Portland transportation advocacy non-profit The Street Trust’s Action Fund has made its endorsements for the 2022 Oregon primaries. The organization’s ‘action fund’ was formed in 2018 as The Street Trust’s 501c4 arm, allowing the non-profit to endorse and fund “champions for multimodal options who prioritize transportation safety, accessibility, equity, and climate justice in the Portland Metro Region and beyond.”
In order to be considered for an endorsement, candidates needed to attend The Street Trust’s ‘Candidate Transportation School’ and respond to a questionnaire. The questionnaire asks about the candidates’ personal transportation habits and beliefs as well as their transportation policy plans in detail, including about how they plan to go about transportation planning from climate, safety and racial justice perspectives.
As such, the organization didn’t endorse a candidate for every race – but those who were selected went through an intense process to earn the endorsement.
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So, who made the cut this time around?
The Street Trust made the following endorsements:
For Oregon Metro Council:
Lynn Peterson, President
Ashton Simpson, D1
Juan Carlos Gonzalez, D4
Duncan Hwang, D6For Multnomah County:
Jessica Vega Pederson, Chair
Nicole Morrisey O’Donnell, SheriffFor Clackamas County:
Libra Forde, Commissioner
For the City of Portland:
Jo Ann Hardesty, Commissioner
For Oregon Legislature
Travis Nelson, HD 44
Hoa Nguyen, HD 48
Mark Gamba, HD 41
You can find out more about these candidates on their websites, which are linked to at The Street Trust endorsement page. Check out more of our election coverage here.
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Why is what they important?
Seriously.
What they why, that’s serious. Is!
Good point, Why are they Important or even matter since they do nothing would be more accurate, good grammar without my error and more succinct.
I suspect most people got it, you got enough to snark about it.
You better think (think)
Think about what you’re trying to do to me
Think (think, think)
Let your mind go, let yourself be free
For want of a word, the sentence was lost.
Just some noise to sift through.
Maybe I am inept and simply couldn’t find it, but The Street Trust website does not provide any commentary or analysis to support its endorsements. It provides links to the candidates’ websites. It’s no help at all. Did I miss something?
I wish the Street Trust would share the questionnaire responses that each candidate turned in. The little blurbs they provide and their endorsement is not enough to convince me, but I would really like to read how these folks answered the questions
There is something unsavory about endorsing candidates (especially incumbents) for the governments that provide you the bulk of your funding. Not that I think these endorsements carry much (any?) weight, but still.
After that asinine letter they co-signed a few months ago, I think an endorsement by the Street Trust is the easiest way to torpedo a political career.
What asinine letter? Can you link to it?
BTW, these endorsements are another reason I no longer support The Street Trust. Bring back BTA!
It was a letter demanding Mayor Wheeler close all high-crash corridors to auto traffic to make is safer for people to camp along them.
I think folks need to chill out about that letter. It was one, quickly drafted letter in response to an emergency and very serious policy shift by the mayor. The drafters of that letter were under a lot of duress to get something out quickly and to get a large coalition to sign on. That is hard work! Have you ever done something like that?
I totally agree that the part about prohibiting drivers from high crash corridors felt a bit out of left field and probably wasn’t wise to include, but shit happens in the sausage making sometimes and it isn’t always perfect. Also, FWIW, the drafters of that letter were trying to make a point to shift the blame away from people living outside to the people actually doing the damage – the drivers. The idea wasn’t to ban driving on those streets so people could camp along them, the idea was to make those streets safer. A distinction with a difference IMO.
It’s pretty clear you are a supporter of the Street Trust. Could you help us out in presenting any evidence they do anything except put out press releases and fund raise?
Serious question, maybe they could write a column explaining what exactly they accomplish with a $million dollar yearly budget, half of which is public funds.
If you can’t do it right, you have to be prepared to redo it.
The proposal to close all high-crash corridors to auto traffic, for whatever reason, was inane, and everyone who signed onto the request got a black eye. Letting TST “hijack” (the word used by one of the signatories I discussed this with) was a blunder, and was definitely related to the haste with which the letter was put together. (And having done something similar, I can attest that it is indeed difficult!)
That underscores the need to work with reliable partners who share your goals.
I’ve done a lot of coalition work including putting together dozens of letters like this. Yes, it’s hard. But that is no excuse to do a poor job. The reputations of organizations are built by how they advocate.
You have to own your actions to be credible. If there’s a mistake, own it and issue a correction. If the rush is making a crap work project, then slow down and take another 12 hours.
You ask for lots of deference in this comment. Do you apply the same to people you disagree with? Do you apply the same deference to the police?
Finally, the phrase sausage making is usually about haggling with your opponents. This is a case where the personalities in your coalition are so difficult that you use that phrase to describe your own team. That’s actually a pretty telling characterization about the state of the advocacy community.
Mr. Maus:
You sound like an apologist for extremist politics. Quit making excuses for these non profits who only agitate and do nothing to truly help our community. They need to be defunded so they act responsibly and in the public interest and not just their own.
In light of the comment of the week of April 28th in Bike Portland, I am afraid that everyone should question all endorsements made by the Street Trust, and do their own research on who to vote for.
Sigh.
I was wavering on one race, so as a tie breaker, I chose the candidate the Street Trust did not endorse.
I wish they would release the full responses to the Candidate Questionnaire and provide more analysis on how they chose whom they endorse. Seems like an opaque process. Those quotes are next to useless without the context of the other answers or any sense of how The Street Trust weighted candidates’ answers. I looked around on their website for more, but I don’t see anything.
No, Street Trust. Not voting for Hardesty. She needs to go.