[Phew! Putting these endorsements together takes LOTS of hard work—and that’s on top of our regular excellent reporting. Show your appreciation for the Mercury with a small contribution, please, and thank you!—eds]
City Commission, Position 2
AJ McCreary
Portland City Council’s past two years of pandemic-era leadership can be characterized by its unity. Unlike previous council configuration, commissioners have prioritized agreement among their offices before a council vote, leaving the disagreements generally out of public meetings. While there’s certainly some wisdom in choosing to lead in harmony during a crisis, this agreeable style has left little room for ambitious policy-making and constructive debate. We’ve perhaps witnessed this most with council’s newest members, including Commissioner Dan Ryan, who entered City Hall midterm in September 2020.
Entering the office with a mission to “break down silos” between city departments, Ryan has made some incremental progress in streamlining the city’s permitting processes and working with the county on addressing homelessness. Yet, his one standout program to create six “Safe Rest Villages” for unhoused Portlanders across the city has missed its initial timeline goals and has been delayed by predictable neighborhood and business fears about living near previously unhoused people. The sense of urgency felt across the city to offer shelter to unhoused Portlanders isn’t reflected in this rollout, regardless of how frequently Ryan wrings his hands over the “humanitarian crisis” of homelessness seen on Portland’s streets.
That’s why we’re endorsing AJ McCreary for Portland City Commissioner, Position 2. McCreary entered the race with the kind of boldness currently missing in City Hall. McCreary has a background in activism and community organizing, and is the co-founder and director of Equitable Giving Circle, which distributes financial support to Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) communities. McCreary is in alignment with many ideas we see coming from Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty’s office—she strongly supports the Portland Street Response, objects to funding more police officer jobs until officers are hired to fill currently vacant positions, and opposes city-led homeless camp sweeps. McCreary believes that access to supportive housing is one of the barriers to leaving homelessness behind, and pledges to use voter-approved funding set aside for housing to address these hurdles. She also is clear-eyed about the fact that there’s no one simple “blanket solution” to homelessness, and is open to supporting a variety of solutions in hopes of alleviating the problem.
Perhaps most importantly McCreary has the public’s ear. With a record of community organizing and coalition-building, McCreary knows how to build ties with communities often underrepresented in City Hall and use those relationships to inform policy.
We endorsed Ryan for this position in 2020 for what we believed to be “a genuine intent to use the community’s input to inform his decisions.” Although he does appear driven by community concerns, his actions show that he lends more merit to the worries of those traditionally overrepresented in Portland—middle-class homeowners and business coalitions—than the rest. We believe McCreary will more fully reflect the interests of communities pushed to the margins in Portland, and won’t be afraid to break from her colleagues to push for change.