 Hi, we're here at the Portland Media Center meeting the candidates for Portland Mayor as part of the CyndiQ project and I'm here with Pius Ali and welcome. Thank you. Thank you for having me here. Can you tell me a little about your background, your history, anything you want us to know? So my name is Pius Ali as you said it. I am an immigrant from Ghana. I came to the U.S. in 2000, I landed in New York, lived in New York for two years and then I came to visit Portland in 2002 and I fell in love with Portland. I went to New York, gathered my staff and moved in here. Interesting enough, the friend who I came to visit used to be a student in this building at the main college of art. His name is Ebenezer Akapl and so that is how I ended up in Portland. When I came to Portland, I've had jobs in many different places, I've worked in restaurants and then I accidentally and I use the word accidentally because the direction that I could have never been what I wanted to do. I found a job with an organization called PROP, People Original Opportunity Program. So very simple job, I was to work with high school, middle school kids when they get out of school. I get busy so that I don't get in trouble and the location for that job was at Kennedy Park, Reviton Park, Saga Modelet and Front Street and that job was what set me up to where I am today. I got to learn the community, I got to learn a lot about this country because the people that live in those neighborhoods are immigrants, poor white folks and what they have in common is poverty. And the challenges that they face got me to start thinking and asking. I became like an advocate for a lot of the kids because their parents don't even know, it doesn't matter whether they are immigrants or not, they don't even know how to engage the education system. So I got parents to sign a waiver that says that if their child is in trouble, I am or if the schools want to talk to them, I am allowed to represent those parents. I did that for a couple of years. I had a job with Oxford Street shelter, working as an overnight shelter staff, got a job with Preble Street at a tin shelter, started my own nonprofit called mainly Interfaith Youth Alliance because of what I see happening with a lot of young people who are coming from different backgrounds, ran that for some time and didn't have the money out of pocket to run it so I let it go. I co-started another youth program with the now speaker, Tabor Ross, called King Fellows. It was an ideology of building leadership among young people of color based on the principles of Victor Martin Luther King. I went on to work for Cease of Peace. I currently serve on the board of directors of Cease of Peace at the international level. I'm a board member. I got on the board, I think, two and a half years ago. I work with an organization called Volunteers of America, nothing new in England. They have a halfway house or transitional house in Brackett Street. I worked there for several years before I was invited to start a program that would get immigrants and other minorities and then poor, wild folks to engage the education system in Portland. I started it at the City of Portland Refugee Services, eventually moved it to Mass K School. It is called Portland Empowered. It is currently housed at Main Immigrant Rights Coalition. Basically what we do is we create opportunities for parents who are immigrants currently before it was parents who are not engaged but now it evolved into immigrant parents to understand the way the education system works, to have a sense of community, of belonging. That is the parents. The students, it's to build their leadership skills and two years ago we added another component which is a leadership program called Civic and Community Engagement Fellowship. What that does is it works with young immigrants between the age, I call them loosely young because I know most of them since they were teenagers, between the age of 20 and 30, to learn how to network, how to find a job and keep it and based on what they are interested in, we invite people who are coming from similar background to come and have a conversation with them. So that is what I have done over the years. I should have mentioned that you're also a city councilor and a former school board member. Yes. When I started, I've been volunteering in the schools for a long time and then when I got to, when I started that organization, which worked with education, I got connected to other similar organizations across the country and I got to learn some of the challenges in medication that I was not seeing because I go in as a volunteer. So that brought me to run for school board in 2013. And then three years later, there was an opinion on the city council seat and I ran for it. And I've been on the council for seven years. I am currently the longest serving city councilman. I've been on the council for seven years. The closest is the mayor, which is four, she's been on four years, then no one else is three years, two years and one year. I am the mayor per term, which means that if the mayor cannot officiate meetings or she cannot attend any public event, she asked me to. I joked to people that I'm the part-time mayor or the chairman. Vice mayor. On my, yeah, on my civic responsibilities or engagement or participation outside elected office. I serve on the metro board. I also serve on the board of prosperity, as a prosperity on the board of there's an on profit that is owned by GPCoc or that was started by GPCoc call center for regional prosperity. I serve on that board. I am a founding board member of a program called your neighbor books. What we do is we find books that share different immigrant narratives. And then we share it to schools. We started here in Portland. Now we are all over the state and all over the country. We actually have some books in Canada, in some schools in Canada one or two that have reached out to us. What else do I am I involved in? Yeah. That sounds like a pretty full plate. I think. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Public service. Yeah. Taking back to 2002, when you first saw Portland, what was it about the city that you found attractive? What was it like, what was that experience like for you? For an immigrant who is coming from Ghana, New York was a little bit too fast for me. I remember that when I first arrived in New York, I raised my hand and look at the skyscrapers and I was like, why did I go myself? So when I came here, as I have said before we started having this conversation, I was a photojournalist. So I got attracted to the artistic nature of Portland. When I came to New York, I wasn't working then. There was a photo studio called BNH, it's a photo shop called BNH. Spent a lot of time there. I would go to BNH and in BNH I found I think there is a photo project, it's like a training center somewhere in Waterville or somewhere in Maine. I found the animal. Oh my goodness. That was the first time I saw the name Maine. I don't know that as a place called Maine. So when I came to Portland, work around, my friend used to go to school here and he worked at a restaurant. For the first time, I went into a coffee shop that also served as a community space. So he would send me there and then he would go to work. I forgot what it was called, but it was at the top of where most music used to be. It was like a small space. Sure, sure. It was a coffee shop and when you go in there's newspapers, there are books, people just sitting down and talking. That and the sense of community, the sense of the small town where you get to, if you walk up the street a couple of times, you'll see the synthesis, you'll say hi to people and people talk to you, people were more friendly. I realized that at that point in New York I was just a number. But here I was someone that could engage, that could get involved, that can connect to the community that he lives in. You think the city has changed since the last 21 years? Absolutely. I was having a conversation with someone when I was conversing yesterday and the person said to me, Pius, I've lived here all my life and this city is changing drastically. And I said to him that I've been here for only 21 years. Actually, I'm not fully 21 years yet until, actually 21 years is this year. And I said to him that, and I've seen the city change. Sometimes you don't see the change because you are theoretically part of it. You see a foundation being built, you see something being put in place. And then when you pay close attention, you go like, when did this thing go to be here? It's been here, you've been seeing it every day. And then the people, the diversity, the restaurants, almost everything about it. When people ask me, I say that when I came to Portland, it was a city that had been in a very deep sleep and it was waking up. And now Portland is fully awake and walking. So I want you to look ahead, imagine 10 years from now. What do you see? How do you see the city is different? What's your vision for the city and what should we be doing now to achieve that vision? I think we need to take a step back from where we are now and look at I don't remember word by word what our comprehensive plan says. It says something like we are going to be a city that is welcoming to everybody. We're going to be a city that will meet the need of all our residents. And we are going to be a city that will create a thriving environment for business. So what we need to do is take a step back and ask ourselves, are we that city? If we are not, what are we going to do to get there? If we are able to answer these questions and put something on paper, I think 10 years from now will be the perfect city and the wonderful city that Portland is supposed to be. And Portland has the capacity and the ability to do that. As you know, there's been a lot of controversy about the nature of the job of mayor. We didn't used to have one. Then we had one and people are dissatisfied with the way the job is constructed. And we had a charter commission and proposed changes that the voters turned down. All right. So here we are. And I guess as somebody who is running for mayor, what is your sense of what is the job of mayor in Portland and how does the mayor influence events in our system? Yeah, I think the mayor, the current mayor as is structured, have a lot of limitations and also opportunities. The mayor in my sense is like, so I'm going to take a step from the mayor, move away from the mayor and look at the city in its entity and the city government, the council. I see the city as a two-legged stone, right? I'm sorry. There's one. Three-legged stone. One is the council. One is the city staff and the other one is the public. And as the mayor of Portland, you should be able and have the ability to engage all these three components. How are you going to do that? Depends on how you look at it. It's not the political face, but it's also supposed to be a convener and somebody who built consensus based on what it is in the charter. I think I am thinking out and out the other day that because of this mayoral race, people are asking for let's have forum here, let's have debate. And I said, do people even know the limitations of this office that they are asking people, if they are going to have a civil conversation like this, that is great. But if it's a policy, how do we call it, debate where each of us will say, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this. Well, you can list all aspirations that you want. They are aspirations. You should be able to work with a city manager and your eight colleagues to be able to move anything forward. Even if it is to put a stop sign in the corner of a street at a neighborhood. People in the neighborhood say we don't want this stop sign. They're going to get some of your colleagues to say that, well, the neighbors say you don't want it. Why do you want it there? Right. And you need to have skills in bringing people together, which I think I have a lot of that. I work with CIS of Peace as a facilitator. I think I'm good enough for them to put me on the board of directors. So, yeah. So that's the role of the mayor is a convener, a consolidator of an opinion and watching for it. Yes, a convener and someone that will be able to facilitate the council, build a good relationship with each councilor, be able to bring forward a conversation, one that's a contentious issue in the city, be able to be public facing, as well as internally being able to get the council in collaboration with staff. As it is now, to bring the city to a place where everybody will be okay. There's a saying that I created, which says that this agreement does not make us enemies. It just says that we are partners with a different set of values. And if we agree to give up something in return for something, we will all get somewhere where we will be okay. We will not be fully agreeing that this is where we want to be, but it's a good place to start. So whoever is the mayor should be able to do that. When there's an issue that is contentious, the mayor should be able to listen to both sides and be able to guide the council to some sort of consensus. You will not always get that, because councillors are human beings. There's emotions, there's solid beliefs where someone will say this is a line that I will not cross, that is okay, but you don't fight with them. You'll find a way to work with everyone and work with staff. And also be the face that will go out in public and say that this is what we did and this is why we did this. And this is why it is important, because you already have engaged them. When I got on the council, I made a recommendation that has not been fulfilled yet, which was that we do a lot of, how do we call it? We send out emails, we do press releases, but we don't necessarily engage the people that we lead. Because engagement is a two-way street. We wait until there's an issue and people get angry and they line up in front of us. So I made a suggestion to create an office of citizenship engagement. When there's an issue with that office, even before, because sometimes the council sees something coming or city staff sees something coming. If we have somebody, whether it is one or two people in that office that have built relationship with the city, they could go out in house, start having conversation before people get angry, before emotions got high. They've already have that conversation. And then when it is ready to be in the front of the council, these individuals or this office may have already set the platform for the council, the manager's office, and the public to have this conversation. So you've been around for three different mayoral experiences and very different people, different approaches to the job. Is there anything you've seen from the three proceeding mayors that you would like to emulate? Is there anything that you hope to avoid? What have you learned from the evolving role of the mayor? Right. One of the mayors, for the record, I wasn't on the council, but I was on the school board. So I observe it from a distance. I think what I hope, if I am lucky and privileged now for the people of Portland to vote for me to be the mayor, what I hope to be is a merge of all three of them. Each of them have a lot of strength, and they also have their weakness. That is why I give the example of the three schools. A city needs a leader, and that is not the role of a city manager. A city needs a leader that they see all the time, in time of celebration, in time of crisis, and in time of anything, with no agenda of pushing any policy when they go out to meet the people. Just the people to know that this is who my mayor is. Right? Because the position has limitations. So all you can do is be a cheerleader. You cheer the city when there's celebration, when there's an event organized by whoever you show up. I'm the mayor. I'm here to support you. When a restaurant in Portland gets an award from New York Times or somewhere, you write them a letter and say congratulations. You're making our city look beautiful. And it goes on and on. And also, you should be able to have good relationship with your peers, because you are one vote out of nine, out of, yeah, one out of nine, including you. It's not that there's a separate office for the office of the mayor, as we have in Westbrook and other part of the state. You are part of the council. I have said this publicly, so I can say it again. The mayor's office is a glorified, large city councilor. So you should be able to have this meeting and this work with your colleagues and be the cheerleader, the face of the council. When there's somebody coming to visit, I have a relationship with the water first council of me. And so they will have people coming to visit me in Portland. And I'll say, bring them to city hall. Let's talk to them. Those are some of the things that the mayor should be doing. I also understand that a mayor's term in tenure can be shared by nature, but since that you don't have no control over, pandemic can happen again, right? Judge Floyd may happen again. Then you'll have crisis at hand. Then you also, at that time, it's not celebration time. It's a time that you need to be out there talking to people. And yeah, so that is what my mayoral leadership will be. Of course, I will also push for some policies when needed. If the public is coming to me and say, we need to change this, I will talk to my colleagues on the council. I will talk to city staff. Because each councilor or each person who is in an elected office, none of us know everything. It doesn't matter what you know or what your beliefs are. You need to talk to people who are experts to shape and frame policy or process or whatever it is that you are leading on the council. It seems like one of the limitations that you described of the mayor's office is that because there are only one vote on the council, there's not always a sort of a clear voice for city policy. A lot of things happen in the council chamber, but don't necessarily translate out to the community. And I'm wondering how you deal with that part of it, where you are just one councilor, but you also have, as you say, people look to the mayor for clarity about what the city's about. Yeah, so there is something that I learned every one hour on the school board that if you are part of this body, there are some things that you cannot go out and say. Because you're not representing yourself anymore, you're presenting the body. You can say it as an individual, but you cannot say the council or the, but only the mayor can do that or the school board chair. So let's say there is a vote about an issue that is very contentious in the community, and then the city, the council votes on it. Even if I'm on the, how do we call it, the site that didn't support it, I think as the mayor, because of what I said and what I believe that you're supposed to be the face of the council, it's an obligation on me to go out there and say to the public that last night we have all last week, based on how you structure your engagement with the public. It could be in the form of an email, maybe once a week or once a month, knowing that you don't have staff, you'll have to do a lot of things by yourself. And also periodically do an in-person meeting with the public and say that we support, we did this, we did this, it could be a quarterly meeting with the mayor. When I was on the school board, I was able to get the school board to change how we engage. I pushed for the creation of the, I think it's a committee, public affairs committee. And then while we, I pushed for it three years and we did it the year that I was living in the school board, where I said that let's go to communities and talk to people. Let's leave all the trappings of power that we have because not everybody who lives in this city will be able to come to the school board meetings. So we started having community conversation. There was no school board here and everyone else is here. We create a round table, like a seat around. And parents will come and have a conversation with us, like the citizens that we are. I was able to get the school board to start rotating the school board meetings. Once in a while, they go to a school because parents already believe and have comfortable relationship with that school building. So when you come and meet there for them to see you, to talk to you directly, so we'll do one at Kim Middle School. We'll do one at Rikie Elementary on Picks Island on different parts of the city all year round. We rotated it and of course you cannot do that with the council, but there should be the four meetings that we have by the council. I wish we could move it to summer where more people can participate, more people can attend and talk to us. I also know that there is a lot of apathy in it's not just here, it's all over the country in engaging a political body. We can do things different. Portland is 67,000 people. I can walk around Portland within a few hours on foot. So the governing body or the mayor should be able to build that relationship where in the summer, come and have ice cream with the mayor. Get to talk to people. That is the type of mayor that I'm going to be. So you already are out knocking on doors and you have a pretty good sense of where people are. What do you see as the biggest challenges facing the city right now? Housing and what can we do with our neighbors who are in the apartments? Yeah. Two, I think, related issues, but pretty much, you know, part of maybe two sides of the same coin, but let's start with affordable housing. What are things that the city could do to make this a more affordable place? All right. I think the lack of housing is a problem in its own, but it's also the by-product of other things. We have housing where my daughter is in college right now in Boston. I'm pretty sure when she gets out of college and she decides not to go to the next level to do master's or something else, she may want to come back home. Do I think she will get a job that will pay her enough for her to afford an apartment in Portland? No. So we need to look at how do we pay people who work here in Portland, especially young people who are just coming out of college and immigrants who are getting into their first jobs, even though they have some sort of skills from back home. That is one. The other one is Portland needs to have a conversation with itself on the neighbors that will line up in front of city hall and see the city council in the city chamber. You cannot build here because this is not the way our community looks like. We need to have a deep conversation with ourselves and say that we're going to build a perimeter or put some things in place that says that it doesn't matter what the neighborhood is, you can build this, but this is how you build it in a very sensible way that can be built. Do I have an absolute answer to what we can do for housing? No, because a very complicated issue, but I have an idea. A few years ago, when I was on the housing committee, I chaired a housing committee, I was in the chair then. Councilor Ducson was the chair and I was on it with Councilor Cook. We asked city staff to look at the lands, every land that the city owns. The density manager said to us that, well, you cannot build on all of them. We said, all we are saying is to bring us all the land. A map was created and we look into the map. A couple of things came out. If you drive on commercial street, there is a building that was built there. That land came out of that. It's not a housing. I think it's a grant and then some office for veterans or something like that. But then we found out, we located that land from that map. But we know that we cannot build because of the structure of the land. However, there were a couple of projects, actual projects that came out because of asking for that map to be created. One was at a corner of Franklin and Middle Street. There is a building that is going on. It's actually done. It was done by Chong, community housing of Maine. That land came out of that. And then the Douglas Street land also came out of that. And then there is a co-op housing that was built. That also came out of that land. I'm a big fan of looking at co-op housing because when you build more co-op housing, it should not be the only housing that we both affordability. But if you are able to get people into co-op housing, what it does is that it helps people build equity. Whereby if they are renting, whether it is affordable housing or regular market housing, they don't build any equity. We have a- I'm sorry, do you like co-ops that have affordability covenants where the equity is limited but- Yes. And then- They stay affordable. Yes, they stay affordable. And then when somebody have built inter-eats, when they get to a point where they can also take whatever equity they have built as individuals, they can go and find somewhere to also buy their own small thing, if that is what they want to do. They can choose to stay there. And then Kennedy Park, which is owned by Portland Housing Authority. A lot of people think Portland Housing Authority is part of the city's arm of housing developer. No, they are a quasi-governmental organization with their own policy and this thing. I will go into some sort of like a conversation with them and look and see, can we build high? I think people are not happy when we build high in Portland that this is not but we are at a point where we don't have a choice. It is more expensive to take care of somebody who is not house than to put them in some sort of like a housing. So I will explore the possibilities of using a citizen or a housing bond. How much I don't know yet. I will have to talk to city staff because they are the experts on how much one can we put out there and then work with people who are into development. But I will focus more with people like Portland Housing if they are open to building high here at Kennedy Park and in other parts of the city that they have properties. So those are some of the things that I will put out. If you had a successful bond with the city being the developer, would the city send out requests for proposals? How would you engage? I don't want the city to be the developer. Even though there are models somewhere that have been successful in some European countries, there is a block that I was asked to give a suggestion for a podcast. I don't have it on top of my head. There is a podcast that I listen to or it's a book or something, some audio thing that I listen to. Somebody posted online and then I went on to buy one. Then I listened to it on the first, I think, municipal own housing in Chicago. I forgot what it's called but it's an interesting thing for me to learn where I am coming from. If I want to buy a house, the American housing system still is an interesting thing to me. In Ghana or in some parts of Africa, now they've also started remodeling. If you want to buy a house, you buy a land and you build your house. But then here, for hundreds of years, somebody will own a house and I will hear that is still all money on that property that they've built 30 years ago. Right? So I don't want the city to be a developer. I want the city to facilitate development, to create, give an opportunity for but the co-op model will be like halfway from the city not being a developer and also not leaving the housing market for individuals who will make money and put it in their pocket. Right? By creating opportunities for people to build equity. So the way it will work is theoretically from where I'm sitting until I talk to experts is that I hope that the city will look at will make RFP, people will respond and will look at the proposers in our front. And hopefully that will be because I am a friend believer or I have started believing in the co-op model that there will be some co-op and there will be some Avesta. I'm currently a tenant of Avesta and then there will be some how do we call it some Portland housing. Whoever will build more and put people into housing will be the one that that is the theory that I will give to city staff and then they will use their expertise to craft something and bring it before the council and the public to discuss. So, you know, one part of this conversation is land use policy and there's an ongoing effort to update the city zoning which is full of political opposition on a neighborhood level as you mentioned earlier. And I just wonder where you are on the whole recode project and whether you think that's a viable way to expand their housing opportunities. I think it's one of many tools that we can use one that being what I said, I think there's a saying that your budget is a reflection of your values as a city. And then your housing code also shows the type of city that you want to be. I think I'm not an expert in that but what I know from what I've learned so far is what you put in that code determines how your city is structured. I know that there is another position on what can be put in what cannot be. And I think it goes back to what I said that it's about time that Portland take a step back and ask ourselves what type of city do we want to be? What type of community do we want to be? Do we want to have a community that is divided based on who does have and who doesn't have what? Right? Do you want to have a community or a city where the million dollar house will be sitting right next to a house that is 150,000 dollars? That's a question that not just me the city have to ask itself and by the city I'm talking about all of us that what type of city do we want to be? How do we want to see Portland look like as you asked in the next 10 years? Well, how do you have that conversation? Is that what the mayoral race is about? Well, the mayoral position is to put light on what we need to talk about and then once we find whoever the mayor is let's see how are they going to lead that conversation? If they don't is there somebody on the council that will be able to take that leadership role so that we can have that conversation in the city? And as I was saying the way it is structured at a point you have to let city staff take the lead because that is their role right? And you as a city councilor or the mayor yeah, you may be able to have a conversation with the manager one on one but when this conversation is going on and it's in the public unless there is a policy that you want to change which is what we are doing now staff is in the process of having this conversation and then they will bring the final how do we call it the final propolas to the council and then the council can also look at it As a councilor are you engaged in that process? I currently this morning I had a conversation on Zoom with a group of people called Portland Voices and I said to them that I'm a very strong process oriented we have intricate we have lines that have been put by our charter so when there's an issue that is going to come to the council and it is it is at a committee or a city level I try as much as I can it doesn't matter how much I care about that to stay away from it and let them do their work and then once it gets to me of course the city is not city staff are not going to put it in my table today and say that you have to make a decision today they give me there's a grace period where they will bring you to me and when they are agreeing they will give us updates on this is where we are and then say to us that in about a month you're going to have then I will look into it deep and I will talk to people that I consider to be experts like I said you can not be experts in everything and then sick people in the community both those that I will agree with and those that I may not agree with based on the way they look at things have a conversation with them before I go to my decision making and then I will make recommendations or give feedback to city staff on what I think needs to have it so historically one of the ways that affordable housing was created was small units in densely populated neighborhoods where people could walk you didn't need to have a car everybody didn't need to have a car their services stores and other employers are all within walking distance of the housing the irony of Portland is the neighborhoods that look like that have become upper income neighborhoods because they're so desirable but the land use policy doesn't let you replicate that in other areas and I'm wondering in terms of you know when you think about affordability do you think about that kind of walkability and different kinds of transportation how that affects people's ability to afford to afford that I think gentrification happens whether we pay close attention or not and it will happen in so many ways right that walkability I know that you said that in Portland it is not easy to do that right to replicate it somewhere else important but there is a this movement is it called small town or something there are neighborhoods stay there is this neighborhood idea where in each neighborhood they try to have restaurants they're trying to have small shops they're trying to have what we need to look at is in those neighborhoods are we going to let neighborhoods stay the way they look or are we going to have a conversation on that is what I mean by let's look at ourselves as the city of Portland and say how do we want to look like who do we want to leave work right so I don't want to mention any neighborhood right but let's say neighborhood A only have a lot of single family homes right but then they build shops small shops typical of Portland or New England towns small shops pizza shop is here there's a saloni here that as they heard and Baba there's a cobbler somewhere in the corner nice restaurants are we going to say that we're going to let it be the way it is or are we going to have a conversation and look ourselves here as well we need to put a certain type of house in here because we tend to say we are a welcoming city Portland is welcoming which is true but we are also naturally not by anybody's fault I don't think nobody sit down and design that this is how it's going to be yes policies are put in place that have us segregated right if you look closely each neighborhood that you have a public housing on the side or affordable on the side at the sphere of it or at a very distant with the way it is done there's no highway that says that you know this party's orders no line that is visible but we are right so how do we find a way to rule this process of recording or creating new routes how do we have a conversation on what is possible in Portland you know something you talk about welcoming everyone and we have people across the economic spectrum coming to Portland every day from very wealthy to very poor and how do you welcome new people without growth we haven't really grown in the last two censuses the total population in the city stays the same even though we can see with our eyes that new people are coming all the time how do we how do we accommodate new people and how big do you think the city could get should get are you happy with it in its current size do you think it should be bigger hey I think it goes back to the house in the policies that we have in the books right I read somewhere that in the 20s Portland was like a hundred and something thousand people when I was talking to some he said well in those days they have they have more kids right and I said yeah but the kids live in the house right they live somewhere why can't we do that now right it's because of some of the policies that we have in the books on where you can build and how you can build we need to take a very deep and very uncomfortable conversation on where do we build and what do we build somewhere of course this is a beautiful home I'm not this is a beautiful structure it's a beautiful house this is a very historical beautiful house I'm not going to say that let's tear this down and put something up but in places that we can we should have that difficult conversation or do we want to put this here if not why if yes why okay let's go on to another very difficult and related issue the encampments I saw tents this morning I'm sure you probably have seen you see them every day something appears to be different we've had you know rolling level of homelessness for a number of years but it seems that I've reached a crisis point and whatever it is that we've been doing doesn't appear to be working so what what is your approach to the problem of homelessness as it is becomes obvious or it manifests itself through these encampments currently I think tonight the city is we're going to have a watch out with city staff and they're going to bring us recommendations best practices but if you ask me I think we're having a homeless crisis all over yours we're also having an issue of mental health and not just a lightly mental but extreme mental health issues all over the country I was in DC about a month ago and not far from wild house there were a lot of tents people were sleeping in tents and I look at it and I said oh my goodness this is the most waltziest country in the world how is this happening right perhaps you or someone who will be watching this knows that a couple of years ago I'm using a couple loosely that people who were in mental health institutions were let go and there are laws in place that say that you cannot force anybody to take medication unless they want to unless they are harmful to themselves or to others I used to work with an organization that housed individuals who have that before you get into the program you have to have committed a crime or you have to have done something that hurt someone and then the judge sent you to jail and then the organization that I work with will go to jail and interview and bring you into the program and in that program we have something that we call it's like a wraparound where each individual have a staff member that work with them but we also work with our service providers they are psychiatrists a family member if they have one and everything and once a month or once in a while it's a monthly or quarterly they have like a a team meeting with this person in the middle each one giving them their feedback oh now you do your you do your laundry on time you do this you do this so what we do is help support this person and walk them through until they are ready to go back into society the recivitism rate for these individuals that go is very small once a lot of somebody that will let go and then about a month you see them back again they went out and started using or something happened to them and they got in trouble and then they come back right so I think we need to look at I categorize the individuals that we have who are on house and in campments and not into three groups there's a one group who are people that have hard block in life I have worked with Oswald Street Shelter before when I moved here and when you do intake somebody will say I was late on child support so even though I have a child I can't afford to leave because my child support is being taken though somebody that will say that my house was on fire I lose everything I didn't have insurance and there are some people that have had call your regular person who has been on house for several years to the extent that even if you give them an apartment they're going to be there for maybe three months and then they will validate all of their rental agreement and they will back on the street and then you have the ones that I mentioned earlier that is the third group the group that it is difficult because they've gone beyond the basic support that you can give them they are at a point where they need to be institutionalized not internationalized like jail or something like that they need a facility where a wrap around service is provided so that they get the support that they need they may or may not go back to be fully productive members of society they may need support throughout their lives so the question now is how do we find is it at the state level or is it at the federal level or is it at the municipal level that we find support for this I believe that how do we call it at the municipal level we can do the first one where we have affordable housing for those that are in the first group the second group is I think the state legislature may have passed the housing first model the second group will fit perfectly into those that will benefit from housing first model or some other programs and then the third group we need to have also look and see what is possible but it's going to be difficult I mean housing first is not a new idea and we have very good examples locally of it working Logan Place the stumbling block is always money yes and who's going to provide the services and that it's going to always be a challenge on the municipal level I just wondered like where where does the local municipal responsibility begin and end how much can we do yeah so that is why I said that the first one which is just people that you need to put into affordable emergency emergency issues that one is easy we can do it we can build more it comes back to that policy around housing and where do we put our money right the second one is the housing first which also needs money so in Portland we need to talk to the state maybe tonight when we have that conversation the governor just created the office of new Americans I think there's something about housing but I hope and wish that at a state level the governor and the state legislature will look at what can be done for that I think they just passed the housing first but can we put in more money so that we'll have more of it because obviously what we are seeing on the streets in Portland and I'm sure that soon in some other parts of the state right I read somewhere that I think is Bangor or something is going to pass policy to look up encampment so the encampment is not just happening here but how can we how can we how much do we need to put into place to do more of the the housing first give some support to the individuals who are giving services like Preble Street and other organizations both here in Poland and across the state how much money do we need to give them and find the money from somewhere and you don't know what that number is I don't know what that number is maybe tonight we may have that number but you've been on the council for a while so you know what the what the limitations are right yeah I mean why do you think we haven't have been more aggressive in terms of housing first for those chronically homeless people who are burning the emergency system I think it's about funding currently the speaker Richard Tabor Ross I think move forward a bill that have created a pot of money that will find a housing first across the state I think the state can be more aggressive than what we do we've done great but starting to have that conversation I think the state should look at that should definitely be the responsible of the state instead of municipalities because as we all agree or we both agree that the the municipal resources are limited because we shoulder a lot of things and so the state need to to do more than what we're doing as a state let's go to a somewhat related problem to what we've already been talking about but the asylum seekers this is a destination among many other cities in the country the only one so that people get the impression that Portland is the only place that asylum seekers are coming to but clearly it's a failure in federal policy to deal with immigration in a rational way and there are has created these bottlenecks for people who are trying to get here how do we welcome and accommodate people who are coming here who don't have the ability to work who have great legal needs you know very complicated have to navigate a very complicated legal process what is the city's role here the city's the city's role and I'm glad that the governor have created the office of new americans what that will do is that it will lift some of the burdens that is I want to call it burden it will bring in much more resources I don't know how that will look like but what are the responsibilities of the city is what we are already doing we cannot do more than what we are doing currently which is we welcome people we provide support for them to find housing provide food work with community partners organizations that are already doing the work give them the support that they need to welcome people and house people and churches faith groups who are also stepping into the picture to provide some sort of like resources that Poland is already doing an amazing job like many other towns and both small and big across the country municipal governments are doing or municipal municipalities are doing as much as they can I think at federal level we we need to continue to pressurize congress and the president so that the issue of our work authorization is the number of months that they have to wait is lowered I have a parent through my daytime job that I've worked with this parent have been part of my parent group since I started this group 12 years right he called me about a month ago and he was crying and then he said thank you for everything I said what's going on but he was literally crying he said today my asylum was approved right 12 years 12 years he bought a house in Bitterford he doesn't live in Poland anymore he currently sat on the board of my organization he bought a house in Bitterford he had worked as a swim coach his background is in accounting when he was back home from where he came from he was an accountant for huge international non-profit he does evaluation he always joke with me I'm going to evaluate your work and then I'll say that is what you love how to do you feel free to evaluate my work yeah so I think we also need the public need to look at these individuals as assets instead of what we are looking at them the city of Portland alone have about 200 and something vacancies right some of the things that we do I know somebody who can do that job but because of the limitations of the whether they can work or not they cannot and then municipal governments are spending money on them and it takes a long time for them to be able to even start working I think I think it's a representative Pingui and a Senator Collins have a bill that I think if it's able to pass it will be helpful to cities like Portland that it is arable for asylum seekers so that the number of months that you have to wait will be lowered and then they can work as they are waiting for whether it is 10 or 12 years my my friend the one whose story I shared have been in Maine for 12 years I think the first three or four years he didn't even have a I remember every time he'll come back to me he said I went to the immigration court in Boston they denied it or they said I should bring this paper eventually he got his work authorization it was not approved he has to go through several times I have written several letters through his lawyers to support him and share the type of leader that he is in the community there's some of the good work that he's doing with kids and parents and and and then eventually he got it back before the 12 years he bought a house three of his kids went through college he paid for some of them out of pocket right so that's the type of people that we have here we have to start looking at them as assets who are bringing in skills and who are going to fill in some of the vacancies that we have in our how do we call it in businesses and offices both government non-profit and the public sector private sector yeah yeah and on the municipal level you think there's not much more that we can do apart from supporting them I think we can galvanize our city to write letters to congress when there's a bill I think the chamber of commerce the business community can also play a role not in terms of giving money but in terms of pressuring pressuring congress to pass there is some group that I'm part of it is immigrants like me who are in first generation immigrants like me who are in elected office hardly a month passes without some letter coming that tell congress to do this and then I just now I don't even say I just put my name there was one that came that I saw the the national chamber of commerce when I saw their name I said oh this is good because this will speak to the congressmen and congresswomen that this is not just about immigrants asking you to change a policy to benefit immigrants but this is a business community saying that we are the engines of this country and we we need this because these people are bringing in a lot of things that will help us a lot of shift gears again a lot of the agenda for the city's government has been sent by the referendum process not by the deliberative process of the city council and I'm wondering if you think that's a good way to to bring issues forward is that is this how the city is supposed to function or is it a sign that the city is not functioning the way it should what's your your take on referendums right our referendums have become quite popular recently the past few years but it also happened to be at a time that the city of Portland is facing a lot of challenges there was the pandemic there was the Jodh Floyd there's all sort of things being thrown at us and a sector of the community believe that we are not being fast enough on issues that they believe is impacting the larger community right I think referendums have a place in our political process what I don't think I am there yet is I think what we have currently in the books which is five years before it can be touched by the council unless someone put another referendum in the on the ballot that is where I personally I'm having a difficulty with we recently tried to amend the chapter 9 and put it on the ballot for the public to vote on and myself Councillor Rodriguez and the mayor have wanted three years because it's five years now but we were outvoted and so it is staying the way it is I hope that in the future a future council will have a very meaningful discussion on how is this impacting some other process that we have in place and how how do how do we call it policies that have been passed through these how is it working there's an issue about things the Green New Deal where a certain part of the city the community are saying that because of the Green New Deal we cannot build in Paula and certain partners are saying no that is not true actually it's making building easy I chair the housing committee of ACT City staff that which is it Henshin staff have said to me that it's too soon we don't have data to prove whether it is this or that all right but I believe that three years is enough time to look at data and then decide on is this a policy that we want to keep or is it a policy that we want to make better I'm not a big fan of something that have been put on in the books by citizens to be just thrown out unless it is causing a lot of damage and to the larger community then yes let's get that the council has the ability to propose changes that you send out to the voters yes we haven't seen that yet in my you know in spite of all the referendums that have passed and to a great deal of criticism from city hall yeah but we haven't seen the council say this is how we can make rent control work better or this is how we could make one of the you know the the building standards the Green New Deal better and is it just because it is unclear about whether they're working or what why haven't we seen that oh you mean the council have not touched it take it after it's been passed after it's been passed the council could send changes back out to the voters uh yes I I think I did ask it may be the city manager because she was previously the corporation council just before we took a vote recently and now what I was told was that historically it's never been done and I think we're following tradition so we're trying to let it be I don't think there's any good reason why it is not for me as I said if it is something that citizens have put in place and it's been passed I will relentlessly take it what I think I can do is continue having the conversation of moving it from five years to three years because it doesn't matter what the policy is uh every policy is double edge right there are policies that will do good work there are policies that you agree with but will not be good right so or there are policies that you don't agree with and then it goes to the citizens maybe it's on the way it is worded and then it passes then you'll have you even though you don't agree with it you'll have to live with it for five years or you'll have to go out and governize people take another collect signatures and then put a counter this thing which we've seen happen and any time that happens it creates more division in the city so I think the three-year limitation will make it much easier would you can you do that without changing the charter yes you just have to put it on the ballot put it on the ballot the council the councilors will say we want to take this to three the top ten nine to three years and then you send it to voters and if voters approve it then it's low so one issue that's been up for a referendum vote multiple times is short-term rentals and sometimes the advocates will put out an issue and our question and the landlords will put out an opposing question and but we haven't really heard from the council what the best policy is and I guess that's my question for you is what do you think of the state of regulation of short-term rentals now do you think it's a problem in terms of housing availability and is there anything the city could or shouldn't be doing to to address it what I believe or what I think we could do is it pass a policy that says that short-term rentals should only be done by people who owner occupy whatever it's called I am a friend believer of that however there's been times that have publicly said that this is going to be one of the things that I want to see happened right but a survey of my police on the council shows that there's no enough support for that and as I said earlier my leadership is not in a way that you bring things forward so as to make we're not Congress this is Portland Portland main you don't make your colleagues look that bad because they don't agree to do something right I will let people when it happened to be in front of them when they are questioned back in the way you question me I will let them answer it that way but I will not bring something that will be that that will be I think the council is healing from previous contentious many councils and I've said I know how it is like to be in a council that is very contentious it makes it work very difficult so I think at the point the council will have to look and see revisit the policies that we have if I'm the mayor I will definitely talk to my colleagues and see if we can take that and look and see if we can and what will you say to them what is the case that you would make yeah I will say that I have when we come back we hear it's people will say that this hasn't that house are all all have been purchased by there's a street that somebody said to me that this neighbor would have X number of houses by X number because we know every time there are different people coming in and they were purchased by people from out of state so I will give them that example if possible I will say go to this neighborhood and talk to the people who live there because when you are talking you are sitting down and having a conversation there was a time that I only said it on during this council meeting that I would look into Airbnb and I have like tons of email and phone calls from people who operate Airbnb most of them are saying that this is my lifelong savings and this and this and this and also it is only a tiny if you want more house and just build it right which to some extent is true but I also want to look into it and see that I mean what can we do there to reduce some of the impact the negative adverse impact that Airbnb is having and I think by making it only as owner occupied we able to reduce that currently if you rent an apartment from me a two or three bedroom apartment you are able to if I agree you are able to rent living one and rent the two so all of those need to change and yeah I hope that the council is going to change again I hope that either way I'm going to be there but I hope that the next council will be open to having this conversation yeah here's a completely unrelated question there's talk about consolidating the high schools and somebody who has served on the school committee and spent a lot of time in the community what are your thoughts on that should the Ken Portland continue with three high schools and if not where should the yeah school be I have I have been part of a committee that was put together by the former superintendent and the current school board member Ben Grant was on that committee with me I think we were the coaches or there were some coaches and we're just a part of that and we there was a research that was done took like a year and then the result that we got back was that oh you just have to adjust the way classes are filled and there was some technicalities on why you're gonna have you should continue to have the three high schools I also know that schools like Portland High is a school that have a lot of history and do I think we need one high school I think we need a comprehensive high school in Portland a few years ago I reached out to the state I talked to Hannah Pingree about having support from the state to have like a because her office is the office of the future or something yeah so I I love the trades Portland technology high school when I was on the school what I used to visit there I currently have relationship with them I go there once in a while anytime they have an event they invite me I do go I have a lot of people in anytime converse and I've met people that are into building then they said I listen the kids this day you give them a hammer they don't even know how to nail a nail right how am I nail and I wish we have a comprehensive high school that have your traditional high school that have a some sort of like a student centered learning like Kim Middle School or Casco Bay and also that have something like Portland technology high school in it in one building yeah where students with different type of learning will have what is it that they need but it cost money so so we also need to look at that and say what does Portland need and have a very strong emotionless conversation with with live our emotions out and have an honest conversation ourselves do we really need three high schools or do we need one beautiful comprehensive high school with all these amenities in them for our kids because they are the future of our city and we need to provide them with what they make them good good members of our community yeah okay this is a rank choice election I assume that when you go to the voting booth you're going to put yourself as number one who do you put his tip I am still thinking I I I know I know very well two of my colleagues what I don't know is three of the individuals who are running the fourth person I have met with him once as we are having this conversation I will pay close attention on who is saying what and how they are saying it because if I am not the mayor whoever is the mayor I want a mayor that sees the the role same as I do so all friendship aside all having worked with someone for three years I've known someone forever I'm going to pay close attention on how my I don't want to use the word competition because we're all care about Portland and we are trying to be the ones that will lead the city into the place that we believe so my co-runners I will pay close attention on how they they see the role and then I will decide on who will be my number two and who I will tell my people that ask me nobody have started asking me yet so for now I'm just cheering for myself like yeah good for me yeah but as we as that this process go through I think I will land somewhere okay and the final question for me is why are you running for mayor and why should we vote for you well I think I've been on the council for seven years I've served on the school board for three years there is a core working relationship between those two bodies I've worked with both of them and I think I've done that well and I also think that there is I've sat through if you add my school board this team I've worked with all these mayors not just me there other competitors that other people who are also running in the race but I think what is more important is we need this time in Portland we need a leader who knows how to bring people together just like what I described earlier my view and my vision for the for the role of the mayor is what we need now more than ever our city have seen different kind of mayors the past three years we face different challenges we need a mayor that will be able to be a consensus builder we need a mayor that will be able to work closely with the public the staff and the council and I believe that I am that mayor so please vote for me okay thank you very much I hope we don't cut that path out yeah thank you thank you for coming in and thank you for putting yourself out thank you for having me it's it's an honor I jokingly said to someone yesterday that when I left Ghana I was coming to Flick Burgess in the US and here I am my name is on the ballot in the largest city in the state of Maine so it's been a big honor for me to take this journey and to come to this place where I am right now I'm honored and I think it's a privilege that I don't take lightly so thank you thank you you're welcome