about before with gentle density is a great way of doing this because we want to have an abundance of housing all across the board, primarily affordable because we want people to come here and be able to say, I didn't have to fight for housing. I didn't have to go on Craigslist Marketplace for six months to find a unit. I could find something that was safe and affordable and I was immediately able to integrate into this community. And that is good for everybody because what can get set up here is actually kind of a dangerous dichotomy. If we start to make a distinction between those who live in Portland and those who are coming, this is a really dangerous dynamic especially when it comes new manors and asylum seekers because it can set up this us versus them mentality which is something that is really, really poisonous to people because I like to think of us all as people who live in Portland and I want us to be incredibly welcoming and we've done a good job welcoming people so far but we have to be better about it and a lot of that is making sure that we avoid this dynamic. I don't want to see a dynamic between people that say, well, we can't afford to bring more people in because we can't afford to take care of our on-house population. We can tackle both of these at the same time, excuse me, but it's this scarcity mindset that is really, really problematic. So I just want to mention that because this works its way into the rhetoric for some folks and this is a problem that really comes down to scarcity and it comes down to this question of powerlessness again. So how do we empower people so that when someone is coming, they're excited. They don't worry about losing their housing. They don't worry about losing their job. They get to welcome a new neighbor and see that as a real asset for the city, which I believe it is. Thanks, Dylan. Justin? Yeah, thanks for the question. It's another really good one and I think the best way to talk about this is we have to understand who's most vulnerable in the situation right now and we have to be very proactive and thoughtful with our policymaking going forward. So we know that there are long-term market pressures on the city of Portland. We are an attractive place to live. We've seen people coming in for the better part of the last decade and the people that that puts at risk are the ones at the bottom end of the socioeconomic spectrum. They're the ones that are going to be most likely to get forced out. On an individual level, it happens because they slowly get priced out but on a broader sort of global level, we have to think about how the city is developing and growing. So if folks have been here and watching what's been happening over the last 15-plus years, we should be able to identify where the likely pressure points are. If you follow development patterns, it's going to be on Munjoy Hill and as Munjoy Hill gets too pricey, it's going to flow literally down the hill into adjacent neighborhoods. That's what we've been seeing in Bayside and it's going to start to hit areas like East Bayside and Kennedy Park and Riverton and a lot of other areas like that are going to be most vulnerable to this sort of pressure. So what the role of the mayor is in all this is getting in front of those things. So when we had the need to renovate, for example, the Portland Housing Authority development on Front Street, the city could partner with them and help support the continued funding of that so that that project didn't go away. It stayed an affordable housing project and that dynamic is going to continue to play out. So we need to think proactively about how are we going to get in front of those situations, whether it's at the base of Munjoy Hill or elsewhere in the city. We're going to have to continue to support affordable housing as it exists right now or else those people are going to get forced out for higher level market rate housing. So we're going to mix it up for the last housing question that I've got before we move on to some other topics. Believe it or not, we've reached the end of the housing in the zoning conversation. I would love to do a quick lightning round of your most innovative idea to expand housing choices in Portland. Five words or less. Are we starting with me? I'm looking at you, but I'm giving you a beat to think. I really appreciate that, it's nice. Yeah, five words is tough. All right, let's hear it, Dylan. I'm going to say mass produced, that's a hyphen, mass produced, 3D printed biohomes. Okay. Andrew? I was not expecting that. I thought I knew you better, but you said five. Five words. Okay, rezone industrial zones and LD2003. Like it's six, but we're good. Thank you. Justin. I'll give a rough count. I would say experiment more with form-based codes. Nice. Put a lot of dashes in there. It's five words, right? Yeah. Thanks, Justin. All right, we're going to move to a few questions about the process of making policy in Portland. And I'm going to start with you, Justin. Given the limits of the mayor's power under Portland's charter, how would you set the city's agenda and how would the public know about that agenda that you're setting? Aside from listening to others, what other skills are required for the mayor to be effective in that role of policy making? Yeah, I think this is the key dynamic, honestly, that I see right now, is we don't have a clear and concise vision for how policy gets made. And that's different from the determinations that get made by the mayor, the council, on the substance of policy. But we don't have a good way of saying, this is our process by which we take up a complex issue, weigh a bunch of different competing options, and this is how we bring it to a head and actually make a final decision. That is what I think is really needed right now for the next mayor, that we need someone that has been around and been through this and understands all of the different dynamics, all of the different players, both institutional and individual, and can set up those processes for success. So we've sort of been alluding to this throughout all of the other questions, that if you put this proposal on the ground, we can anticipate what's going to happen here, who are the stakeholders that are going to have a particular interest in something, that are going to want to weigh in. And it's the job of the mayor to set up processes to get in front of those sorts of things, so that we say, by the time we're really coming to a decision point, have we touched base with all of the members of the council? Have we touched base with city staff? Have we touched base with affected neighborhoods? Have we done an analysis that focuses on DEI? Those are the things that the next mayor really needs to work on, because we need to get back to a place where we can communicate about what a holistic process is, not just in a formal way, but in a broader political sense. What is a process by which we as government move an entire community to a point where we make a decision, stick with an outcome, stick with the decision, live with the outcomes, and everyone feels like they were treated fairly enough that they can walk away with a measure of confidence that they'll come back and do it for the next issue. Thanks, Justin. Andrew, you're up next. I mean, this is a huge reason as to why I decided to run for mayor instead of my district foreseat. It's because I've been pretty successful at getting my policies out of committee and through the council. So I think what you've named is a significant issue that I've identified that also is why we saw so many referenda show up in the last few years, specifically 2020. The mayor's role is to be the conduit between the council, the staff, and the community. That is the voice that connects all three of those constituencies. But we have a process right now where we set our agenda at the beginning of every year. We go around and we say, let's work on this, this, and this, and then we go to committee. And the community does not like that. It is not an effective, in my opinion, it is not an effective way of doing the people's work. So what I've done in my committee and that I would like to do with the full council when it comes to setting agendas and actually holding one another accountable is mirror what happens at our state a little bit more. I would like to call the community in at the beginning of the session, have them working with their councillors and saying, these are the issues we want you to work on. The council then works together, votes, you know, by a majority of five up or down if they're going to take up an issue. They refer that issue to the respective committee. The committee gets into work. They do the work with the community. They get experts. They get public comment. And if they decide to forward it to the full council, then it has its day in the sun and it's voted up or down. If we were to do that, which I've done in my committee this year, it was one of the best experiences I've had on the council. Our likelihood of engaging referenda goes down, but also people get to put their fingerprints on policies. Process is really important. And I do not like when process is weaponized, either for or against something. It's a small city or an active city and we have a really wonderful constituency. And I think it's our greatest asset to call people into chambers and work closely with them. And as mayor, that's your job to be the vision and to be the voice that connects those constituencies. Thank you, Andrew. Dylan. For me, it really comes down to this question of trust again. And this is really the promise of the position of mayor in Portland, which is a really unique position, is this person can be the envoy to build trust in the community and then to shepherd people's concerns and their hopes and their fears through the process, through city hall and out into the world. And establishing that first communication with people is critically important. And having this on an ongoing basis, being out in the community every day, going, reaching out proactively to folks that haven't been involved in the process and doing the really, really deep work of empathetically hearing people. And often this starts at a level that's deeper than a policy, often it starts with a fear or a hope. But you can find that commonality there if you know how to look for it. And once you do that, you build a set of shared values. And I think we have a set of shared values that's just under the surface here in Portland. And it's the mayor's job to find that and bring that forward. And that's what's going to inform the policy that we pursue. And that's the question we should ask about every policy that we're bringing forward is, does this, is this informed by our shared values? Does this support our shared values in the community? And when you build that level of commonality, things become much, much easier because you're not working at a level where you're disagreeing about something really specific until you've built that base up. And then you'll go into committee and I think Andrew makes a great point about involving the community in process all the way along the line. And I think having that trust allows you to get past blockers that we've had in the past. And I really think the number one thing that I've noticed being out in the community is this sense that people don't feel that they know how to be engaged or they don't feel that they have power to affect the changes happening in their city. And we are a small city and we have a great model for government, but we just need the right approach. And that really starts with the mayor. The mayor's job to model that person to person and then scale that up to the whole city. So that would be my approach. Thanks, John. Andrew, fair warning. We're going to do another lightning question. And we'll do a follow-up to it. Currently the city council cannot amend a citizen initiative measure initiated measure for five years. Do you support this five-year limitation on council amendments? Do I support the five-year limitation? No. Dylan? No. Justin? No. Okay. So the follow-up question I'll start with you again, Andrew, is what would you do to try to change it? Yeah, so I was involved with this a few months ago for chapter 9 amendments and I was a pretty big advocate in a workshop when we were deciding as a council, do we want to tackle this? This conversation actually started not with the time limit, but the number of signatures. Portland Main is actually very unique. It's very, very easy to get an item. The threshold is very, very low to get an item on the ballot and it's very, very restrictive to amend once passed. So signatures ended up starting the conversation, but what ended up evolving and this is what I ended up supporting ultimately didn't move forward was I thought that it was fair to say a three-year period of time with the super majority of the council could amend something that had passed. I also recommended that we limit them to November only and require a fiscal note, which is what the state does and just is actually a very responsible thing to do. I feel like, you know, it's really tricky. It's also very subjective on the policy item. A lot of times there are consequences with referenda even if it's the best idea in the world policy experts have to work on it. So I think three years super majority is a fair compromise, but five is really, it's too long. Thanks. Dylan? Yeah, I agree. I'll be brief. I think three years is also a good thing to look at as a starting place. And we've spoken about this a little bit more, but a lot of this stems because people don't feel that we're getting at the root issues from the city level government, excuse me, from the city government at that level. So once we start to reestablish that trust and have this be more of a collaborative process, I think you're going to have the number of referenda just naturally fall away. But I do also support moving into November. I think that's a good idea. How do you get more people involved? And I think allowing the council to make specifically technical changes within three years makes sense. Thanks, Dylan. Justin? Yeah, I think somewhere along the lines of two to three years is reasonable. But I do believe that this is an issue that we've probably made more complicated than it needs to be. This seems to have been a sort of long running conversation in the community as the frequency of referendums has increased over the last few years. And look, ultimately these procedural requirements are just in an ordinance and the council has the power and authority to put a question out to the voters. I think we should just put a question out to the voters and ask them if they want to change the procedural requirements and live with the requirements. Thanks, Justin. Live with the results. Sorry, got that. Alright, thank you. I'm now going to transition to talking about jobs and the economy. And Dylan, I'm going to start with you for the first question. Portland's economy is diverse with tourism, food, the arts, professional services and health care, all playing really important roles. As mayor, what would you do to support Portland's economy and do you have any initiatives that you can share with us tonight? Yeah, absolutely. I think you're absolutely right that we do have a really diverse and great economy in Portland right now. And I think the way to think about expanding it is let's look at the issues that we're facing. Let's look at the challenges that we're facing. Thinking about climate change, I'm thinking about affordable housing, homelessness. We are the front lines for this in the state and we have an outsized role right now in solving them. So let's bring industry in to that conversation. I mentioned three homes before. The University of Maine is doing some really innovative work on that. Let's see if we can expand that. Can we be a regional leader in this and say, yeah, Portland put 100 houses up in a month. How do we do that? So I would look at those challenges. And as far as specific policies, the other thing to look at here is equity. Because I'm fully in support of economic development, but we have to make sure that those gains are equal and that they are distributed among the community, especially for folks who have been left out of that process so far. So one thing that I'm really in support of is worker co-ops. So these are employee owned businesses. And I would like the city to provide a legal framework and support to people who want to convert their business into a co-op. There's a national movement that's doing this, but they really does require a guiding hand from the city. And the city can also organize financing without putting money up front by working with regional partners to build a pool so that people can convert a legacy business or start a new co-op. So I think as we welcome this development and this innovation with things like the Ru Institute certainly, we need to make sure that we're distributing it widely and that people have real control over it. Because I'm not in favor of a large multinational company coming here if the benefits to the community are not really, really solid. So those are the policies that I would pursue is how do you make that even for folks. Thanks Dylan. Justin? Yeah, I think that there's a couple of key things and a couple of key sectors that we should really be looking at. But the most fundamental I think is that we have to view economic development as an imperative and as an opportunity. And the role of the mayor I think over the next four years is going to be how do we partner with businesses and workers to move the city forward in a way that is fair and equitable for everyone. So there's a couple of major themes that continually emerge when you talk to folks in those communities. It's affordable housing, it's workforce development, it's public transportation. There's a lot of things that sound like a lot of the other major initiatives that we're all working on. And the role of the mayor is going to be to figure out okay, how can we break out of the sort of usual suspects? How can we leverage that broad agreement for new policy opportunities? So we've talked a lot about affordable housing in regards to state and federal funds and municipal policies and things of that nature. Is there an opportunity to work directly with lenders in some way? Those are the types of questions that a mayor is going to have to be looking at. In terms of long-term health and equity the number one thing that I think we can do is focus on workforce development. We did that when I was on the council. I was the long-time chairman of the Economic Development Committee. We built up new job skills training programs for a variety of underserved populations but probably most notably for English language learners and asylum seekers arriving in the country needing new job skills training, English language training, anything along those lines. And when we support those efforts we grow in a way that is more equitable. Lastly I would say there's a couple of key industries that we need to be hyper focused on but I'll leave it with the working waterfront and dredging the waterfront as a paramount existential issue for the working waterfront and the character of the city of Portland. Do you want to speak to those specific industries? Is it those two or are there others? Yeah I'll leave it with working waterfront for now. Thanks Justin. Andrew. Absolutely. Yeah I agree with a lot of what's been shared. I always want to remind us that we're the greater Portland area and so Portland is key word. You know for me I was a small business owner of Portland for six years so I know a thing or two about what it takes to do that and to treat your workers well. Payable wage. Be a part of your community. When you think of Portland and the downtown and our businesses you think of this vibrant community because we've worked really hard for that but we also don't make it very easy for businesses to operate in the city of Portland and I can speak to that from experience. Again we do need to reform our business permitting department because we have people waiting six, seven, eight months just to do a change of use and they still have to pay their bills so that's a problem. Portland is not known for being the best city to do business and I would like to change that. That is an economic development initiative that benefits everyone. If we just fix it. I used to be a main street director and I was a part of creating Woodford's Corner's Main Street program which is the state's first metropolitan main street district I think we should have main street districts throughout the city. They are essential in revitalizing economic corridors and they help the community grow and have their fingerprints on it as well. 100% agree workforce development is a tool that the city can leverage. We already have a program through the Office of Economic Opportunity and quick shout out to a Portland head which provides educational opportunities for people who want to have explore and expand their skilled labor opportunities. It's a great resource and I think the city needs to continue to invest in that. Our blue and green economies absolutely climate tech. Right now we're seeing two industries that are seeing the most investment in them. AI is one and climate tech is the other. We are a coastal city and we have some amazing organizations that we should be partnering with and you know last I'll say that we need a mayor who's a visionary looking for you know or like the real institutes are great. A great example we need to be looking what's 5, 10, 15 years from now. Who are we calling into our city to be economic partners. Thank you Andrew. We have a challenge. I see that Justin is going to be able to have 30 seconds to rebut or comment and then whichever candidate you want to talk to has 30 seconds to comment on your comment. So go for it. Thank you and not much of a disagreement. I just want to point out that the Workforce Development Program that was just talked about with the Office of Economic Opportunity the expansion of Portland Adult Ed that's exactly what I'm talking about that's the program that I built as economic development chair. Great. And who mentioned that program? Alright Andrew you've got a few seconds here to say what you'd like to say about that. Well good job building that Justin I think it takes a village for us to accomplish things that better the people of Portland and that's why we're elected to these positions right we want to leave the place better than we found it and I think creating programs that are effective but then prioritizing them expanding them investing in them you know that's just as hard as well so hey I'm a big believer and give credit where credit is due so I love it I love it thank you Alright so employers in our state all throughout the state including my organization and including the city of Portland are really searching for employees and having a rough time we've got a workforce shortage out there the city of Portland has many many unfilled positions as do the neighbors to Portland as well what would you do as mayor to help recruit people for those vacant jobs and Justin I'm going to start with you sorry you'd specifically refer to mayor yeah all of the you have a lot of employees in the city who I'm sorry you have a lot of open jobs that are not filled by staff yeah absolutely it's it is a major major issue for city hall and for the next mayor to deal with at the end of the day everything that the mayor and council do from passing budgets to writing policy and everything else those are just words on a page if you can't fill the positions that are actually necessary to do the jobs and make them a reality you know honestly there's no easy answer to this I think one of the things that I bring to the position is that I've been through municipal government for a long time and I have a lot of relationships not just with the city manager but with numerous other staff and department heads that go back a very long time many of them knew me from the time I was 25 and newly elected to the school board and there's not really policy things that a mayor is going to do it's going to be about having candid conversations based on strong relationships with department leaders and other folks to say things that we can do right now and my suspicion from the outside is some of this is about money but not all of it that there are issues that affect employee morale happening within city hall that the next mayor is going to have to deal with we have to figure out a way to make the city being a more welcoming more inviting and more forward looking employer that's going to be attractive to people to come and take jobs in city hall and if we can't do that again all of the best efforts are just going to be words on a page not results that actually make people's lives better thanks Justin Dylan I'll go to you next I know that we're done talking about housing but that's obviously a component of this as well if people want to come work in Portland and they can't live here that's a huge issue it's hard to get away from housing in Portland it really is it's going to be woven through all of this but that's one of the bigger things and the second thing I'd like to highlight is just a question of safety I'm thinking about the rise of white supremacy and anti-Semitism city staff and counselors are under an enormous amount of pressure and there's a real real feeling of danger for them so we have to be really proactive and make sure that anyone who's working in any capacity in Portland feels totally safe and insulated from these really harmful trends and the third is I think that it might be a hard sell to have somebody in the city government right now because of the way that we haven't been able to get ahead of these issues I cannot imagine how frustrating it must be to work in the city government and feel like you can't make any progress on these issues so I think one of the most important things we can do is really start to get ahead of these things to start to become the place that solves these things to solve homelessness to have an amazingly reactive and adaptive climate plan to build a bunch of affordable housing and if Portland stand out as a national example of a place that has really figured it out and is really taking bold steps that will do a huge amount to attract people and the other thing is absolutely comes down to a livable wage, it comes down to a thriving wage Portland continues to get more expensive when we need to make sure that we have the resources to be paying city staff really really well because that's an incredibly hard job and it's an incredibly necessary job so I think we should lean on all available revenue sources expanding revenue sources because we need to be able to keep pace with other places that are going to try to take away good employees because Portland is an amazing place to live and it should be an amazing place to work as well and so I think we have a lot of opportunity to make that the case. Thanks Dawn, Andrew. So we have 270 vacancies right now at the city of Portland and it's gone up. You know I want to name the most challenging part of that is the council and the mayor oversee three positions the city manager and corporation council on the city clerk and those three positions in the last two and a half years have turned over so it's been a very unprecedented past few years. When you have your senior leadership of the municipality turning over that's going to have impacts throughout all parts of municipal government but luckily we've prioritized that and that's been extremely challenging but we're in a really good spot and I am optimistic that we're going to start to see movement and here's why because I've been working on it already as a city councilor this past budget season I've worked with the manager and our HR director to prioritize the investment in an HR recruiter that's job is to intentionally seek people out to fill those vacant positions that's a big deal we need people in specific roles so that they can have the trickle down effect to other parts of the city. I've been for the last three years steadfast in making sure anytime we were having a discussion about labor agreements with our unions that we were coming to the table and we were prioritizing their needs because at the end of the day without our city staff basic municipal tasks like garbage recycling you know city services those are our job and those are not going to get done if we don't treat our staff well and treat them well rather so I've been an advocate for making sure that we're paying a livable wage and that we're being competitive with the private market because we haven't been and we walk around and say oh man why don't we have people fill in these positions I think if we look at the basics are we paying people well do they have a significant benefits and compensation compensation package we're going to answer a lot of those questions and I do want to name something that was very glaring that there is a culture we inherited from the top down that was not healthy and we're finally getting through it and healing through it but it was not a place where staff really wanted to be and so I've been really focused on working with my colleagues and the city manager on getting through that and we're finally starting to see the needle move Thank you Andrew we are now going to move to transportation Andrew I'm going to start with you what do you think are the biggest transportation challenges Portland and greater Portland residents face we are a city that like many other cities during urban renewal were negatively impacted by the prioritization of the automobile so our city has been cut up into little pieces for a small city it's actually pretty tough to get around if you would like to not use a vehicle and I've been working on that and trying to fix that as chair of the sustainability and transportation committee but that's a heavy lift can't do that one on my own I did promise the mayor before she left office that I would get her more bike lanes and you know I'm trying my best but we have a city that has prioritized the car we've been working at fixing that and again this is a regional issue but you know we're looking at okay why was you know why were state and high street changed so that they're one ways why did we incentivize these highway corridors that didn't make it doesn't make sense now maybe it did in the 60s but it doesn't anymore how do we engage a complete streets model where we're prioritizing people again cities are for people I'm on the metro board I think we need to do so much more than we're doing right now to invest in our public transportation system so that if you want to leave your house you don't have to have a car that you can take public transit and it's affordable and safe and reliable and consistent we need a multimodal option for our city if you want to hop on your bike or walk to work you should be able to and you should feel safe in doing so there's certain streets in the city like forest stuff I'm not biking on that and I know a lot of other people feel that way we need to we need to prioritize the way we get around in our city and greater Portland again this is a greater Portland issue so that it's easier and it makes sense and we do that through planning we do that through how we look at our streets and how people get around and in the last three years that's changed even more people work differently than they did before the pandemic so I think we have a huge opportunity right now to reimagine our city so that we put people first thank you Andrew Dylan so I absolutely agree it is car dependence is the number one challenge that we're facing from a transportation perspective in Portland and I absolutely agree with what Andrew's saying here that when you have a city that's prioritized automobiles over decades changes the character of the city and it makes it not a really pleasant place to live and I think this is sort of dawning on folks at a national level and it's certainly a hot topic in Portland and people that I talk to are really in support of how do we reimagine that how do we slow the streets that we have down how do we add street trees how do we have protected bike lanes so that people do feel safe because it's one thing to have a painted bike lane but it does come down to that question of safety because if it is there but it doesn't feel safe you're not going to take it anything that we can do to increase the density in a gentle way of neighborhoods to have that mixed use and to have really isolated but green and nice transportation corridors for folks that are walking, for people that are taking a bike that's separate from the major arterials is going to be great and I think that when we talk about the way that Portland is going to expand and we talk about these high priority corridors out Brighton Ave or Forest Ave transit has to be really at the center of those conversations as well as building a bunch of housing that people can only drive to or can only drive from to essential services so when we're talking about that think about how can we make an interconnected pathway that goes from a park to your house to your grocery store to your coffee shop things like that and I think that these are things that are going to benefit everybody in the city even if you do love your car that's fine but everyone is going to benefit from this because it makes the city a much more liable, quieter calmer, nicer place so I think that let's focus on the zoning and getting that right and let's move away from this car dependence. Thanks, John. Justin. Thanks for the question, Christina. So, yeah, I think the fundamental dynamic at play of course is that this is not a Portland issue. This is an American issue, a national kind of issue that has developed over a very long time and it's going to take time to unwind that and make it easier for folks to get around without a car. That's just the bottom line. There's not going to be one fell swoop kind of thing that we can do but there is a gradual way in which we can make it easier to walk, bike, take public transit all of those sorts of things because it happens in tandem on the one hand it does require policy change, it requires funding change, it absolutely requires all of those things that to be sustainable over the long term it also requires a cultural change and we have to get people individuals comfortable enough that they're going to stop driving to work every day, that they're going to take the bus or use some other public transit or that they're going to bike to work or they're going to do any of those things and both of those have to happen in tandem. No one's going to get more comfortable biking to work if you can't make it safer to bike to work and at the same time if we don't start to make a cultural shift where people are more comfortable working then there's no reason to spend money on the infrastructure that would make it safer to do biking. So those two broad dynamics happen in tandem but in a more concrete way and I don't want to say like I'm totally selling out but organizations like the Greater Portland Council government the work that you guys do that Chris Chop does around specific transportation initiatives for major employers to try to incentivize and make things more efficient for employees that don't live in the city of Portland but commute here all of those sorts of efforts are things that we need to continue to invest in along with fully and continually supporting additional expansions of Metro and other public transit systems. Thanks Justin thanks for the shout out too. I see another challenge. All right Andrew go for it you got 30 seconds. I kind of want to rename it I don't know I want to say I just want to add that yes we got to change behavior but the way we do that as elected as policy makers is through policy that people aren't going to opt in to say you know what I'm going to get rid of my car I'll figure it out we have to give them the carrot and sometimes the stick and I think a couple examples that come to mind as I've been working for the last three years the Libby town redesign right and that's using federal funds to totally redesign one of the most bizarre intersections so that it is two way that you can use a bike you can use public transportation and the same goes for what I've done working on Woodford's corner through CIP investment so that it actually makes sense for people to not just drive through the corner but to experience it outside of a car. Thanks Andrew go ahead Justin. I think that was an invocation but yeah I mean again we're not actually disagreeing here. It was a yes and yes and the other thing that I should mention is that there are longer term opportunities to work on different types of transit and so in a very preliminary way which got derailed unfortunately by the pandemic derailed good pun. Yes we were in preliminary discussions about piloting autonomous vehicles going from the Portland Transportation Center to areas in the downtown. There's going to continue to be opportunities like that that present itself Portland is a very attractive place for a lot of companies trying to do work in innovation like that. Time for another lightning question and we're going to start with you Dylan and I'm going to ask you just to name up to three specific transportation projects that you would prioritize for applications and construction. I would say protected bike lanes street trees and then expanded metro frequency. Very nice. Justin? Yeah I was going to say expansion of metro I'm going to shoehorn this in a bit but dredging of Portland Harbor as a way of expanding that and yeah actually I think expanded bike lanes as well. Thanks Justin. Andrew three. So the first one is Franklin arterial rapid bus transit investment and then I got to do it separate bike lanes. Thank you guys. Alright we're going to go a little bit deeper on climate and you can talk about transportation or anything else related to climate. So climate changes here it's going to change Portland it's going to change our region over the next 50 years 100 years 200 years. All of you have expressed support for Portland to lead in efforts to fight climate change. What's the number one thing the city can do to have the biggest impact in reducing greenhouse gases and I'm going to start with you Dylan. I think you have to look at one of the biggest emitters that's been said before buildings and transportation. I think as we're looking at the housing crisis this is also an opportunity to build incredibly green buildings. This is something that I've done professional I used to work for a marketing company that was working with people that were doing home energy audits. So there's an enormous opportunity to do retrofits for folks but also to focus on new construction because if you get the building right that reduces people's bills it reduces their climate emissions and this is the issue with Portland is that we have to do a lot to reduce our climate or excuse me our carbon emissions obviously but there can be no more global issue than climate change so even if we do as much as we can we are still going to need to work on resilience and adaptation. So I think that focusing on buildings is a great thing. Electrification is super important. Solar wind offshore wind is another thing that's developing. There's a lot of opportunity there and then if you look at transportation it comes back to these neighborhoods that we're talking about. It comes back to making it so that people like to walk. People like to bike and they feel safe doing so. Every time you can take somebody from a two car household do a single car household or reduce the number of trips that's a huge thing. So I think I hope we do come back to adaptation but I do think the two most important things we can do for sequestering carbon is looking at buildings and looking at transportation and one thing that I would like to mention is that alternative building technologies are going to play a key role here because you look at the carbon cost of the traditional things that we're using in terms of the transportation and also their production that's a huge and often hidden cost when it comes to carbon. So let's look at how do we build things that are green from the get go and actually sequester carbon out of the atmosphere versus adding a bunch when they're produced. So those two things I would think. Thanks Don. Andrew you're up. So one thing that I learned was pretty sobering when I joined the Portland City Council in 2020 as a climate person was that there was the perception that the city of Portland was actually leading the way on climate initiatives but the reality was was not that. I sat down when I became the chair of the sustainability committee with most of the major players in Maine's climate work and we came up with a plan how we're going to do better in Portland and I'm really proud of how I've tackled that and pushed policy out of my committee by committing to our one climate future action plan and actually implementing those policies into ordinance and we've been moving quite quickly on it. I would say the most significant one though back to your question is the work that I've been doing for the last year. I called CMP to the table and had them tell us what we needed to do for them to work with us on investing in our electrical grid. We have an archaic electrical grid and we've been implementing our electrify everything program which our goal is to transition completely off of fossil fuels via beneficial electrification to renewable energy but we can't do it because our grid cannot support it. So CMP has been working with me. I've been working with Senator King's office for about six months now. There is federal money to make that investment in the city of Portland and that's going to change everyone's quality of life. That's going to move the needle and it has to. This isn't a should we, this is a we must and Portland has an opportunity as a leader in the state to do that. I think that is by far coupled with solar investment on every municipal building the single most impactful investment we can make as a city and we don't have to do it by impacting property taxes we have to leverage state and federal resources and that's exactly what this will do. I think separate from that at the municipal level we have an opportunity here and I've been working on this in my committee to have a financing arm at the municipal level to use solar wrecks to actually invest in climate initiatives through the city of Portland climate and sustainability are part of every part of the municipality we are the first responders to climate change. Thanks Justin. Thanks. Yeah I mean this is another issue where I think there's a tremendous amount of agreement efficiency of existing infrastructure all of those sorts of things electrification expansion of continued expansion of EV charging stations all of those sorts of things. I don't want to repeat everything that has just been said so I'll just tag on one other big picture sort of opportunity that I think presents itself which is the significant expansion of solar farms and so I was on the council and part of putting together the financing and everything else to make the ocean avenue landfill solar farm happen. The policies that underlie that on the state level have changed enormously in the last five plus years and have really opened up opportunities that didn't exist for the city or other municipalities until fairly recently and it specifically relates to the city's ability to work with other purchasers of electricity and partner together to fund projects so I think that there's again I don't want to sound like I'm just trying to get brownie points with the moderator but through regional organizations like Greater Portland Council of Governments I think that there is a significant opportunity for municipalities across the region to have deeper conversations about what opportunities now exist to partner together to fund expanded solar solar opportunities that we can all then purchase from and ultimately make us greener and save us money over time. Great. Thanks Justin. So we're going to do another lightning round on this. Dylan you mentioned resilience I'm going to start with you though Justin what is the one thing that you would prioritize to build the city's resilience to extreme weather and the stresses and shocks that are coming our way from climate change? One thing. Zoning review and base Okay thank you Justin. Andrew? Yeah I was going to say climate overlay districts. Okay and Dylan? We have to have the data to do this. Okay. Thank you very much. Alright. I'm now going to challenge each of you and I'm going to ask Andrew to start. You have become mayor and you're giving your annual State of the City report. Please take two minutes to deliver your first State of the City address tonight sharing your vision for Portland's future under your leadership as mayor. That's a big question. How much time has passed? You've been there for a year. It's been a year and we've got two minutes for this. Okay let's see if we can do this guys. I'll get right to it. The State of the City is hopeful and the last year we've prioritized climate on every agenda just like I promised the day that I announced. We have successfully started working through zoning reform to work with affordable housing developers and we now have expected several hundred picking random numbers here. Affordable housing units that are under construction and I'm proud to say that the City of Portland was a partner in doing that. We worked with developers also to prioritize union labor and make sure that the people who are building those units will afford to live in this city as well and that's something that I'm proud of. We've put climate on every agenda and I'm happy to say that our feasibility study that we've worked with CMP and Senator King's office is now being implemented and we have federal funds so that we're finally going to be upgrading our electrical grid electrifying our city. Also really happy to say that we finally were able to dredge the harbor using federal funds after our fourth times the charm. Our city staff is finally coming back together and we no longer have vacancies in the hundreds. We did that by prioritizing liveable wage, bargaining and good faith and changing the culture of our city. We have a diverse council who's here for their community and we've implemented quarterly district meetings with office hours so that our counselors are more accessible to you the people of Portland. I'm really proud to see after one year that our policy our internal rules change to prioritize your needs at the beginning of the session has resulted in some of the most fruitful policies we've seen in Portland in decades resulting in no citizen referenda and a collaborative effort when pushing policy forward. I'm grateful to be looking back on my first year as mayor of Portland saying that the best is still in front of us but we've done quite a bit of work together. Thank you. Thanks Andrew. Dylan, you are now mayor. It's been a year. It's been a year. We haven't done this either this is a good one. Portland, it has been such a profound honor to serve you this last year and I feel like we are starting to hear each other we are starting to see through the divisions that have existed in this city for years the divisions that put us against each other when really there was something common at the table and it's through your incredible work and stewardship that we've been able to do that. I'm proud to say that I have been a part of community and neighborhood meetings every single day throughout the city of Portland and every neighborhood with people who had never been involved with the city before. I'm so happy to say that we have created a space where people feel heard where they feel that they can come to the table with a really honest hope or an honest fear and have that manifest in the city government in a way that gives them agency and it is through this incredible work that you've done and the incredible trust of each other that we have started to make progress on the biggest issues facing Portland we have successfully cleared every tent in the city of Portland every single person is in housing, many are in recovery many are having great jobs and are integrating into society anyone who is becoming homeless is immediately into a housing first unit we have started to make homelessness a thing of the past and we are a national model for this thanks to your work I will be remiss not to talk about housing one of the biggest issues that I heard from you and one of the biggest directives you gave me when I was a candidate and we have started to make really really important structural progress on this we've laid out a framework to make Portland lead the nation in terms of home ownership we are building a city in which every person feels heard and valued and empowered and invested in their community we have found honor this last year and I know this is just the beginning Portland, thank you so much for your work thank you Dylan alright Mayor Costa you've been in office for a year what's your seat of the city this is quite the question so after one year what I would hope to be able to say is to the people of Portland I remain grounded in the principle that led me to run as a district school board member at 25 years old in 2008 and that is that this office this position doesn't belong to me it belongs to all of you and it it belongs to the people of Portland and that I remain grounded in the fundamental fact that the work that we do is about trying to improve people's lives and so my hope would be that in the first year that I can look at the people of Portland and say in the last year we have started to move beyond talking about a lot of big issues and start to produce tangible results so in the first instance I hope to be able to look at the city of Portland all of its people and say in the last year we wound down the incredibly unsafe dangerous encampments that are all over our city right now that we've given people a humane option to get treatment, to get substance abuse, counseling to get the services that they need or to get the housing that they desperately need it would be my hope that after one year I'd be able to look at all of you and say we have made tangible progress towards modernizing our housing policy to make it easier for nonprofits and affordable housing developers to build housing in the city I would hope to be able to look at all of you and say that in the last year we did a tremendous amount of work to rebuild trust between the city and our school department and do everything we can to support them in their efforts to get our school department back on solid footing and ultimately I would hope to be able to say that we have begun the process of bringing our community back together and getting to a place where we're able to talk about issues as friends who may disagree rather than as enemies Thank you Justin Dylan this is our last question before closing statements and I want to ask you to answer first imagine you have a magic wand and it's your first day on the job what would you do to make the city and region better for those of us who live here on your first day and I have a magic wand you have a magic wand go for it incredible the first thing is to get everybody housed in a house that is safe and that they have total control over every unhoused person is now in recovery they have their own home that they can lock the door and take a shower every person who's struggling with rent or to make mortgage payments that's all gone they can afford their home comfortably and they're building that equity in terms of the city trees abound everywhere people are biking people are walking it's vibrant you know in terms of climate I would love to see that electrification with my magic wand that I can do immediately and we've really built a framework so that we are ahead of the issues I think that's the key take away here is that with a magic wand I would pursue the same kind of structural changes that I'm proposing without a magic wand sadly but how do you build that resiliency how do you build the structures to allow people to have agency over their lives so that we're not playing catch up and so that people feel a really profound sense of connection with the place that they live and a sense of pride in the place that they live and frankly I don't need a magic wand to engender that in Portland people already feel that way they just need a little bit of help they just need a little bit of support from the city government they need to be heard, they need to be believed and then they just need a little push to get all of the framework and the people is already there and it's our responsibility to build systems at the municipal level that honor the people that are doing the work so with my magic wand I would simply bring the systems that we use at the city level into alignment with the incredible work that's already being done in the community right Justin it's your first day on the job what are you going to make your magic wand do yeah I would use the magic wand and stand up the kind of treatment facilities that our unhoused neighbors need right now so that we can begin winding down the encampments safely and humanely and I guess I'll just own the fact that I'm going to dodge the magic wand part of the thing if I'm elected mayor and if I have the privilege of being able to serve my day one agenda is certainly probably meeting one is going to be meeting with the manager and the director of HHS to figure out what it is that we are going to do in the immediate term to make sure that people are safe both the folks who are unfortunately still forced to live in encampments right now and neighbors abutting them perhaps my first day and maybe my second day I think the next round of meetings is with the same folks as well as with Mark Swan the director of Preble Street, Cullen Ryan of community housing in Maine and other partner organizations all of the folks that run those organizations to say guys are we all on the same page here do we know that we are moving towards the same goal are we bought in on the same plan because this is going to be an urgent issue it's going to be winter time in Maine we can't have people outside risking their lives in tents right now what is it that we can agree on so that we can start the process of moving forward and winding down these encampments and making our city a safer and more humane place while we do it thank you Justin Andrew so the question is about a magic wand yeah you can wave it or you can do you can not have a magic wand your priorities on your first day hey we have a magical wand it's our pen as policy makers a magical wand used appropriately you know for me I think I absolutely share in sentiment up here that number one priority is to get people out of tents and into shelter and working closely with not only the city manager and city staff but working closely with the governor working closely with our elected counterparts in other cities like Westbrook, Lewiston, Bangor, Bideford calling them to the table and saying it's a crisis that is far bigger than Portland to fix on our own and the only way we're going to get through this is through a regional approach of working together and investing in this together these solutions I'll work closely with and my plan I've been saying it since day one is to prioritize transitional housing we're not going to get out of this with emergency shelter only we got to prioritize housing first policies we have to get people the treatment services they need if they have substance use disorder mental health struggles we have to get people out of tents and into those programs and we have to do that collaboratively and like I said earlier I always give credit where credit is due I'm going to give a shout out to Westbrook right now for rezoning their city so that they could build a shelter I want Portland to use our leverage our leadership that we already have as the largest city in the state who's doing this work when it comes to homelessness in helping our colleagues across municipal borders to do the same and to call them to be in a part of that equation and the same goes for our colleagues up in Augusta I'm going to spend most of my magic wand on this issue because we've done such a good job of talking about others this evening this is the number one issue for Portland and I think that we have to do everything we can in our power to prioritize those three lanes of housing with permanent housing being the goal to get people dignified alternatives to what they're experiencing right now we will not be able to lock up and throw away our issues when it comes to this one unfortunately we're going to have to roll up our sleeves get creative and meet people where they're at and that's what housing first policies oh and if I'm waving a magic wand I'm going to quickly up with your property taxes just because you know I have to alright we're going to move to closing remarks this time you only have one minute for your closing remarks and the order is going to be Justin Andrew Dylan so Justin one minute please thank you Christina for moderating and thanks to everyone that's watching I'm running for mayor fundamentally because I believe that Portland needs a change right now as I've said throughout the campaign and as you can probably discern this evening there is way more that we agree on than that we disagree on I'm not running because I disagree with the words or ideas but what I have seen over the last several years is that we have a city council a city government right now that is struggling to move from word to action and to make concrete policy decisions on the most pressing issues that are facing our city I have the experience of having served on the city council and on the school board I know our municipal government I got things done in both offices and I'll get things done as your mayor thank you Justin Andrew thank you so much for having us too this was a fun one in every corner of Portland lies possibility and I feel like that's something I've been talking about for the last six months of my campaign for mayor we're at a crossroads we've talked about a lot of our greatest issues tonight from housing homelessness to affordability and climate transportation but I'm running for mayor because I believe we need somebody with the vision the leadership the energy and experience not just to talk about what we need to do but how we're going to do it and to do it so that you're a part of the equation that's really important to me you know my campaign is big ideas and that's important to me I want to vote for someone who has big ideas I want to vote for someone who has a vision I want to someone who I want someone to believe in this city because I do believe in this city so my campaign is a promise to do just that my campaign is a promise to meet you where you're at and I hope that in November you rank me as your first vote thanks Andrew Dylan thank you Christina and thank you to the organizers in Portland media center for having us I believe all of us in Portland can come together and do something that has never been done before I think we can create a radically new vision for what a city is and can be we can create a city that stands against the evils of our global financial system a city in which everyone is empowered and safe and welcome and secure these things are imminently possible but we must change our approach we must build new systems that have as their basis not profit and bureaucracy but empathy compassion and human welfare so if you believe as I do that Portland is full of incredible hardworking talented and passionate people and that we must seek a politics that honors them I'd ask that you write me down first on November 7th so we can walk this path together thank you so much thank you Dylan this wraps up the Portland media center's 2023 mayoral debate this debate is part of the Portland media center Civic IQ series I'm Christina Egan and I want to thank all of you for watching tonight and I also want to thank the three of you for running I also want to thank Gardner real estate group for sponsoring tonight's event be kind to yourself and to each other thank you and good night