It’s 8:10 a.m. on Friday morning and the most controversial man in the Richmond neighborhood has just finished reading the funnies.
One of Portland’s longest-serving neighborhood association board members survived a recall vote Monday night by the thinnest margin possible.
Doug Klotz, a member of the Richmond Neighborhood Association since “around 1993” and a longtime advocate for Portland to become more walkable, bikeable and transit-oriented, won the right to stay in office by a single ballot out of 252 cast.
The neighborhood association’s bylaws require a 2/3 majority to agree with the recall proposal. According to a count Monday night and a recount Tuesday by the Southeast Uplift neighborhood coalition, opponents of Klotz found 167 votes out of the 168 they would have needed.
One of the neighborhood groups that has been a focus of opposition to denser development in Southeast Portland has three new leaders.
But the board chair thrown out in Monday’s election is calling foul play, saying that many Richmond residents showed up and voted against him without getting to know him.