Meet D2 City Council candidate Tiffani Penson

It’s hard to exist in Portland these days and not bump into something related to November’s big city council election. With 90 or so candidates for 12 spots, and with just six weeks left in the campaigns, candidates and opportunities to meet them are everywhere.

On Saturday I only had to walk a few blocks from my house to Peninsula Park for one such opportunity. Oregon Walks was hosting their District 2 Candidate Walk and I figured it’d be a nice place to meet people. I was glad I went because I was able to meet a candidate who I’ve been meaning to connect with but haven’t talked to yet: Tiffani Penson.

Penson has lived in D2 all her life. In fact she lives in the same house she grew up in on Northeast Ainsworth. She also has a degree from nearby Concordia University. For nearly 20 years, she’s held various titles at the City of Portland — both at the Portland Building in city bureaus and at City Hall where she worked for former commissioner and mayor Sam Adams (among others). Penson is currently manager of People + Culture, a city position she helped create and that she describes as helping the city “operationalize its core values.”

“I’ve worked for the city for over 20 years, so I know the operation,” a confident Penson said, as she described her role in building the education policy team for Adams and sharing a long list of roles (including two elected terms as Portland Community College board chair) and projects she’s been involved in. From Adams, Penson said she, “Learned a lot about how you move policy.” She also counts former commissioner Randy Leonard as a big supporter and mentor.

Asked what she thinks D2 needs, Penson talked about struggling renters. “When I talk about housing, I’m talking about folks that are working in rent burdened and people who are retired and on fixed-incomes,” she said. “We can keep them in [their housing]. We can we can keep them in!,” she emphasized. “It’s cheaper to keep them in, and we can do low barrier vouchers.”

When Penson mentioned her priority to “clean up streets,” I asked her if that included people living outside on them. “I’m gonna be honest with you,” she replied, “I support the camping ban because you’re only as sustainable and healthy as your people. We’re not doing a good job of taking care of those folks out there.” Penson, who’s been endorsed by City Commissioner and mayoral candidate Rene Gonzalez, said the “unprecedented” amount of money raised for homeless services in Portland isn’t being spent wisely and that we have to balance offering services and infrastructure for homeless Portlanders, “And then at the same time, we’ve got to say, ‘Hey, you can’t sleep out here either’.”

Penson said as a kid she’d hop on the bus from the Concordia neighborhood and ride it all the way to Catlin Gabel School in the west hills. She wants kids and older people to have that same ability to move around freely and safely. “Livability is huge. I want good public safety. I want good 911, fire, and police,” she said.

According to Penson, Portland is woefully under-staffed when it comes to police officers. “We only have 97 officers for north and northeast Portland!” With the current number of officers hovering around 900, Penson thinks a city of Portland’s size needs at least 1,000 officers. This outlook is one reason she earned an endorsement from the Portland Police Association (PPA).

Penson said she understands concerns about the Portland Police Bureau’s (PPB) track record and culture, but feels it’s possible to address those and increase the size of the force at the same time. “As I said when I sat down with the police union: We have to work together and solve for the systemic issues around policing.” Penson said Portland needs to bring everyone together and work on issues like training and accountability, but at the end of the day we need more cops on the street.

“The data shows everybody wants policing,” Penson said. “Black, white, male, female, everybody wants safe, accountable, responsible policing.”

When it comes to transportation, Penson is primarily a driver unless she’s walking in her neighborhood. As for biking, she said, “I love that people do it. It’s just not my thing.” Penson used to bike and take transit as a kid, but no more. She became animated when I brought up the odd speed bumps outside her home on NE Ainsworth. She wants them to work better, but feels people don’t slow down at all. “I think the contractor mis-poured them or something,” she said.

In D2 specifically, Penson said she wants bus service to be better. “And I’ve even met with those Frog Ferry folks, and I think it’s kind of cool,” she added.

When I went back to the speed bumps to talk about the safety of bike riders on NE Ainsworth (a street the City of Portland sees as a much better bike route in the future), Penson wanted to make one thing clear: “You can’t take away parking. It’s a narrow street and parking’s already hard. The folks that live in that neighborhood, a lot of them are older, and not everybody has driveways or garages. So I’ll never advocate for that, and it’s not a wide enough street.” (Note I simply brought up cycling and didn’t suggest taking away parking or building a dedicated bike lane.)

Asked about the I-5 Rose Quarter project, Penson didn’t say if she supports the freeway expansion. Like nearly everyone else, she is excited about the Albina Vision and capping the existing freeway with lids, but when I pushed her on whether she supports widening the freeway to get those things, she said, “We’re just going to see how that plays out. I’m glad we have people like [Albina Vision Trust Executive Director] Winta Johannes and [former board member] Rukaiyah [Adams] at the table. I trust them 100%.”

Before we went our separate ways, Penson wanted me to know she believes Portland needs, “A good, multimodal transportation system,” and that it, “has to serve everyone.”

She also got in a swipe at North Williams Avenue. “That street is so nerve-wracking to me. There’s so much happening on that street,” she said, as I nodded in agreement. “I know a lot of older Black people who don’t even drive up that street no more, because it’s too stressful. You got bikes, you got pedestrians, you got busses. It’s just a lot on the street, so a lot of them don’t even come up the street.”

That was sad to hear, given how much effort went into the Williams Avenue redesign just over 10 years ago. But maybe it’s time for another look at how it’s working. If Penson is one of the three D2 reps elected in November, that just might happen.

I also met another new-to-me candidate at this Oregon Walks event, Bob Simril, and I’ll share thoughts from my chat with him in a separate post.