In his own words: Portland mayoral candidate Jules Bailey on questions that matter to working people

By Don McIntosh, associate editor

Multnomah County Commissioner Jules Bailey agreed by email to an in-person interview about his campaign for Portland mayor. We met in his County office at 2 p.m. Jan. 6 and spoke for a little over 40 minutes. Topics included the Minimum wage, Jobs, trade agreements, relations with the City’s own workers, Uber, the proposed gas tax, and the affordable housing crisis.

 

DON McINTOSH: So why are you running for mayor?

JULES BAILEY: I’m running for mayor because I think Portland is at a real turning point. And I love this city, and I want to see — as we grow into a world class city — a city that works for everybody. I think we have a crisis of affordability right now. We have a crisis where we’re not seeing the kinds of middle-income and family-supporting jobs that have historically been the backbone of wealth in this city. We’re seeing a lot of high wage jobs and a lot of low-wage jobs, and not a lot in between. And it’s a city that is becoming a hard place for families to make ends meet. I grew up here. I love this place. And I want to dig in and make it a better place.

 

And you didn’t feel like the other candidates were going to do what you hoped to see done in the city?

Yeah, I looked at the race and I thought, first of all, we need a debate; we can’t have a coronation. But second of all, I didn’t see a candidate in the race that really was going to be able to speak to the kinds of things that working families need in this city. And not just speak to them, but also have experienced that, to understand where people are coming from, and to really have the long-term solutions to be able to dig in and get that done.

 

Do you think the state of Oregon should lift the ban on cities’ ability to raise the minimum wage?

Absolutely, and I would support that. In fact I’m really proud that in Multnomah County here we were the first local jurisdiction to move to a $15 an hour minimum wage.

 

I think Home Forward [the agency formerly known the Housing Authority of Portland] might have beat you to it.

You’re fair. That’s correct. I’m thinking of an elected body. The $15 an hour minimum wage came out of a partnership with our largest union, [AFSCME] Local 88. Because we were able to have a good relationship in that bargaining process, it was really an idea that was then put on the table, and we said, “That’s a great idea; we should do that.”

 

Would it be fair to give [Multnomah County Chair] Deb Kafoury credit for that initiative?

I think Deborah did a great job in negotiating and bringing that $15 forward. I would say I’m proud of the role that I played in it. I was there at the rallies for Local 88, attending to show my support. But clearly the contract process is a process that is led by the chair.

 

So back to the question of lifting the ban, do you have any plans to go to Salem next month to testify on that issue?

In fact I’m already working with Senator [Michael] Dembrow on it. I plan to be in Salem supporting it, not only lifting the preemption but supporting that we ought to raise the wage statewide and have the ability to raise it here locally.

 

If the preemption is limited, are you one of those who would like to see Portland join Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles going to $15 an hour in phases?

I would like to see that. I would like to see Portland move to a phased-in $15-an-hour minimum wage.

 

Have you announced that already, or will we be the first to announce it?

I don’t believe anybody else has printed it. I haven’t made it a secret. It will be on our website for sure under our plan.

 

Jobs are obviously a big concern. Our readership is about 50,000 union members, and about a third of them are in the building trades. Their strategy has been to try to negotiate deals with large-scale projects, where they do best generally, and get a project labor agreement [an agreement to use union labor]. But these tend to be politically controversial projects. So I have a short list, and maybe you could just comment on each one: What would you have done, or going forward what would you do?

Can I say something generally on that subject first?

 

Sure.

One of the things I think is important for the next mayor to look at is economic development in Portland. It’s not about going out and attracting big businesses to come and locate here. It’s about creating family-supporting jobs. And a lot of that is investment in infrastructure. It’s not necessarily sexy, but it’s our roads, our bridges, making sure that those are up to par. I’m proud that the building that we are building here next, the county courthouse, has a project labor agreement, as Willy announced. [Willy Myers is executive secretary-treasurer of Columbia-Pacific Building and Construction Trades Council.] It’s something that I’ve been very supportive of. And on some of these big projects, you need somebody that’s had to take tough votes in the past. I think that’s one thing that I bring to the race. I’ve actually had to take a hard stand on projects.

 

Are you talking about the Columbia River Crossing [the now-mothballed proposal for a new I-5 bridge over the Columbia River]?

On the Columbia River Crossing, for example, I raised concerns with it. I negotiated hard for sideboards that I thought were responsible side boards, and those were included in the final bill and we got to a place where everybody could agree on that, and I supported that project moving forward. I thought it was a responsible project. And I think that that’s the kind of leader that people are looking for, somebody who will be able to get concerns addressed and be able to help us move forward, not just throw rocks.

 

I interviewed about a dozen labor leaders and lobbyists in preparation for this, and they did give you credit for the CRC vote. It is remembered by those folks.

It’s been interesting to see my opponent already criticizing me for that vote.

 

OK, well, I’ll take that up with him later today when I interview him. What about Pembina [the proposed propane export terminal]? Are you for or against? Do you think the City did the right thing in saying they’re not welcome here?

On Pembina, I think we needed to have a more robust discussion on the project and what that would have meant in terms of remediation or a community benefits agreement. I’m always for every project having a day in court. This is a public that overwhelmingly voiced that they do not want projects that are fossil-fuel related.  I think the public made that very clear on this. But I think that every project, especially if it’s been promised a day in court, deserves a day in court.

 

So you think the mayor did the wrong thing in opposing this?

You know, I wasn’t in City Hall. I can’t second-guess the mayor’s decision-making on it. I wasn’t at those hearings. But I do think we had to have a strong consideration of how we are able to marry projects that might actually be able to provide family-supporting jobs with our commitment to having a sustainable community.

 

What about the fossil fuel infrastructure ordinance? There may be a question about how much teeth it has, but it clearly sets a city policy that that they’re not wanting any of these sorts of things, whether it’s the Tesoro-Savage [oil-by-train] project in Vancouver, or otherwise. Have you thought about that? How would you have voted?

I’ve been on record, and I’ve said this directly to my friends in the building trades, that I don’t support coal and oil export. I don’t think that’s the right way for the city to go. I do think that we have to take a look at some of those ordinances that were passed, and I think it’s important to have a line in the sand to say that coal and oil export is not something we support. I do think it’s important to take a look at those and make sure it’s not having any unintended consequences. Around things like how do we make sure that in an emergency that people continue to have the ability to heat their homes and cook their food and have power generation. I haven’t gotten into this ordinance enough to know exactly where the landmines are, but I’ve heard some concerns.

 

But Willy [Myers] might say, about the export issue, that this project was going to be for refining on the Gulf Coast, for domestic use. Of course, now Congress has lifted the ban on oil exports, so who knows what would happen? But does that affect how you would feel about the Vancouver project?

You know, coal and oil, there’s a lot of challenges around that. There are safety concerns, there are climate concerns, there’s congestion concerns in terms of the capacity of our ability to move trains through.

 

It was a 5-to-0 vote. Would you have been one of the five if you had been on City Council? I understand the nuance you’re bringing to it, but at the end of the day, there was a vote. If you’re not comfortable saying how you how we would’ve voted, that’s fine.

What I’m focused on is moving forward. On how we are addressing our climate commitment. Again, we have to look at potential unintended consequences.

 

The last one on my list is the West Hayden Island industrial development. Do you think that should be developed for industrial use, or maybe should be set aside for for wildlife preservation?

I think we clearly need more industrial land capability. We need to make sure the Port of Portland can operate effectively, and I think that on the particulars of the West Hayden Island, I think there are legitimate concerns that have been brought up around making sure that we have environmental protection out there and that as we develop it, we do that responsibly. So I’m looking forward to engaging on that and finding a balanced solution.

 

What is your position on NAFTA-style trade agreements like the proposed Trans-Pacific partnership?

Boy, you’re just going down the checklist, aren’t you?

 

I’ve got some more conversational stuff, but there is sort of a litmus test for some unions. And I’m going to preface it by saying I know full well the mayor has nothing to do with that, but we’ve had a City Councilman [Earl Blumenauer] become a member of Congress, we had a state senator, a state representative, become a member of Congress, so you never know where you’ll end up. So what’s your view on TPP?

So there’s a number of different elements within it. There’s fast track there’s TPA [trade promotion authority] there’s TPP. I’m a county commissioner. I don’t have any position on national trade agreements. I can say that I have historically, as an economist, said that we have to have robust wage protections, currency controls. We have to make sure that we are protecting jobs in any trade agreement that happens. And I’m not here to Monday morning quarterback it, but I do think that it’s important that we examine those things really carefully and I’ve certainly been hearing a lot of concerns from the labor community about that. I definitely hear those concerns.

 

I think Ron Wyden would agree with everything you just said, but he’s going to vote for it, so is there distance between your positions?

I haven’t spoken with Ron Wyden about it.

 

You’re not expected to be a trade policy expert, but more than one person asked me to ask you that.

For this next question, I’d like to present the prevailing view among the city worker unions. For them, obviously this is a big, important race. Basically we have five electeds who have cultivated relatively good relations with labor unions, including the city unions. But then every couple years when the contracts come up there’s a lot of aggravation and a certain amount of coming down to the wire – strike authorizations, and a real difficulty getting a contract that people feel like they can support. And at the same time there is an aggressive posture in terms of grievance processing. The city goes into arbitration fairly frequently, and loses. And I’ve read these arbitration decisions and the arbitrators, who are professional neutrals, are saying that the city’s arguments are dishonest. They will change their argument, or they’re trying to make their own reality. What these are about is violating the contract. So for example, outsourcing the parking meter maintenance, or maybe it’s whether it was okay to contract out for Parks and Rec jobs. Again and again, what I’m seeing as a reporter is the city taking these stances that are not what you’d expect of a pro-union kind of leadership. And yet the electeds are, again, trying to cultivate that relationship [with labor]. So I think City HR and legal are doing their own thing, and City Council has been somewhat hands off. Contrast that with [Multnomah] County, where since [Chair] Diane Linn left office, they’ve had very good relations with the unions. Would you comment on all that, and how would you do things differently? Do you think the relationship would be better with you as mayor than it has been?

I think it would absolutely be much better. I think there’s a lot of things we could do differently. In fact I think that’s a key area for improvement. How we work with our workforce and how we treat our workforce is one of the most important problems a city government can focus on. And the fact is we haven’t had a good  process over there. You have ULPs [“unfair labor practice” charges]  that are being decided against the city left and right, including with civil penalties. That’s not good for anybody. And one of the challenges that we have is that we have a system over there that actually employs more people on the management side of the table than the state does for its process with much larger numbers of employees.

 

Are you talking about the “span of control”?

No I’m talking about just the number of people that work in Labor Relations at the city. So one of the challenges that you have is that nobody is empowered at the city to say “yes.” Right? There’s a lot of people that can say “no,” but Labor Relations doesn’t report directly to the mayor. So there’s nowhere that the buck stops, and you get into a very contentious environment. When there’s a lack of trust, when people aren’t being treated with respect at the bargaining table, that isn’t good for anybody. So as mayor, one of the things I would say is I think Labor Relations needs to report directly to the mayor. That’s how it works here [at the county]: They report to the chair. I think Labor Relations needs to report to the mayor, because you’ve got to be able to have somebody in the mayors seat that you can count on, that can say “yes” and can make the tough calls. And that doesn’t mean going around the labor [relations] folks, but you’ve got to have great people in the room who are going to build that trust back.

 

So in general, things are going to change. You’d like labor relations to directly answer to the mayor, and you’d have maybe a different approach to the one that’s been taken. How would you characterize it?

I think that we need a mayor who’s going to understand that our workforce is the backbone of how we provide services to people in the community who rely on the services. And we need a personnel structure that also shares that goal.

 

Here’s a related question. A group of city park rangers all wanted a union. And they went down to the mayor and said “we all want a union.” And instead of voluntarily recognizing them [by “card check” ie, verifying the signatures of a majority who’ve signed authorization cards], which he had the right to do, he made them jump through all these hoops [and conduct a secret ballot election, with legal challenges as to who should be allowed to join.] It took them 14 months. Do you think if you have everybody saying they want a union, would you recognize them voluntarily? It’s an issue that comes up. Republicans who are union foes will say there’s a problem with union organizing through card check: When I am looking you in the eye and saying, “Will you join our union?” you might say yes, but maybe really you don’t want the union. They say that is why the secret ballot is so important in union elections. It’s a bit of an arcane issue, but it’s important to unions.

 

Well, I’ve participated directly in card check elections [in which a union is certified on the basis of verifying signatures on authorization cards, instead of going through the secret ballot process.] I have actually counted ballots in card check votes in a number of long-term care facilities. Management doesn’t necessarily like it when I come in and do that, but I can be a fair party in counting those votes. The ability for workers to organize, to do it without fear of coercion and intimidation, is one of the most important things that we can do. And so making sure that we have a process that allows everybody to vote for a union if that’s the way that they choose, in a way that is easy, where they’re not intimidated, where they freely organize, is terribly important. I’ve been down at Xerox working with those workers down there. I’ve been out on picket lines at MESD [Metropolitan Education Service District]. I’ve spent a lot of time with workers were trying to organize, because I think that’s one of the most fundamental things we have.

 

What did you think about the year-long controversy over Uber, and would you have voted to deregulate the taxi industry in the same way that they did?

We have a taxi industry here with a lot of people that have been playing by the rules for a long time. And these are folks that are hard-working folks. These are good paying jobs. And we have a process that has led to a lot of uncertainty for those folks. We can’t stop technological change, but I do think that we need to figure out how to protect workers in the face of the new economy, in the face of the sharing economy, in a way that ensures good wages, good benefits, good working conditions, and honors the commitment that those people have put into learning the trade and the protections that go along with it.

 

I wrote a number of articles about it, and there was ultimately nothing in the ordinance to protect workers, which I think was unfortunate. I don’t know if you know, but in Seattle they just passed a relatively revolutionary ordinance that creates a structure that for independent contractors that work for Uber and Lyft to have a kind of collective bargaining. Steve Novick says he’s interested in pushing that in September or whenever. If that came to your desk or came up when you became mayor, what’s your view on it?

That’s a very interesting idea. I’d be happy to talk to Commissioner Novick about it.

 

Speaking of Novick, he also is going to be campaigning for a gas tax. It’s not a new idea. Other local jurisdictions have it, but with the idea to create new funding for road maintenance. Are you for or against?

I strongly support enacting a temporary gas tax increase. I think it’s important for our ability to provide infrastructure. And in fact I will likely be committing to, as part of my grassroots effort, helping to promote that at the same time if it’s on the ballot at the same time. I’m willing to put my money where my mouth is and help promote that at the same time.

 

The next item on my list is something I thought was very interesting that San Francisco did last year. It’s responding to this trend now, particularly in larger chain retail operations of just-in-time scheduling. Traditionally you might’ve gotten your schedule the week before, and you knew what your hours were. Now they’re sending people home early, calling them in late, having people be on call, doing all these kinds of things to retail workers, at the Gap or wherever. San Francisco passed an ordinance that said, “no, you need to give two weeks notice.” And it provided a system of penalties when you jerk people around and mess with their lives in that way. Any interest at all in pursuing that? It was banned by the Oregon Legislature, by the way, for municipalities to do that — for two years. But in two years they might get a chance.

Sorry, ask that one more time?

 

Sure, yeah, I know it’s a mouthful. So it’s called the Retail Workers Bill of Rights, and it was passed by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, and basically it says to large-scale retail operations: You have to give adequate notice of people’s schedules, and you can’t change them on short notice.

Got it. That, I think, is one of the most important things we can do for working families. As I said before, I’m for raising the minimum wage. I think that’s important. But that only affects a narrow slice of the workforce. If we work on better shift scheduling, on certainty on shift scheduling, that’s one of the most important things we can do for working families in Portland because frankly a lot of these folks are working two jobs, trying to balance childcare. They’re trying to coordinate schedules with their spouse who’s working. One slip-up, they could lose one of their jobs, if a shift is double booked, or they can’t quite get there. That’s a backbreaker for a family. You’ve got to have that predictability. I mean, even for my wife and I, trying to coordinate her schedule and my schedule and pick up our kid from daycare, now that were finally into daycare, we see how difficult that is to make that work.

 

What does she do?

She’s in graduate medical education. She does a joint program at OHSU and Legacy, so she’s still in training as a pediatric emergency physician.

 

What’s your occupation?

I’m an economist, so I worked as an economist for ECONorthwest before I was in the legislature, and I worked as an economist as an independent consultant.

 

Do you want to say why that might be a good skill set for a mayor?

Well, I think as an economist, I have a good understanding of how we have an economy that works for everybody. I mean economists look at a couple of things. One: How do we build income? And two: How do we build wealth? And that something we don’t talk a lot about. Wealth is sometimes associated with the 1%. But traditionally, owning your own home, having a few assets, having something to fall back on — that’s been the backbone of wealth for the middle class. Income is important, but wealth helps you weather the storm — a downturn or a recession. Wealth has disappeared for the middle class, and that’s one of the things we have to work on bringing back. That’s one of the reasons I want to have a strategy on housing that isn’t just about more rental units, but more places that average families can afford.

 

I think your main opponent in the race is a member of the 1%. Are you also? Where do you fall?

I grew up in a union household. My dad was lifelong [member of] AFSCME. My mom still is AFT because she can’t afford to retire. She’s 71 years old and still needs the income.

 

What was your mom’s occupation?

She teaches English as a second language to immigrants and refugees at PCC. My parents are split. We struggled growing up. It was always a challenge, but my parents worked really hard and chose to be in public service even though it wasn’t the most lucrative profession. My wife and I — I want to be clear, we’re fortunate to be able to have two good jobs — but last spring we entered the housing market and we scraped together everything we had for a 5 percent down payment. And even with that, and even with two jobs, we couldn’t afford a home in the neighborhood that we grew up in, that I grew up in.

 

Which is which?

I grew up in inner southeast, 32nd and Hawthorne. Especially now, like last spring, we can’t afford a $500,000 house.

 

Yours was $375,000 or something like that? Out in Southwest?

That’s actually exactly what we got our house for — $380,000 — in Multnomah Village, and we had to stretch to do that. I mean, that’s a burden. And we love our place, but it’s tiny.

 

I think it might present a contrast with with the other candidate. I don’t know his net worth, but he comes from a pretty wealthy family.

He inherited his wealth. So I want to be clear: Working families important are really struggling. And my wife is in a good career. I’m in a good career. You know, I don’t want to plead poverty here. But we’re facing a lot of the same economic challenges that people in Portland are facing. And we have you want to talk about wealth? We have nothing other than our house. That’s it. That’s the only asset my wife and I have. We don’t have big stocks and bonds. We have a 529 plan for our kid some day, and we have some savings for retirement in a 401(k), and our home. And that’s it. And we’re the lucky ones. It shouldn’t be that way.

 

I don’t fault Ted Wheeler for being born into the family he was born in, but I do think it shapes a person’s perspective. And it has to do with whether you can relate to worrying about paying the mortgage or whatever.

Or child care costs, geez, 1500 bucks a month!

 

So the question is: Can someone in the 1% effectively defend working people? I’ll ask Ted Wheeler that.  But you’ve certainly made your personal story part of your campaign.

Absolutely. I think it’s important that Portlanders have somebody who really at a gut level understands what people are going through and has seen it. You know, when I was 15 years old I broke my spine in three places, and my dad worked in AFSCME. My stepmom was on Social Security income for mental health.

 

Yeah, I know all this from when you were running for county commissioner two years ago, so just for the interest of time, if we could, I’d like to jump in with some other questions. Who do you know best in organized labor?

Well you could start with Jason Heilbrun at [AFSCME] Local 88. And I’ve worked very closely with SEIU: [SEIU Oregon State Council executive director] Matt Swanson and I partnered on a lot of things in the legislature.

 

SEIU gives you credit for passing the retirement security task force bill that got it started. They say that you and one other individual pulled out the stops and got it done.

Yeah, [State Senator] Lee Beyer and I got to be the dynamic duo on that, and it was my top priority.

 

That’s going to be important when it starts next year.

Absolutely. And [Oregon AFSCME political director] Joe Baessler, I’ve done a lot of work with. I’m proud: You know my voting record with AFSCME.

 

110% apparently.

Yeah, so I feel really good about that. And I’ve done a lot of work with [Oregon State Building and Construction Trades Council Executive Secretary-treasurer] John Mohlis over time. Now more with Willy [Myers], but John back in the day.

 

You mentioned that you walked a picket line at MESD to show support for union workers —  and that you helped with Xerox? Are there any others on that list?

Yep, I came out with PAT [Portland Association of Teachers] when they were in their process. I worked a lot with [PAT president] Gwen Sullivan. And then I did card check counts at two different SEIU facilities, one was a long-term care facility and one was a nursing home. And then I actually took a stand against some of my good friends in the environmental community and stood up for CWA workers who were trying to organize and get a fair contract at their call center [the reference is to the protracted campaign to get a first union contract at the Portland call center of the Fund for the Public Interest, which raises funds for OSPIRG and Environment Oregon.] I wrote some very strongly worded letters and made phone calls and tried to make sure that that process got back on track.

 

But CWA is endorsing Ted Wheeler.

They endorsed Ted Wheeler when it was Hales vs. Wheeler.

 

We started to talk about housing a little bit. I do think it’s at a crisis level, with out-of-control rents and housing prices. What can the mayor do about that?

Well one of the things is we need to invest more in affordable housing. I’m supportive of a new revenue fund to invest in support of affordable housing. I think there are also ways that we can do it that eliminate some of the banking fees and some of the tax credit fees, and some of the red tape — that doesn’t change the quality or the standards with which they are building the housing or the workforce, but can get it built cheaper than we’re building it now. But we also need more market-rate housing. You can’t just have a strategy where you have affordable housing on the one hand and then you have really expensive market-rate housing. That creates a real split. So, people ask me: Do you want more lowest income affordable housing, more moderate-income affordable housing, more market-rate housing, more single-family, more home ownership. My answer is: Yes. To meet the demand that’s coming in, we need all of that. So that means for example we ought to think about: Can we set up a system at the city for one-day permitting for housing in Portland — market-rate housing that needs certain affordability criteria, that’s accessible to working families, that has rents or a cost of ownership that’s lower. So rather than handing out expensive tax credits that drain resources from the city or from the state, can we look at ways of cutting red tape and making that easier, streamlining it for developers so they can build the right kind of housing and get it out there and get built.

 

So are you saying you could get permits in one day if it was affordable but longer if it wasn’t?

Well there might be two tracks. There’s a traditional track and that it might be exhilarated.

 

Are permits a big part of the housing costs?

Yeah getting going through all the different permit costs through all the different design programs it’s a big cost for developers absolutely.

 

What about this new revenue fund you mentioned: where with the money come from?

The welcome home Coalition is looking at a number of different options for revenue. I support the work they’re doing they haven’t made a final recommendations but they’re taking it really hard look at it and I’d like to work closely with them on creating a new revenue source.

 

Do any of these things you’re talking about, which are still fairly vague, come anywhere near the scope of the challenge? We’re seeing rents jump 15, 20 percent a year now. I know somebody who lived near Southeast Madison and 30th who was playing $1,100 a month and the landlord raised the rent to $1,500, and I’m not making that up. This stuff happens now.

Absolutely, so we need more renter protections. I was supportive of that Renters Bill of Rights that passed at the city, but I think we need an emergency clause, because a lot of people saw jumps in rent from landlords that were saying, “Well, I guess I won’t be able to raise rents soon. I’ll just have to raise them now.” So we need stronger protections for people that are renting now, but we also need a more long-term solution — how do we get more housing built? We made a decision not to grow out as a community, so that means we need to go in and up and make it easier to build more housing that’s accessible to working families.

 

You’ve mentioned a couple of tools. Inclusionary zoning obviously also has to be approved at the state level

Yeah I strongly support it and I’ll be down there testifying for it.

 

What about rent control?

So, rent control, I think that we should definitely investigate that. But one of the things we need to make sure: We have a challenge with having enough supply to meet demand, and we don’t want to get into a situation where we have a community where we don’t have enough supply — only those that are lucky or are grandfathered into it live there, and everyone else has to commute from Battle Ground. So I want to make sure that whatever system is put in place isn’t going to constrain the amount of housing that is available to people.

 

I’ll have to think about that supply demand question. I think when you have close to 100% occupancy, and you raise the rent, but there’s no underlying cost increase [for landlords], people presumably still want to have a place to live. I’m not sure it’s quite the “many buyers, many sellers” elastic market that would make a supply-and-demand equation work really well. This is one of the reasons that at one time we had investment in public housing, because supply and demand are always there, but the supply wasn’t being created to relative to the demand for affordable housing. So the market is failing.

Demand is really high, and supplies and keeping up. People are moving here and we don’t have a supply to meet the demand. It’s a demand-side problem. There’s a reason that you’re seeing spikes in every major American city. This isn’t just a Portland problem. Some people want to blame it on the urban growth boundary or on other things. The challenge is really that cities are popular and people are moving to them, and millennials want to live in cities and live close in. There’s a huge demand problem, so what we need to do is meet that demand problem with more supply to be able to take that pressure off the housing market.

AIDE BREAKS IN: You got about five minutes.

So I want to make sure that any solution we have helps increase supply and doesn’t decrease supply.

 

Do you have an opinion on public campaign finance, or so-called voter-owned elections?

Yeah, the public has made a decision on that. I was supportive and on record as supporting publicly- financed elections and proud to have limited my contributions in this race to $250 per person, $500 per couple. Even that is a lot of money, and I think it’s important that we have politicians that are accountable to the whole public. So I was supportive of voter-owned elections. I helped campaign for it. I was disappointed to see it go away, but that’s where we’re at.

 

So you’re not talking about revisiting it or bring it back up.

I’d be happy to engage in a discussion if the discussion is out there.

 

This is probably symbolic, but may be important to some. The city has an investment policy for its assets that includes divestment of a company like Walmart or maybe fossil fuels as well. Do you have any opinion on that?

I think we need to have socially responsible investing in Portland, and I’ve been proud to support that. At the county I helped sponsor the resolution here that looked at socially responsible investing. If Walmart’s going to pay wages in a way that hurts our community and makes us spend more on public services, why should we be paying our tax dollars into a business if it’s making us pay more on the other end to keep people afloat?

 

You mentioned earlier a project labor agreement on one of the county buildings. That’s obviously a very important issue for the building trades unions. Do you have any general feeling about whether the City ought to be doing project labor agreements for its own construction projects?

Well, I think so. We’ve got to make sure as a city that as we’re doing contracting, we’re looking at labor standards, we’re looking at union agreements, benefits standards, and looking at the apprenticeship pipeline. We’ve got to get a more diverse workforce and get people of color into the pipeline, to make sure that we have a workforce that represents the community. I worked with AFSCME Local 88 here at Multnomah County to do a resolution that talks about how we improve the diversity of our workforce. We need to do that for our contracting as well, when we go out for projects. So I think  there’s community benefits agreements that are already supposedly in policy at the city. Those aren’t really followed. We need enforcement of those kinds of things. I hope to work with Sam Adams to confound Clean Energy Works Oregon (now called Enhabit). And since the inception of that program 56% of the work has been done by women or people of color with an average wage of over $20 an hour. That’s just a small slice of the residential market that isn’t quite as organized in terms of labor as it could be. But I think we need to build on that kind of work and also make sure that we are having union work.

 

Along the same lines, I saw your resume that you had done some work with Emerald Cities [a union-backed green jobs initiative]. Can you tell me about that?

I did some initial work with them when they were first getting started. It’s been a long time. They had done some work in Rhode Island in conjunction with a project I was working on.

 

I remember that you were the one that got a wage floor in this retrofit program, as a state representative you got that in there.

Yes.

 

I’m not sure I ever did understand the New Markets Tax Credit you were working on.

It’s pretty wonky. They are super super complex, but I can say that there were some great projects that came out of that.

 

Well, maybe I’ll leave you with one final question. Why are you better suited for labor support then your opponent?

I think you just have to look at my record. I’m really proud of the record that I have working with with labor. It’s no accident that I have voting records that are at or above 100% for working families. My opponent was one of the first people to write an op-ed about gutting pensions. I stood up and said that we can’t balance the budget on the backs of working families. I’ve taken tough votes that have said that I’m aligning with labor. I’ve got a record you can look at. And more than that, I’ve got an experience that shows that I’m committed to this for personal reasons, because I see it firsthand. It’s not just about appeasing an interest group. It’s about doing the right thing for workers.

 

So the CRC is an example of a tough vote that you maybe took some flack for. Are there other examples where you spent political capital or ruffled some feathers?

Yeah, it was pretty hard making phone calls after I voted against the Grand Bargain [Governor Kitzhaber’s special session package of PERS COLA cuts, small business tax cuts, big business tax increases, and GMO preemption.] There were a lot of threats and a lot of angry people after I voted against it. I was very much expected to go for that. I voted against the whole package.