CITY COMMISSIONER—and mayoral candidate—Sam Adams
spent the first warm, sunny day of the year going door to door, asking
for votes. “Ballots go out in three weeks and the election is May 20,”
says Adams, chatting with a man holding a garage sale on N Rosa Parks
Way last Saturday, April 12. “I’d be honored to have your support.”
His main competitor, Sho Dozono, is just as busy. The night before,
Dozono told his life story to a dozen people who sipped wine in an art
gallery on NE Alberta. “My resume is way too long, so I won’t list
everything I’ve done. People want to know more about what I want to do
as mayor of this city,” he said.
Indeed, at recent mayoral debates, the focus is on what the
candidates would do as mayor. Adams is quick to list his three
priorities: Reduce the high school drop-out rate by half in his first
four years, increase Portland’s living-wage job base, and plan for the
anticipated population growth slated to hit Portland in the next
20-plus years.
Dozono’s platform is similar: Jobs and education are also in his top
three, though the details are more vague. He also brings up “spending
money wisely,” which boils down to setting a short list of top spending
priorities and establishing a rainy day fund.
With the election just over a month away, the two have been going
head to head in recent debates. There, stark differences in their
platforms have begun to emerge. On the whole, Adams is a policy wonk
who throws out numbers and sets goals. Dozono, meanwhile, comes across
as more of an ambassador for Portland.
On the issue of education, Dozono calls for further investment in
our public schools, and says “we need to keep the pressure on Salem” to
find the funding. But beyond calling on his reputation as “an education
advocate for 30 years,” as he told attendees at his campaign event on
Friday, April 11, Dozono hasn’t laid out a plan.
Adams has more specifics, like combining $2 million in city funds
with private donations to create a college tuition fund for low-income
students, and pairing up Jefferson High School with Portland Community
College so students can learn job skills.
On jobs, Adams talks about bringing more livable-wage jobs to
Portland, while Dozono says the mayor’s role is to “open doors” to
businesses. Dozono styles himself as a business cheerleader, right down
to his shoes (lately, he’s been sporting both an Adidas and a Nike
shoe—one on each foot—in support of both companies’ local
presence), while Adams goes nuts and bolts, calling for job placement
and workforce training programs. Both have pegged the sustainability
industry as one that Portland should target, with Adams calling for the
creation of a “Sustainability Institute” to foster the sector.
Planning is one of the most divergent issues for the two candidates.
Adams is looking toward the upcoming Portland Plan process—”the
single most important opportunity that any council has had for 25
years” to shape Portland, as he told the crowd at an April 14 forum
hosted by Randy Gragg and Portland Spaces magazine—to
figure out how to accommodate a projected population increase of
300,000 people by 2030.
Dozono, by contrast, questions the growth projection (the number is
from Metro, and Adams points out that their prior projections “have
actually been low”). “So many people assume that we have to grow by
200,000 or 300,000,” Dozono says. He calls for planning that’s “one
house at a time, one job at a time,” and argues that there’s “not a
mandate” that we have to grow. Adams shot back at the Portland
Spaces forum: “It’s misguided to think we can build a moat around
the city and raise a drawbridge and tell people you can’t move
here.”
On other issues, Adams is in favor of a Burnside-Couch couplet
reconfiguration, while Dozono calls it a “bad design.” Dozono and Adams
disagree on the city’s oversight role for Portland Development
Commission (PDC), with Adams supporting the city council’s oversight of
PDC’s budget, a charter change the voters approved last year. Dozono
says that oversight jeopardizes the “autonomy of the appointed PDC
[board] and staff,” but also says he has “no problem with” fiscal
accountability at PDC (how he’d achieve that outside of the budget
oversight is unclear). Dozono was originally critical of the tram and
streetcars—two Adams projects—but has softened his stance
considerably in the past few weeks.
There is one area in which the two candidates are remarkably
similar: Both are adept at raising money. Adams is nearing the top of
his self-imposed fundraising cap, with just under $187,000 raised as of
Tuesday, April 15. Dozono, however, is quickly catching up: He’s raised
nearly $140,000, the vast majority of that (over $90,000) collected
since March 27.