If you’re a Portland City Council District 3 (SE) voter, don’t fill out your ballot without hearing our latest episode of Ballot Banter. For this district, I invited none other than D3 resident Mia Birk into the Shed.
Wait! If you or a friend are in District 2 (N/NE) or District 4 (W/Sellwood), don’t miss my conversation about those districts with D2 resident Kiel Johnson and D4 resident Lisa Caballero. OK, back to D3 and Mia Birk…
Mia Birk is a pillar of Portland’s cycling story. When outgoing U.S. Congressman Earl Blumenauer was commissioner-in-charge of the Portland Bureau of Transportation in the mid 1990s and wanted to put us on the map as a cycling city, it was Birk he leaned on to get the job done. And she suceeded. Birk was PBOT’s bicycle coordinator until 1999 and set Portland on its course as the undeniable leader on cycling infrastructure in America. Birk then established the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI) as an adjunct professor at Portland State University and went on to become one of the principals at Alta Planning + Design and co-founder of Alta Bicycle Share. She also wrote, Joyride: Pedaling Toward a Healthier Planet, which was published in 2010. Today she’s a leader in Portland’s Jewish community and executive coach who writes the Fabulous Female Founders Substack.
The impressive and ambitious Mia Birk even found her way into election advocacy as a member of 12 for PDX, an ad hoc, grassroots group of Portlanders who came together to vet City Council candidates and produce a voters guide. That process, Birk’s 30+ years living in Portland, and her experience in government and business, give her considerable perspective on who might be a good fit to represent D3 on council.
In this episode, we go through the list of candidates and talk about who’s stood out on the campaign trail. Birk also explains the vetting process 12 for PDX went through and the rationale behind their four endorsements for D3: Rex Burkholder, Phillipe Knab, Jesse Cornett, and Steve Novick.
Other notable candidates that received airtime include: Daniel DeMelo, Angelita Morillo, Tiffany Koyama-Lane, Kezia Wanner, Jon Walker, Harrison Kass, and Ahlam Osman. I will also say I regret not talking more about Chris Flanary! I’ve been super impressed with Flanary each time I’ve talked to them. Birk liked them too, but felt it was too soon and Flanary needs more experience. Definitely check Flanary out when considering your rankings!
If you consider 12 for PDX as a guide, keep in mind Birk described the political leanings of (herself and) the group as the, “new middle.” These “middle or moderate” voters are what Birk describes as, “People who have been here a while, and we’ve bought our first homes, and we’re paying the taxes, and we’re trying to have a good life, and we’re raising kids,” Birk said. “And the way that [the word] ‘progressive’ has become doesn’t fit right anymore. It doesn’t feel like progressive is the word that we think it is anymore.”
D3 has traditionally been the bastion of lefty politics in Portland. One of the big unanswered questions leading up to election day on November 5th is how many Mia Birks are out there? And just how far to the center has southeast Portland’s electorate gone as the crisis of unsheltered homelessness and related public safety concerns have become such a dominant force in political narratives.
Watch our conversation in the video above or on YouTube, and you’ll also find it in our podcast feed.
Links for this episode:
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“Oh yeah, there is that part north of I-84…”
We had a city staff member who helped us get EPAP started, who frequently pointed out how “tribal” Portland advocates and civic leaders were, that their area was of the first importance, that their issues were the worst in the city. This is something that even Mia Burke seems to reflect – her immediate neighborhood had all these issues that she clearly knows very well, but her knowledge of the neighborhoods further away gradually gets less and less, and you both dismiss Madison South (which actually has Gateway Green within its boundaries but no access) as being too far away to care about. And Mia isn’t unique in her biases, we all do this.
My question is, will Portland’s new city councilors demonstrate such geographic biases as well? Will they focus on just (1) the set of streets and business district near where they happen to live, or go wider and focus on their (2) whole district, or wider still and focus on overall issues and projects that are (3) citywide?
From what I’ve observed in my community of 5 districts and from what I’ve heard about other cities (NYC and Chicago being the most notorious), they will focus 60% on (1), 35% on (2), and maybe 5% on (3).
Local Portland residents, on the other hand, frequently have no clue in what part of town they live in, let alone which district or neighborhood, and folks near the city boundaries aren’t even sure which city they live in – the postal service is no help on this. The only reason they are voting at all is likely because of the presidential election.
As a NE District 3 resident, I can confirm that it’s no fun being the red-headed stepchild of the district. But hey, the boundary had to be drawn somewhere, and there are actually a handful of candidates, including some with a bit of backing behind them, that come from the area. Chris Flanary, for example, is close by in Montavilla, which I would argue has more in common with Madison South than Laurelhurst.
As to the question of focusing on small areas versus the wider city, I think that’s just going to always be a consequence of having geographical districts. But the new system sure as hell beats the current commission system, where almost all commissioners focused on what made Portland Metro Chamber (nee Portland Business Alliance) happy and what made the central city look best.
We’re specifically electing folks to represent us and our district. To do that most effectively, sometimes it may require taking a whole-city view, sometimes not.
Do people vote for pronouns?
Only in the bizarro world of SE Portland would Rex Burkholder, Phillipe Knab, Jesse Cornett, and Steve Novick. be considered “moderate” or “centrist”.
If you want moderate or centrist candidates (who would still be considered far left in Oklahoma) take a good look at Kezia Waner, Harrison Kass, Sandeep Bali, Daniel Gill, Terry Parker and Kent Landgraver.
Look at who are the big-money backers of Birk’s picks. And their cop and real-estate endorsers. And maybe you’ll start to see that these are conservatives who she is trying to promote as “the new middle” as she gets more financially comfortable and conservative.
Harrison Kass writes/works for a conservative think tank founded by Richard Nixon. If that’s your definition of “centrist”, I’d hate to see your definition of a conservative.
Still deciding how to vote, so it would be more useful to explain what about this (or other) candidates you do or don’t like rather than just guilt by association.
Which Kass positions do you dislike?
Watts, have you read the Oct 21st letter from the city auditor regarding Rene Gonzalez using city funds to alter his wikipedia page? Not the original finding, but the recent letter about the cover-up that involves Harrison Kass:
The auditors PR release stated (bold mine):
Lying to investigators is disqualifying.
I agree. That’s actually useful information.
My thoughts exactly
Terry Parker is literally the most anti-bike, pro-car candidate out of all of the candidates running citywide. No thank you. Just watch the first two minutes of this League of Women’s Voters interview with him.
https://youtu.be/3AR1pMdDdVw?si=27aHmSgP03iVGDkU
Pretty much everyone puts on the moderate/balanced talking point.
It’s kind of telling that Birk is avoiding the term progressive, as she self-defines the group as homeowners and taxpayers “trying to have a good life.”
Homeownership is a privilege. Only 53% of Portlanders are such; generally the wealthier.
And to put down “paying the taxes” as a frame is a pretty right-wing frame. We all pay taxes. Wealthier people like Birk pay more, as they should.
The group includes doctors, venture capitalists, business owners, health care executives, chamber of commerce…
Anyway, I don’t have a huge disagreement with the list of folks they support – Novick and Cornett are solid, Burkholder is fine except his support for spending a third of all our money on highway expansions. It’s interesting it’s four white men.