Three candidates—each with experience serving on the County Board of Commissioners—are running for the top leadership position. Sharon Meieran previously served as a commissioner for two terms. Julia Brim-Edwards and Shannon Singleton are currently on the board. Multnomah County’s current chair, Jessica Vega Pederson, is not seeking another term.
Julia Brim-Edwards
Professional and political background: Julia Brim-Edwards is a current Multnomah County commissioner who’s served on the board since 2023. She’s also served on the Portland Public Schools Board of Trustees twice. She previously worked for Nike as a global affairs executive.
Brim-Edwards grew up in Southeast Portland and later attended Oregon State University.
Her time in office: Over the past three years, she’s led the drive to add 24-hour shelter beds, and co-authored the county’s revamped drug deflection program, which now requires patients to engage with treatment services to avoid jail time. More recently, she spearheaded a program that uses county funding to increase debris removal and sidewalk cleaning in East Portland.
Why she’s running and what she’d like to accomplish: Brim-Edwards says she believes the county can “deliver much better results for the people who depend on it.”
If elected county chair, she’d prioritize what she sees as Multnomah County’s biggest challenges: reducing homelessness, improving access to mental health and addiction treatment services, and community safety. She’d also focus on “kickstarting our local economy” by working with labor groups and businesses to support family-wage jobs, as well as prioritizing infrastructure jobs and “[removing] administrative barriers, review the layers of taxes and fees that make life in the County less affordable, and support free, universal preschools so working people can afford to live here.”
Brim-Edwards is also resolute about not backing down from stopping the Trump administration’s attacks on our community and services.
If elected chair, she says she’d focus on action and measurable results. “The current Chair hasn’t moved with enough urgency or demanded enough accountability from County contractors or senior County executives. Activities have been counted, not outcomes produced and for the hundreds of millions of dollars spent we haven’t got the outcomes we expect or need,” Brim-Edwards says. “As Chair, I will set clear expectations and if contractors aren’t delivering measurable improvements, I will performance manage contractors or take corrective action if necessary. I will also continue to successfully work with my fellow commissioners, cities within the County, community organizations, employees, and service providers — as I know that strong partnerships deliver results.”
Notable endorsements and donations: Brim-Edwards has secured notable endorsements from several labor groups like the Oregon Nurses Association, Northwest Oregon Labor Council, AFSCME Local 88, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 48, and several others. She’s also got the political backing of former Oregon Governors Ted Kulongoski and Barbara Roberts, Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read, US Reps Suzanne Bonamici, Janelle Bynum, and Val Hoyle, along with state legislators and Portland City Councilors Eric Zimmerman (who previously worked for Brim-Edwards), Oilvia Clark, and Steve Novick. Portland School Board members Virginia LaForte and Stephanie Engelsman, along with other local electeds, have also endorsed Brim-Edwards.
State records show Brim-Edwards has received more than $197,000 in campaign contributions, including a few donations from her own bank account. She’s also received contributions from Portland Metro Chamber executives, real estate developer Jordan Schnitzer, Portland City Councilor Dan Ryan, and numerous others. Brim-Edwards also got a boost from a political action committee called “fix Multco” which took out $25,000 worth of billboard advertising to to promote her campaign, though the use of the “fix Multco” slogan has garnered heat from her opponent, Sharon Meieran, who began campaigning with the slogan “Fixing Multnomah County” months before the phrase appeared on a billboard from the PAC.
Sharon Meieran
Professional and political background: Sharon Meieran is a lawyer, a medical doctor in the emergency department, and a politician who served as a Multnomah County commissioner from 2016 to 2025. She’s done volunteer work internationally, was the director of the nonprofit advocacy organization Oregon Foundation for Reproductive Health, and the National Alliance on Mental Illness Civil Commitment Workgroup, and has volunteered with Portland Street Medicine.
Meieran has been vocal about issues she sees as county inefficiencies, particularly around homelessness. In 2016, she won election for Multnomah County District 1 commissioner, beating then-candidate Eric Zimmerman, who now serves on Portland City Council. As a physician, she was a proponent of lockdown orders as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, and was outspoken in her opposition to a county plan to provide aluminum foil and clean pipes as a harm reduction tool for drug users. She’s been a strong proponent of safety at the Critical Energy Infrastructure Hub industrial zone, sponsoring a crucial study of the risks of fossil fuel tanks the county released in 2022.
Why she’s running and what she’d like to accomplish: Meieran is extremely critical of the county’s homelessness response, saying the structural failure requires a fundamental reset. “I am running because as an ER doctor I have watched too many people suffer and die because the County has failed to deliver its essential services around mental health and addiction treatment, homelessness, and public safety,” Meieran answered in the Mercury’s candidate questionnaire. She spent a year developing a plan called “Fixing Multnomah County” prior to officially declaring a run for office—a 23-page plan entirely focused on homelessness response—but delayed officially declaring her run for chair until early June. The Mercury also asked Meieran what she feels the current Chair hasn’t been able to accomplish. “Your question is exactly wrong,” Meieran responded. “The right one would be, ‘is there anything meaningful the county has accomplished under the current Chair?’”
Notable endorsements and donations: Meieran explicitly states on her campaign website that she is not seeking institutional endorsements, but has a form on her website where community members can sign on to endorse her campaign.
Shannon Singleton
Professional and political background: Since 2024, Shannon Singleton has represented District 2 on the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners. Prior to her experience in elected office, Singleton—who has a master’s degree in social work—worked in homelessness and mental health response. She led the homelessness services nonprofit JOIN, served as a program manager at Cascadia Behavioral Healthcare, and, in 2022, had a brief stint leading the Joint Office of Homeless Services on an interim basis. Singleton also worked in Governor Kate Brown’s office toward the end of her term in Salem, advising the governor on housing policy and serving as the office director of equity and racial justice.
Her time in office: As a Multnomah County commissioner, Singleton has generally supported progressive reforms, pushing for the county to address affordability issues and approach homelessness response holistically. She has shown a particular interest in expanding the county’s eviction prevention services, convening subject experts for multiple discussion sessions on the topic and putting together detailed recommendations for how to keep people in their homes. Singleton also lists economic and workforce development as a top priority for her office. She led an initiative to identify ways for the county to invest in workforce development programs, particularly for paying jobs in unionized trade fields.
Singleton has been largely supportive of the county’s Preschool for All program, saying she views it as a way to address the county’s affordability concerns while also supporting job growth. In 2025, Singleton joined most of her fellow commissioners in opposing Governor Tina Kotek’s attempts to undermine the county’s universal preschool program.
Why she’s running and what she’d like to accomplish: Singleton says she’s running for Multnomah County chair to continue—and elevate—the work she’s started over the last two years in county government. To Singleton, the current political and economic situation only makes the job of county chair more important. She told the Mercury she sees the county as a social services organization—the largest in the state—and knows its work can change lives, “but it needs a leader that can get the job done.”
“I am running because Multnomah County needs a progressive reformer who can pick up the pieces of our straining social safety net and lead transformational change,” she said. “I have the experience and track record to fix broken programs while continuing to center the people most impacted by them. I have the leadership experience to know how to make decisions while relying on and uplifting the expertise of the people doing the work on the front lines and the people receiving our services.”
Notable endorsements and donations: Singleton has been endorsed by progressive local organizations including Basic Rights Oregon, Portland For All, the Sierra Club, and the Oregon Working Families Party, and several labor unions including the Portland Association of Teachers and SEIU Oregon. She has also been endorsed by eight Portland City Council members, including Loretta Smith, Candace Avalos, Elana Pirtle-Guiney, and Mitch Green, as well as several members of the Oregon Legislature, Metro Council, and Portland Public Schools Board.