Kellie Torres is a senior manager at Portland Parks and Recreation whose job is to cultivate public-private partnerships. Formerly chief of staff to Commissioner Dan Ryan, she helped set up “safe rest villages” made up of tiny temporary homes for the homeless. She previously worked for Ryan at All Hands Raised, a non-profit that raises funds for Portland Public Schools.
The Labor Press spoke with her via Zoom Oct. 12.
Endorsing labor organizations: NOLC, CPBCTC, IAFF 43, IW 29
More: kellietorresforportland.com
DON McINTOSH, NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS: Who are you? Why are you running for office?
KELLIE TORRES: I am a resident in District Three. I have lived in this part of Southeast Portland for the better part of 25 years of being in Portland. Raised my kids. They went to school at Duniway, Sellwood Middle School, then a couple different high schools in Portland. I have two kids, so they both went separate places for high school. As a Portland resident, I have not experienced the type of representation I would have hoped for with the new change in government. And so that is resonating for me. And then, as a city employee who’s been working as a public servant in Portland for about 21 years, and specifically with the city of Portland in executive leadership for parks and recreation, I am experiencing being a manager, with my employees facing a lot of uncertainty, a lot of transition, and a lot of stuck feelings within our government, just not a lot of progress because the the voting is locked.
A lot of the initiatives, the budgets, have been very challenging and unclear. So, just as even an executive leader in the city, I’ve been impacted by the current form of government. I’m a person who does something when I feel disgruntled, like I could do something better, so I’m putting my hat in the ring to make it better.
Were you encouraged or recruited to run, or is this something that you were personally motivated to do?
I think it’s come up because I’m a person who’s always been invited to the table to make change. So I was recruited to be a chief of staff 2020 to 2024, for example, because I have really strong relationships with the city, and I was hired to work for a commissioner in a special election who needed to hit the ground running, and he relied on my relationships and my understanding of the city to make that happen.
Why aren’t you naming the commissioner?
I can name the commissioner. It’s Commissioner Dan Ryan. Typically when I name the commissioner, it makes it about him and not me. And I’m running for office, so I want to make sure I stay focused on myself in this campaign.
Did you know Dan from your time at All Hands Raised?
I did. I worked for Dan at All Hands Raised for five years as a vice president of strategic planning.
Okay, I interrupted you. You answered half my question, which was why are you running. And the reason is that you haven’t experienced the type of representation you would have voted for, and I’d love to hear why. Can you talk about the other part of it, which is your background?
I’ve always been either in development or in partnership and relationship management, and so those skill sets naturally bring me to tables to collaborate with people and to make difficult initiatives work. And I have lots of experience doing that, starting with safe rest villages. Back in about 2021, we took a very controversial initiative of trying to get six safe rest village communities built. It was not popular, and I went to the table with many communities on behalf of the commissioner’s office. I hired a team of people to build those, and we ended up exceeding expectations and built seven.
Were you in effect the commissioner’s point person on that initiative?
I was, yes, and I secured federal funding for it, almost $30 million. I hired a team.
Your parents were also union members. Where did you grow up?
I grew up in Orange County, California. My dad started at the city of Anaheim with his union career, worked there for many, many years, then went into business, then later in life became a teacher, so he ended his career as a union member. And then my mom, she was a meat wrapper for Lucky’s Grocery Store, and she was pretty much the only woman in her field for 18 years. She was in the grocery store, wrapping meat, on her feet every day.
So they were both people who worked for a living. Did the union ever come up at all? Did they ever go on strike?
I remember my mom striking. We had a gas crisis at the same time she was striking, so she was riding her bike for the first time to work, and then was riding her bike to the picket line.
I appreciate you sharing a little bit of biographical detail. What do you think is going wrong with the city’s budget process? What, if anything, would you have done differently? What would you have done in these last two years of budget discussions that involved difficult choices?
Well, I’m gonna give a little grace in this because we are moving, turning a giant ship around with this government change, and a lot of people talk about it being new or not new anymore because it’s almost two years old, and I would argue it is still new. We took what was like 26 to 29 individual bureaus, and we bundled them into four. Now I understand we’re rethinking, and now it’s going to be six service areas. So you see how we’re moving in real time. Like even with what I just said, I think that announcement happened last week by the city administrator that instead of four service areas, we’re going to have six.
When we had the 26 to 29, most of those bureaus had individual communication teams, HR teams, technology teams, finance teams.
When we consolidated, and I’m going to use that word on purpose, we were supposed to consolidate those individual teams and make them work for the four service areas, at minimum and at best, service the whole city.
This is the notion that’s described as “shared services”?
Yes, and we are not there yet. We are still in the process of trying to figure out how those roles are going to work in the service areas, let alone the entire city, and we’re just not done with that yet. So I’m going to give some grace there, and the fact that people still don’t know what we need for sure and what we could cut. But in the meantime — this is the part where I can be critical — we’re just plowing forward, cutting core services without having fully vetted the thought of consolidation. So I just would argue that we could have more operational discipline, and that we need more folks at an intentional table looking at org charts for the purpose of finding duplication, and I know that there is a lot of duplication in the city. I know it. I’ve worked there for a lot of years. I see it. And there could be efficiencies. It’s also going to mean we have to make hard decisions that are going to impact people, and I don’t think there’s a way around that. But I think that it could, if we are more thoughtful and intentional, it would be less harm to the public, who are just hearing and experiencing core services like bathrooms that aren’t open in parks, or trash that’s not picked up or maintenance that is not done. So we just need to do that in a more thoughtful way. As I considered running for office, I just want experienced people who know how to look at a city org chart and understand where there’s duplication, and I don’t know that we have enough people on the council who who have that kind of operational knowledge.
Okay, so these are the moves that the mayor’s office and the city administrator were making. And you’re saying they were not looking carefully at the org charts, and we’re making decisions in a bad way?
I just think that we need to finish that work before we look at core services. We have the work of consolidating our internal systems before we impact the public with external core services being cut.
Thank you for clarifying. Does the city council have a big role to play in weighing in and determining how that happens?
I would think so. Their main priority is budget for the city, so however you get there and make good decisions, they need to ask for the help that they need from the experts at the city.
So they haven’t done that so far?
I mean I think they have, but I think there’s still work to be done. We need to really get on that work before we talk about cutting service and core services.
One big issue that came up this year is the question of the city’s contribution to the proposed Moda Center renovation. If you’d been on the council, how would you have voted on the term sheet (the council-amended opening proposal in negotiations with the new owners of the Portland Trailblazers)? Yes? No?
I would have voted yes on the term sheet because I understand that it is a city asset, and I spend a lot of my days in my job right now focused on how to save assets and find ways to maintain assets in our portfolio. So I have that understanding that we don’t get to just say no or walk away from it or defer it until it’s crumbling. That’s not a good idea either. But I also understand it to be a term sheet. It is now a negotiation, and the negotiation matters. And the city needs a good deal. And I think that there are options that I haven’t heard on the table of things that my work entails, which is: What offers could the Portland Trailblazers make for the city of Portland? Could they be investing in some of our maintenance backlog across the city? And I have experience partnering with Portland Trailblazers on basketball courts, for example, with Nike. Like, is there a deal where they could offer millions of dollars to upgrade some sports courts?
Looking at your website, you mention that a lot of your experience has been in public-private partnerships. That’s also described on your LinkedIn profile in several different jobs. Can you give a couple of examples at Portland Parks and Rec of partnerships that you shepherded?
Yeah, there’s one recently I’m really proud of. The Laurelhurst Dance Studio in Laurelhurst Park was a building that was shuttered for about six years. I think I have pictures of my nieces there in like 2018, and they were with sad faces because their ballet class was canceled. And I don’t think we opened it since, except for COVID I think we had a preschool there that rented it so that they could have like a pod preschool. But it’s been shuttered. The maintenance backlog had impacted it, and this is city owned. We had a city owned and beautiful building, historic building. And the Sellwood Community House, which is another group that we’ve partnered with at the Sellwood Community Center, they took that over and renovated it and did beautiful things. They asked to see it. They went inside. They ended up signing a 10-year lease that they rent it for $1 a month, and in turn, they manage the programming there, and they spend like $35,000 a year for 10 years doing renovations, and so right off the bat, they painted it, they redid the floors, they did new lighting, they replaced the electrical box that was like decades old, and they have a vision for every year, what kinds of upgrades they will do. It just opened like two weeks ago. I get photos and videos every week of people activating the space, and the community is thrilled.
Another is Nike. I just actually got out of a meeting with Nike this morning to talk about more basketball courts with them. But the deal that I helped broker was a 2018 deal. There were about 14 courts citywide. Some of them they renovated, and others of them, they built brand new. I think Parklane court in Outer Southeast was the most recent one that we did. So that was a partnership with Nike and the Portland Trailblazers.
Do they get branding?
They sure do.
Is there anything else that you want to emphasize for our particular readership that they should know about you as a candidate?
What I would like to emphasize is my commitment to public service and public service employees. I have chosen this intentionally and on purpose because I’m mission-driven and I want to be helpful in the community. I have a heart for people who are doing hard work that is sometimes dangerous or unappreciated work to be helpful in the community. I’m also a person who’s worked through the City of Portland at very uncertain times, and I can appreciate what having a champion feels like. I feel like a champion for a working person because I am one myself.
