When she’s old enough, I want my daughter to walk to school without worrying that she’ll be hit by a car. That is not unreasonable.

Some ways we can do that:

• Expand Portland’s Transportation Wallet Programs to include 25 free annual car trips using a car share (and additional trips at a discount), making it easier for families not to own a second car (or own a car at all).

• Set a long-term goal to expand Portland Streetcar further into East Portland, advancing the work of the 2009 Portland Streetcar System Concept Plan by rebuilding some the many dozens of miles of track lines that were lost 100 years ago. Streetcar lines reduce the need for cars, naturally slow down traffic, and are a visible and predictable way for people to use public transportation. While we need to be mindful of displacement and gentrification due to the increase in land and property values, we can pair new streetcar lines with proximity to denser social housing or affordable housing.

• Do a better job of incentivizing land owners to convert under-utilized surface parking lots for anything else: new development, playgrounds, or just green space.

• Push harder to encourage and support - both with financing and staffing - the kinds of small-scale street transformation projects that may begin with paint, cones, and plant barrels, but over time evolve into hardened protection for kids and adults who roll, walk, and bike: not just cars.

• Keep our focus on making it easier to get around in all sorts of ways: faster buses and light transit with more consistent schedules, reduced or free fares, and expanded access to bike and scooter rental programs. Everyone should have as many safe, reliable options as possible to live their lives and get where they need to go.

Like many American cities, Portland designed, built, and retrofitted even low-density neighborhoods to be most easily (and, at times, only) navigable by car. We have seen how damaging that is: underused parking lots, wide and dangerous roads, and too few options for people traveling any other way except by car. We also saw how urban renewal policies in the middle of last century targeted low-income, Black, Indigenous, Hispanic, Asian and other people of color for decades. Neighborhoods were demolished, kicking out families and businesses and leaving highways - or in some cases, empty tracts of land - in their place.

We can’t undo the past. We CAN face that ugliness, admit it was deeply wrong, and do things today to help repair that damage.

Portland is too expensive for too many people. We must change that, and we can:

• Build on Portland’s 2016 Housing Bond with a new housing bond with more aggressive targets for deep affordability. Passed nearly 10 years ago, the 2016 bond has depleted its funding and exceeded its goals for affordable housing. When something works well, we should keep doing it.

• Push harder to reform creaky bureaucratic systems (and help the hard-working public servants who ALSO want them to work better!) to get more and better housing built faster. Eliminating homelessness isn’t simple, but the most powerful step is having enough housing for all people.

• Have local government invest in social housing to provide housing options with rent not controlled by market forces, but rather managed publicly and kept affordable. There are plenty of successful examples of social housing initiatives that Portland could learn from.

• Juice up local incentives for developers (such as tax deferral benefits and direct funding) to build more deeply affordable housing. While market-rate housing is needed too, we can make it more financially viable for profit-driven developers to build units they otherwise couldn’t secure financing to build.

• Go further to cut zoning restrictions that prevent the very kinds of mixed-use, mixed-density developments that not only house more people, but create more interesting, safe, and walkable neighborhoods. Another benefit of these kinds of neighborhoods: more people walking, rolling and biking, safer streets, and more chance for community members to interact with each other where they live.

• Invest more in short-term rental assistance programs. The easiest, most cost-effective, least-disruptive way to prevent new homelessness is to make sure people can afford to stay where they already live. The City has an $8.6B budget, yet provided $0 toward direct rental assistance in the last fiscal year. This is not acceptable, especially when cities like Portland cannot rely on consistent Federal support. Even and especially in difficult budget environments, the City needs to open its pocketbook and spend money on the front end to keep people housed and avoid spending even more money later when those same folks no longer have shelter.

If elected, I will a have a full-time labor liaison on staff to make sure our office is accessible at all times to unions large and small, is accessible to those on the ground doing the work our city depends on, and is thinking about new and creative ways to support working families and individuals.

Families won’t move to and stay in a city they can’t afford to live in, and strong unions help make that possible. We should:

• Raise the limit on a tenant’s “Right to Repair” from $300 to $1000 to allow renters to work with professionals to make necessary repairs to their homes if landlords fail to act.

• Greatly expand the $500K Workforce Development Program pilot and make it permanent. We know these programs - especially over time - generate jobs and support businesses.

• Work with the Portland’s Office of Government Relations to lobby the state to increase the minimum wage in Portland. According to MIT, a living wage in Multnomah County for a single adult is $27 per hour. I have never heard a compelling argument that the minimum wage ought to be anything less than a living wage. It's also true that cities and counties operate in a larger business ecosystem: businesses can and will leave if they feel enough financial pressure. Therefore, Portland leaders should support as part of its government relations agenda a long-term (10 years or more) plan for the state to raise the Portland metro area's minimum wage to a living wage, using that time to lobby lawmakers and develop local incentives (particularly for smaller businesses) to ease the financial burden. This is not something that can happen overnight, but we also cannot make transformational change for working people without setting specific goals and working at them consistently over time.

• The City needs to do its part directly, and it already has successful programs with full-time, part-time, and seasonal work. Those jobs should be expanded to not only provide work to those who need it most, but provide critical services our community needs. Short-term and seasonal work is also better investment in the job skills of our community, rather than over-relying on contractors, and these jobs allow more people to leverage them into full-time and permanent work, preferably with the City.

• Get creative about and provide funding for innovative, experimental, community-level work such as litter pickups, sidewalk clearing and plant trimming, landscape beautification, and tree planting, among others. Having sidewalks is critical, but if they are unusable - due to overgrown shrubs that push people into the roadway or inches of leaves that make it too slippery for folks with mobility needs to use safely - then they aren’t doing any good. And while some Portland neighborhoods have trees, plants, and maintained rights-of-way, others don’t. The City should invest more in this kind highly visible, high-impact work that is immediately noticed and appreciated by folks who live, work, and play nearby, and provide valuable income for those performing that public service.

As the supervisor of Portland’s Cannabis Program, I worked with small emerging businesses navigate a brand new, ever-changing business regulatory landscape. 94% of all businesses in Multnomah County employ fewer than 50 staff, and Portland has more small businesses as a proportion of its business community than any similar-sized city in the country. We need micro and small businesses to grow and stay here in Portland. To do that, we must:

• Better-incentivize micro and small businesses by making it easier for them to register with the City, reducing the paperwork and fees it takes to get started, and taking a hard look at how our local taxes impact business decisions. We want to welcome all businesses into our regulatory structures: not punish them for being outside them. And we definitely don’t want business owners to be told that it makes more financial sense for them to leave our community than to stay and provide jobs here.

• Expand the scope of eligible uses of Prosper Portland’s Local Small Business Repair Grants beyond just in response to graffiti and vandalism, and expand it to include no-interest loans for eligible capital improvements. Investing in capital repairs and improvements for small businesses (under 50 employees) helps neighborhoods businesses remain viable in their locations, and benefits the neighborhood, its residents, and its visitors.

• Lower the requirements for outdoor dining permits. Portland’s food culture is internationally-renowned, and Portland should do everything it can to support our restaurants. Allowing these businesses to use our public streets for enjoying that food provides more space for social congregation, makes our streets more walkable and safer, and draws more foot traffic which helps generate more revenue for businesses and more taxes for the City.

• Provide legal, regulated spaces for adults to consume cannabis. While with the City of Portland, we supported this concept as early as 2017 and I testified to the legislature in 2019 about it. Nearly a decade later we still don’t provide adults a safe, legal, regulated place to consume cannabis. That is absurd. It’s an equity issue, a veterans issue, an economic and tourism issue, and it’s just common sense. We are far past time for Oregon and the City of Portland to get this right. The City has asked permission from the state for nearly a decade. The City should now explore ways to give guidance for folks wanting to establish such places without fear of local retribution since the state refuses to act.

• Work with Multnomah County on specific, targeted tax exemptions for very small businesses. There are some taxes that the City does not have control over, and while we are operating in difficult budgeting environments, that financial pressure we all feel may also inadvertently push small businesses to close, out of Portland, or even out of Oregon. For our smallest businesses, we need to explore every possible way to incentivize them to stay open and stay here, as they contribute both to the fabric of our community and neighborhoods and to our tax base.

One reason I love Portland is the access to nature and outdoor spaces, and providing places for kids and adults to gather and play isn’t just a great way to socialize, move, and explore: it’s a critical part of addressing public safety.

For too many Portlanders there are too few of these spaces, they are too far from home, or they haven’t been maintained. We need to:

• Invest in capital improvements and regular maintenance for outdoor sports and activities for all ages. This means more spaces to safely and legally skateboard, and more places to play pickleball, tennis, disc golf, and basketball, among other activities.

• Open public access to more City-owned natural areas. The City of Portland owns natural areas without public access, but with promises of one day providing that access. Some of those promises have not been kept. And we know that providing more spaces for more people to spend time outside builds community, increases physical activity, reduces crime, and allows us all to feel invested in our public outdoor spaces.

• Amp up public-private partnerships - such as with the Portland Trail Blazers and Nike to resurface basketball courts. Our city and its people are the reason these organizations have fans and local customers.

My daughter deserves places to play and compete; so do we, whether we are a child, teenager, adult, or an elder. I will fight to make sure there are more of those spaces for everyone.

I’ve been a Portland Trail Blazers fan since I was four years old. I had nearly every basketball card for every Blazers player throughout my childhood, wore 44 in high school in honor of Brian Grant, and I was in the Moda Center - in the standing room only section deep in the 300s - for Dame’s 0.9 shot to send the Blazers to the second round for the first time in a generation.

The Blazers need to stay in Portland.

The City should do everything possible to make sure that happens, including:

• Continuing to work with the City’s government relations team to lobby the state and federal level government for support for the funding renovations at the Moda Center, which is located in Portland but serves as Oregon’s largest indoor venue.

• Hold regular meetings convening the Mayor, interested members of City Council, new majority owner Tom Dundon, and minority owners to make sure both the Trail Blazers and the City and its elected leaders understand each other’s needs, and so that City officials can be informed ambassadors with their constituency about the importance and economic impact of the Blazers and the workers and businesses they support.

• Commit City Councilors to hold listening and information sessions with Portlanders to understand how fans and non-fans alike think about the Blazers and the likelihood of having public dollars support a major arena renovation.

• Work with TriMet and the Trail Blazers to allow a Blazers ticket to serve as valid fare for Max line and bus service in the hours before and after home games.

• Ensure expedited development of new affordable housing and neighborhood commercial development in the Albina neighborhood in and around the Moda Center, in collaboration with the Trail Blazers, the 1801 Fund, and Albina Vision Trust.

I am certain the Blazers will stay in Portland if - and only if - the 30-year-old Moda Center receives a renovation that will cost hundreds of millions of dollars. That is not a small lift. City officials should also be clear with themselves and the public that taxpayers will be asked to foot part of that bill. There is no need to hide that, and we should start conversations as early and openly as possible about the specific funding mechanisms to make that happen.

We also need to support other pro sports in and around Portland, including our new WNBA team the Portland Fire, our soccer teams in the Thorns and Timbers, our hockey team the Portland Winterhawks, and our baseball team the Portland Pickles, to name a few.

The City needs to also act as a convener and leader in conversations about bringing Major League Baseball to Portland. We should be doing whatever is needed to bring another major sports team to the Rose City, because sports aren’t just about culture, fandom, and tourism: it’s an economic driver, a way to bring people together for a common purpose, and an activator of community spaces.

Public service is about fighting for the common good and working together to get stuff done.

During my career in Portland, in Oregon, and around the US and the world, I have met, hung out with, and worked with many different people. They all had different stories, different backgrounds, different political ideologies, and different things that mattered most to them.

My campaign - and if elected, my office - will focus on bringing people together across the political spectrum to make lives better for Portlanders.

Our campaign will not focus on other candidates unless it is to work together. I admire anyone wanting to get into elected policymaking, and I appreciate and respect those on Portland City Council today. I do not think they are perfect. I am also not perfect, though my grandmother might have said otherwise.

I want to be clear: I am very likely to support policies that make Portland better for my daughter. I am very unlikely to support policies that won’t. Collaboration does not imply an unwillingness to fight for the future of our city and our people.

Thinking about the world we are leaving her generation has been very sobering. While I have always deeply cared about being of service, I now feel a more pressing urgency for this important work.

We can walk and chew gum at the same time.

My many years in various government roles have taught me we CAN do the things that are hard, or seemingly impossible, if we stay optimistic and disciplined about making them happen.

I have and will continue to learn from the people in Portland’s District 3 and across the city about what matters most, and pledge to be resolute about my morals, but flexible about what specific projects and policies we work on first.