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Speaker 1
Welcome to our Portland with Sarah [inaudible] made possible by contributors to friends of Sarah for Portland. Portlanders have everything we need to make radical progress today on emergencies like climate chaos, housing affordability, and staggering inequality. Each episode we'll hear how Sarah plans to be the mayor to lead the city of Portland to a more equitable and sustainable future. And now, here's Sarah.
Speaker 2
All right. Portland. Sarah. I in her here. I'm a candidate for Portland mayor. My pronouns are she, her, hers. We need you to vote. This is one of the most important elections in recent history. We have a chance with our people's movement to upset the establishment and really bring some power from the streets right into city hall. And there's no one better equipped to tell you how we're doing that than our campaign director Gregory McCalvi. I was able to sit down with him via live stream earlier today. We dashed. We've been working side by side with each other for over a year now and there is a lot of good stuff in here. So I hope you enjoy our conversation and remember whatever you do, vote
Speaker 3
[inaudible]
Speaker 4
hello everybody. Um, we are here for a live stream, uh, the series of live streams that we're doing for Sheriff's campaign. And I have the pleasure of being live, uh, with Sarah. We've flirted, come full circle because let's see, over a year ago I was in Portland visiting and I had you on my podcast and my podcast producer was Chris and now you have a podcast that is probably way more popular than mine ever. It wasn't your podcast producers, Chris and also our operations director is Chris and now, yeah, it's just like full circle. I think your podcast is far more popular than mine ever was, but
Speaker 2
wow, that's crazy. Cool. Um, so we're turning the tables on this one a little bit because we have been putting me out for, in these live streams, talking about the challenges of running for mayor, the policies and platforms that we put forward. Howard adapting to coven and as folks are watching us now, they're going to see our families running through. You've got two kids at home. My daughter's here. We both have dogs who interact through the interface, so apologize to everyone in advance when they hear our lives are messy. But I wanted to kind of turn the tables and interview you a little bit and they said that I could to talk some behind the scenes of what's going on here because we don't really get to drag on much our capacity a campaign, your capacity as a campaign director. What does a day in the life look like for you? So maybe just start us out. Like what motivated you to upend your life and travel cross country to take a job directing this campaign?
Speaker 4
Yeah, I mean, well I think also the fact that there was somebody who I believed in and who could win was even asking me to direct their campaign I think was, um, it's revolutionary and different. And I think that, you know, there's going to be a lot of, um, post-election talking about, uh, how everything came together, et cetera. But it really is different. Like most people who are running competitive races who can win, who were expecting to obviously make through the runoff, um, don't hire like the guy who was protesting at city hall a few years ago, but at the same time I felt like I was qualified. I've ran more campaigns than, um, most people who are hired to direct campaigns, but still most people would not hire me. Uh, except for somebody like you. And I think that same sort of risk taking, um, in seeing potential in people, um, and finding talent in places where, you know, the art establishment politicians oftentimes fail to look for talent.
Speaker 4
I think, uh, was definitely instrumental in our decision. And then also like our family loves Portland. So, um, given the opportunity to come back, um, some people would be like, why would you come back just for one race that lasts, you know, maybe a year. But I would do it all over again because this year that we've been working on this campaign, like both you and I have gotten closer. We've definitely like learned a lot. Um, and like having a candidate slash boss slash friend that we can like go through all of the growing pains together and stuff. Um, like I wouldn't give that up for anything. So, um, we Def, I mean when we're in Atlanta, um, had only been there for a little bit. I was the chair of DSA and are asked to come back. Like it was not, I think my first answer might've been now, but, uh, like it's not like we instantly just did it. Like we put a lot of thought into it and we made the right decision. Um, and but like driving across the country, cat was what, seven months pregnant at the time. Stokely luckily was not at the age he is now because now I don't know how we would have driven with him across the country, um, in our little Pomeranian in this clown car across the country with all of our belongings. And it is like, I don't know, I should be able to write a book about this. Maybe that's the plan.
Speaker 2
Maybe you never know. You never know. So I wanted to ask you about that though, because many people, you know, they see us looking sure about their, because this campaign is amazing and sometimes I almost feel we've made it look too easy. You know, when a lot of people jumped in to use public financing, they're like, Oh, look at what they did. Of course we've got this. Uh, but I don't know that it's as easy as it looks. So maybe tell folks what your life was like on a daily basis before Kobe and maybe how that has shifted and the [inaudible] era in terms of what does it take to run a campaign like this, especially when you're working to win.
Speaker 4
Yeah, it's definitely a lot of work. Um, and a lot of the work is also like strategy oriented, right? And there's no way to like quantify that. Um, like on a time sheet or on a list of accomplishments, like, Oh, I thought of this strategy, right? Like that is, those are things that, um, it takes instinct, but also tapping the right people. And we have like tremendous talent on our team. Um, like we, uh, so, uh, every day scenario, I mean obviously we're dealing with the media a lot, but I will say like when we started this a year ago, there was no given one that we would qualify for OAE. There were people in this city who thought that we might not be able to qualify for this. We were the first candidate to qualify, um, and the only marrow candidate to qualify in that is a whole different standard of qualification.
Speaker 4
Then the people who are now qualified to run for city council. And we did it months before the first people in this like historic program that was not easy to do. Right. And we had to, like, I remember at the climate March hustling to get signatures so that we could turn in to get your name on the ballot, which is one of the things that you have to do for OAE. We had to get 500 donors, but every time that we set these goals, I remember, uh, when we first announced and we knew we had to get 500 donors to qualify for OAE. And thanks to Chris, we have this amazing channel in our Slack that shows when we gave, um, donations. And I just remember typing into there like, I think something special is happening. Um, cause we thought we were going to have to scrap scrap, scrap to get the 500 and we did, uh, we worked hard, but every time when we set goals and expectations, we exceeded them. And then through that it was like, wait, like we obviously started this and we're like, we're going to win. We're planning to win. Um, but as we, we have not set a goal and not hit it yet. Um, and so I think that should tell people something, you know, what they should be expecting. Uh, on May 19th. So
Speaker 2
yeah, you built an amazing team as the campaign director and I don't know that that's always a parent on the front end, but everything from communications to the policy to our website, which is amazing to the graphic design, to everything that we've put together. It's quite a robust team. I think we're sometimes putting out policy that exceeds what comes out of the actual mayor's office. I'm thinking about the community response to coven and how we're tapping into a virologist and epidemiologist and community leaders right on the ground and really leading from in front of even where the current mayor's office is. Um, yeah,
Speaker 4
I mean we get offended when like the press calls you and activist and I don't love it when like that's what I am. It is hard to quantify what we are. Um, but it is amazing if that's what you're calling us, that we were able to do this right. Like, um, and I think we are going to shock the city on May 9th I think. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2
So what surprised you most so far about this? Like in all the things, what didn't you expect or what did you expect that didn't happen? Like what's been the biggest surprise for you so far?
Speaker 4
The biggest surprise, I didn't, I didn't think I would enjoy it this much. Like it is a lot of work, but like every day, even now, um, I'm probably working harder than I ever have in my life, just in this campaign in general. And like, you know, me, I'm not lazy. I work hard. Uh, and this is, uh, probably the hardest I've worked at it does it, it still feels great. Like it reminds me of the weeks after the election of Donald Trump when we were protesting in the streets. And like, it was like KA had to like remind me like, Hey, when was the last time that you like showered? Because we've been protesting for like four days straight. And I'm like, Oh yeah. Um, and normally that's like something that I'm like really unpopular. And so it reminds me of like those times where like the work is so fun that like it's hard to go to sleep and not necessarily in a frustrating way, but like a like, God, I just want to wake up tomorrow because there's these things that I get to like do tomorrow.
Speaker 4
So that surprises me. What also surprises me, I guess, you know, we thought we were going to have a much different campaign. We thought there would be a lot more establishment people potentially trying to challenge the layers. Well, we thought we would be fighting off other challengers. And when that didn't happen, you would sort of expect for establishment figures to not necessarily come on board but be like, this is real. Right? We have the most donors in this race, but also the most donors ever in Portland city politics and no, no, when we started, when we were looking at, um, obviously money unfortunately does help win elections. Um, but more correlated to wins is actually the number of donors that you've had, um, not necessarily how much money that you have. So it's just, it was definitely surprising to me that even up until this day where like by any metric, we are not just competing but dominating the incumbent other than established.
Speaker 4
And yet we, like anybody that you ask on the street knows that this is a race where, um, we are really knocking on the door of city hall. Um, but that people who are more, I keep saying establishment, I don't even know if that's the right word, but like entrenched into the way that politics normally works. Um, do not understand what we have going. Like they don't, it doesn't compute. How does Greg McCalvi and Sarah in a row get 3000 donors like that? It doesn't, it doesn't fit into what you think. So then you have to start thinking, Oh, it's just they only have all this money. Okay, well then how do you explain, Oh, well, volunteers don't necessarily want to lecture introspection during the night. Oh, well how do you explain the fact that we're sending the most X doing the most cross, um, the most vibrant lifting campaign and clearly have the most like support anywhere that you look and it's like, Oh well that might not translate to votes. So every post that we keep proving people wrong, and I guess we will, but I expected that at some point before May 19th, um, people would come along and say like, Oh, they have done something amazing. And I don't mean to seem like soured Bates or anything, but I guess we're going to have to wait until 8:00 PM on may 19 for people to realize, uh, the extent of what we've built here.
Speaker 2
Yeah. And I would say too, that when you're shifting narratives like the work that we have ahead of us, we've put out some policy with the green jobs plan, with the public safety plan, with the good government plan, with housing that are grounded in seriously good work that's already going on. But taking that so that it's not activists beating against city hall to make this happen. But we're saying that we're going to put this reform power right in the center of city hall closest to those levers where change actually can come from right close to the power. And I don't know that everyone really understands that, what that people's take over that building is going to look like. But we've already felt it because the people's takeover of our campaign happened very early on.
Speaker 4
And yeah, and that reminds me of another thought, this idea that, um, you can't be the leader of the city if you haven't like, uh, been a rich white dude basically before how we try to have a city like it. Most people that become Portland mayor if not become Portland mirror for like, uh, and what you've shown the ability to do in building a campaign should really like show people what the ability, what you will do, um, in count on city council. So you got a question there from Ellie young, it looks like, do you think we're going to get more than 50% in the primary inquiring minds want to know? I don't know if we want to spill the beans, right? So we built this campaign with a vote count, like our vote count number in the wind. That's what we did. And, and, and isn't just like, look, here's the goal. And then we just like, like a thermometer and try and get it. When we build that coal, that means that that's the number of people that we're targeting through mail, um, through digital, through all of these things. I mean, I guess we could spill the beans more on campus now because it's too late for anybody to combat it. Um, but, uh, so do we expect to get over 50%?
Speaker 5
Mmm.
Speaker 4
I think it is more likely for us to get over 50% than it is for us to get blown out. Um, I don't think it's unlikely. It's definitely one of the possibilities. Also, one of the possibilities unfortunately is that 10 Wheeler gets 50% just because of his name recognition. Um, the media has just badgered into people for some reason that he's done a great job on coronavirus, which, um, if you are in the media or if you're affluent, you might feel that because your job is secure, everything is fine and safe for you. Um, if you are a service worker or a small business owner, you know that's not true. And so that's how we know that those votes are not going to translate for technically despite what, uh, reporters or people established that are saying that he has done such a great job of managing this crisis.
Speaker 4
I mean, if you look at it, all he did was asked Kate Brown to do something she was already going to do two days before she did it. Um, uh, when he could have done more himself and then have sat on his hands as businesses. Uh, like the one that you founded continue to close in. Our workers are continuing to lose their jobs. Um, and he's kicking the can down the road to the County and to the state, uh, and to the federal government as in, and then that is somehow portrayed as great management. What a mayor like you would be doing right now is okay. Yeah, the County, the state and the feds should be doing more, but what can I do? Um, and there is a lot that he has not done. So, uh, that's a long way to answer, uh, that it is possible that we get over 50%. I think the most likely scenario. Um, if you ask anybody in the city, including in our campaign, other than, you know, uh, uh, probably be that there will be a run off. Um, our both counsel will be very, um, close and then maybe we might actually be, uh, running against somebody who runs an actual campaign in the general and that, and that will, he's not, he's not campaigning. Uh, like a lot of the things that we do like filling out questionnaires, et cetera. He's not filling out questionnaires. Uh, I can't remember all of them that he has brought down. I know you might know the list
Speaker 2
easier to know the ones that he has because it's such a limited number.
Speaker 4
Yeah, the one ones Oregonian and he's not,
Speaker 2
yeah, he, he's not super activated. I mean they're, I can see reasons on both sides. Why he wouldn't be, it's a bad look if he activates and you know, doesn't do what he's trying to accomplish or whatever. And I think that probably, and I'll answer that old town question too, cause I've been talking about it with the team. Elliot, if, if you could though, like think about something you've learned apart from the Wheeler campaign, but just learned as either as a personal progress or professional progress, what would you say is one big takeaway for you from this in terms of your personal development or professional development?
Speaker 6
[inaudible]
Speaker 4
Mmm,
Speaker 4
I don't know. I don't know if this is like we're all taking risks. Um, like obviously working for you and running the campaign. What we have done to help me get a job at city hall if you lose, right? Like, but the skills that I've learned in running a campaign, I mean, we, I'm not rich and I don't like this is the first time I've had to budget $380,000. Right? A while. I know what you spend on campaign. Like that's not something I knew how to do. So maybe some day in my life if I earned $80,000, I'll know better how to budget, that kind of stuff. I mean, like we always joke, so not really like a math guy. Um, and so people did have to help me with.
Speaker 2
But then that's why this is an important lesson is you hire people who have skills that you lack, right? Like we have amazing math people on our team who do math, math and things that are great. Matthew that they write hold off programs for us.
Speaker 4
I mean you've taught me a ton about policy that I thought, I mean like obviously I had a lot of background in like sort of our public safety policy was able to help a lot in how we crafted that. I didn't know a ton about, um, the links between transportation, um, housing in climate change, um, that like I didn't get why a compact walkable neighborhood, which whenever I say that somebody who's like hanging out with Sarah, is that your term or is that a term? Because every time I say it, I thought it was like a real thing that lots of people say, but apparently
Speaker 2
kind of turned it into a sound bite. But a compact walkable neighborhood connected by transit. It's the cornerstone of my climate action plan. So
Speaker 4
like nobody in, in, you know, we've sorta, uh, battle over or wrestled over how to communicate that kind of stuff. Right. Because I didn't get it from the 2016 campaign, even though I was paying attention to that campaign. I didn't fully understand what you were talking about. Like I know there was a lot of people who think, Oh, Sarah in her room, she just wants me to have to bike everywhere instead of driving, but I'm disabled or, but I have a family and, uh, and it's like looking at me like I have so, and journey and cat, like we can't all hop on a bike. And like I have like, and so explaining to people, that's not what it's about. It's about, um, options. It's about, um, would you take the bus if it was as fast as driving, right? Like, um, and would you prefer if you had a grocery store close to you in a way that you could walk there with the stroller rather?
Speaker 4
Well, not now, but um, but pre COBIT, if you could walk there, uh, or take a quick street car, something like that. Like, of course that's better. Um, it's not about, Oh, you drive. That means that you're irresponsible. It's not about that, about rethinking how we build our city, um, in, in a time where we all know we have a housing crisis means that we have to build. It means that we have to figure out how we're going to address these things. And just like with the conduit prices, we have to rebuild after the crisis. Who do you want deciding how we do new things? We're not deciding who. Do you work to manage the status quo or who do you want to manage? Uh, exactly what we have going on right now. That's not what this campaign is about, right? Because if it was, Hey, um, this is the city of Portland, this is the way that it has to be regardless of who's yelling at the mayor, regardless of the values of the motors, regardless of what 87% of Portlanders for this is Portland, this is how it is.
Speaker 4
Sometimes it's theirs. Most of the time it does not work for everybody. Who do you want comanage it, right? Like, okay, then I like Ted Wheeler, but this, that's not what this campaign is about. This campaign is about what can we be, um, and who do you trust to get us to that vision rather than who do you want to manage what we currently are. Um, and, and honestly, there's a lot of people who what we currently are probably is working for, right? Um, and that's how we know that we're not going to get a hundred percent of votes. Right. Um, but, uh, there's a lot of people, even the ones who that it is working for understand that everybody is lifted up when it works for everybody better. Right? Um, and those are the votes that we're capturing and we're going to capture a lot of them. And I'm to look at some of these questions here. Um, Amy,
Speaker 2
yes. Compact, walkable and safe. That's a huge thing. Making sure that safety, is that the basis of our policy making, which brings us to Elliot's question about, you know, I'm very disappointed to hear that one, we're defunding street response in the short term. Um, and not keeping that going because I see that as the most compassionate, efficient, humane response to people who are in humanitarian crisis, economic crisis, mental health crisis, addiction crisis. And thinking about the fact that policing would be our answer when we've heard time and again that it's not going to be, is something that crumbles me and I don't like that policing is our first response when it comes to the humanitarian crisis going down in old town. I really wish that we were focused on looking at who's suffering and what are the responses to that suffering. And if there are people who are engaged in criminal activity, then we need to address that.
Speaker 2
But I think that there are a lot of factors that go on there besides that. Oh yay. We get to see Stokely high Stokely. And so what might you do to support undocumented workers and families in Portland and ensure that their access to public services is in place? Oh, there's a lot of things that when you think about the people who are falling between the cracks, we need to be thinking about their access to, um, debt relief. Like, what does it mean when this eviction moratorium is lifted? How are we going to have amnesty on that side? Um, Fairless transit. I don't like seeing in the current budget the transit police being funded and the policing of people trying to use transit. Um, I'm thinking about workers who are forced back into employment, uh, by opening the economy who don't have access to childcare because schools are closed and parks and community centers are closed.
Speaker 2
So thinking about folks who oftentimes those are people who don't have access to resources. When we're talking about undocumented workers and their families, um, accent, even things like access to quarantine space. What we're going to see if we're doing this right is people when we do contact tracing and people need to, um, be separated potentially from their families because they test positive for coven. If tests ever come, I keep waiting for them to come, I feel like for a few months behind. Um, where will folks who test positive state, you know, why aren't we doing things like using hotel rooms for them and for frontline workers and for our emergency workers all over the city. So, I know those aren't specifically undocumented per se, but I think there are awful lot of people undocumented who lack access to the safety units that those of us with documentation or access to things like unemployment insurance have a level of protection between us that they lack.
Speaker 2
Um, the biggest issue for me says max Smith. Nice question, Mac. Uh, our homelessness in police reform. Yeah. And obviously those go together, right? Like the way it was really challenging, and Greg and I talked about this a lot because when we released the public safety plan, I said, I want to put some things that have to do with people experiencing homelessness into that policing plan. And not just in the housing plan because when we're talking about what keeps Portland are safe in the streets, we need to think about safety for everybody who is in our streets. Largely what is their interaction with the police Bureau look like? Whether you're a pedestrian or walking while black or existing without housing, there are things that your encounters with Portland police Bureau do not go positively depending on your status in our city. And so we thought about that carefully, about how to break that down. And we had a bit of a learning curve because we're crafting policy in different silos. That city budget. Um, I work as a security guard in city hall. Yes, you will have a job in city hall, mr Kessler. Um,
Speaker 7
if you're one of the turnstiles, uh, let's go back to that question about policing in homelessness because as you know, um, I, I, uh, what I keep trying to hand hold is Ted Wheeler ran on fixing homelessness, fixing, um, police reform, fixing traffic, um, 15 afforded visibility and every single one of those things is worse. And that's why he does not deserve another four years. Um, despite what he's asked Kate Brown to do. The, um, when we talk about the policing issues, uh, you do have a lot of ideas about actual accountability with teams that I think really differs from, um, the incumbent. And so I will, if you could go into that, but then also, um, on homelessness, let's talk about, um, how every neighborhood has a, been here. Cause I do think that part of, um, in this goes into the old town question as well.
Speaker 7
Um, a lot of what you see from people complaining about old town is they're saying that the services are attracting, uh, bad stuff to old town. And I don't think that's true. Um, other than it's attracting people who need services. Right? But why are we having concentrated places where services are, um, available instead of having services in community safety hubs around the entire city. Um, where not just somebody who's experiencing houselessness could go get a shower. But like almost anybody who drives around the city of Portland has had, I mean, I have had this before where it's like I'm driving around delivering lawn signs and I have to pee and there's nowhere to pee and I don't have a dollar to spend somewhere to go to the restroom. So if you could talk about one, the accountability measures that we've thought about for policing and why they differ from the incumbent, but also the community safety hubs, UVA, the burden of specific neighborhoods like old town, um, where we have a shared burden across the city. Because this is all of our responsibilities and we're all better if it is.
Speaker 2
Yeah, and that's great. Thanks for teeing that up for me because we did have Elliot young in the chat for a little while and he's a piece of member and I don't want to undermine any of the work of him and his committee because I know that they've been working hard. But I do think that there's someone who has deep community understanding. You know, I've been to a couple of piece set meetings. You don't see, um, the mayor there, I know he sends, I think Robert King, his liaison there, but there's, I don't know that there's a great deal of hands on when it comes to crafting a community led solution to what police oversight is going to look like in the city, especially when the DOJ leaves us probably at the beginning of 2021 and how we're going to build in work arounds to whatever comes out of that police union contract so that we as a community can have some say in rethinking how policing is done.
Speaker 2
I mean, I'm hoping that they're working on reforms to the discipline guide through those contract negotiations. I'm not sure what's on the table right now, but thinking about it by subject area is one of the things that we've come up with, which, what would it mean for us to make sure that people who, thanks Elliot for letting us know you're still in the conversation. What would it mean for us? You know, we've talked with people who are engaged in sex work and how they feel like they have been, you know, not having a good input into how that is treated from a criminal justice perspective in our city. We've talked about why if we can't fire police officers who are, um, demonstrating bias either through their speech or their behavior, we can't fire them. Can we reassign them somehow? Can we find workarounds to what's built into the police union contracts to try to keep Portland are safe by any means.
Speaker 2
Some other things we've talked about, you know, the demilitarization, the hundreds of thousands of hours of police overtime. We just see in this recent police budget, the fact that they're building in, I call it the Gregg line item and the new police budget where they're building in the protest allocation for the next political cycle depending on what happens in November. Um, but the point being that with the right leadership, that kind of protest doesn't necessarily have to end in violence or with the deployment of police in riot gear, an arm of vehicles busting in Sydney, in Portland, there's money. Um, there's just so many things and it's not about a single solution, but it's about can we craft solutions that work for community best without us being, um, hogtied by institutional, um, concerns and priorities. The, on the homelessness front, you know, again, the solutions that I'm proposing aren't because I think they're good.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Thanks. Thanks Elliott. I hope so too. Um, the, the reforms to the response to homelessness, again, it's not about these top down Cadillac solutions which we see deployed. You know, we had to go to bat to get a shelter where Holgate and foster road intersect and that costs several million dollars. It costs thousands of dollars in public process. It's very expensive to administer. I would much rather see those intensified infrastructure investments going into things like permanent housing, permanent housing and wraparound services. And when it comes to the type of shelter, I would actually like to see us do a more distributed model in terms of the villages that we've seen being so effective. I've long been a proponent of the village model when it comes to why does every church parking lot not have either affordable housing or some kind of tiny house village or some kind of transitional housing encampment there either by area of need or interest or self-organized intentional communities that are operating democratically and have the resources that they need.
Speaker 2
Um, the community safety hub model is another innovation. Again, if you think about if these were in place right now during coven, these would be, you could find access to food pantry information. Um, what if the water's shut off at your house? Where do you go? This isn't just about people experiencing homelessness who need this more, but people in all sorts of hardship, financial hardship, mental health, hardship. Uh, it depression. I was just hearing on the news today that we should be fate. We're going to face this to NAMI of people with mental health impacts from Coban. And so what are the places where we seek refuge in our city? You know, for building that into every single apartment complex that's going to make our ability to provide affordable housing kind of out of reach. So we should really think about that at the neighborhood scale and what do we have already in neighborhoods, community centers that need resources, right?
Speaker 2
Schools that need resources. So we have existing infrastructure around the city that needs shoring up anyway. So maybe on the weekends, the school gymnasium functions like that. Maybe in the evenings I know about Scott community center is closed a lot of times. 10 o'clock at night. Well, you know, people who need a shower could be there showering all night with very little staff there. So these are the things that we have to look at in terms of really squeezing efficiencies out. And when we're looking at the future, we're talking about budget cuts. Well, I think we should be making investments in things just like this, especially with our emergency dollars, with money from the feds. We need to be making investments in infrastructure. Um, another question, I'm not sure how much time you have. We can probably do one more question and then wrap up. Oh, you can? No, you can't.
Speaker 2
Um, all right. Well you can tell us when we're done, but how will people be treated temporary? How will people be transitioned out of temporary homes back into the community, make room for more individuals? Well, we have thought about this in terms of our housing for all strategy. In 2015 we did declare a housing state of emergency, but in the subsequent period we actually didn't come up with a plan for how much supply of housing, at which level of the income spectrum do we need in which parts of Portland based on transportation, access, workforce, um, educational access, et cetera. So what we really have to do is it's a triage approach in terms of people who are experiencing homelessness, looking at the needs that they have. Are they being met in terms of help, in terms of access to, um, addiction services, uh, healthcare services, jobs, training, everything people need to be stabilized.
Speaker 2
And we even know, this is one reason I'm so opposed to the sweeps. We know even, and Greg and I have gone back and forth about this because from our campaign offices, we watch sweeps every week and it's the same people. They move from one end of the block to the another end of the block to the other end of the block. Well, the time that those folks have spent trying to stabilize themselves from this disruption could have been spent in other much more productive ways. And so it's even minimizing those little things so that each person has the maximum capacity to be their best self, I think is an important thing for us to talk about. And then making sure that when they do get housing that they're in it. You know, we're seeing a lot of evictions even in public housing. Um, and we're seeing a lot of problems inside the Portland housing Bureau in there.
Speaker 2
And so things like rent or assistance, um, how can we build the fund so that short term rental assistance, the moment someone tips into homelessness from because of their short on rent, huge costs to us as a society, anything that we can do to keep people housed is going to be a net benefit to us and cheaper, frankly. And that's one thing we don't talk about a lot, but we'd get a lot done with a few resources on this campaign. And I think part of it's because we're not, especially me, I'm kind of a thrifty lady, but, uh,
Speaker 7
I mean I also wanted to just throw out for people, um, that of course these policies while we're talking about them here, um, are all trial all on the website. If you want the housing policies here at [inaudible] dot com slash housing, um, Sarah, 20 twenty.com/public safety where we talk about many of these issues as well. Um, and there's also a podcast for each one of those. Uh, we do a good stuff. Um, and, and so those are all there if you also want to go more in depth in those. I want, I have a couple of questions I want to ask you though, only because, um, Elliot said he'll bring the margaritas for the victory party. Um, you'll have to mail them. Um, the, Oh, I guess we could have another victory party in November or January when you take offers. Um, I want to make sure that we touch on this idea of how we have funded this campaign versus Ted Wheeler's founded his campaign.
Speaker 7
Um, so if you could answer for me, what does it mean for you to have potentially the most owners ever in a Portland city primary and sorry, I have toddlers running in the back for people. If you're wondering what you're hearing covert 19 and how I have to work 20 bucks out of it. Luckily I have an amazing partner Kat, who will be live with you another time, who is wrangling the babies right now. Um, but yeah, I do want to ask, what does it mean for the incumbent to have 350 ish donors? Um, mostly from extremely wealthy individuals. And what does it mean for you instead to be funded by the people of Portland and by potentially the most donors ever to a city? What does that mean?
Speaker 2
Well, and in fact, the Oregonian just asked me this question and I sometimes feel like they don't take the answers seriously. And I've told this anecdote inside the campaign office, but I don't know that I've told that an awful lot out in the world, which is when we were trying to qualify for public financing back when we had to first get that 500 donors to qualify. And I was engaging with people as I do in the street. Often times I was talking with someone who was a direct service provider, um, who had been formerly homeless, who now works with people experiencing homelessness. And um, he didn't have really much money to give us. He had about $5. And so when he gave us that $5, he said, does that really matter? And I said, yes, because you're one of those 500, we need your $5.
Speaker 2
I need it. That's not a throw away. That's not minimum you count and the look on his face like I'll never forget it. It was like my $5 matters to you and it mattered so much and it's, I started to feel the transformative potential of what it means for every voice to matter when you're trying to bring people together to solve problems and then later, I know that you and I have had meetings with the kind of people who are used to writing those five and $10,000 checks to, and when I say to them, you can only give me $250 that's the cap. It's all I'm taking any, you can only write it off your personal bank account. I would love that check, but you're going to come to the table alongside the street roots vendor who gave me $5 or the service provider who gave me $5 or the single mom or the unemployed person or the retiree who all gave me $5 in each of your voices counts pretty much the same.
Speaker 2
It's transformative because it builds community. Again, that's more horizontal and more equitable. It doesn't mean that people who are affluent don't matter in our city, and it doesn't mean people who don't have a lot are more important. What it means is that we're actually starting to have real conversations about the future, and I think the fact that it also leaves me free to be honest about solutions because I'm not worried about losing that check down the road. We, someone told us that, you know, sometimes taking those big checks, it's not about what you say, it's about what doesn't get said. It's about when you clam up, when there's a difficult decision to be made. You don't see me clamming up on that because I know that the people who have written those $5 checks or those $250 checks to our campaign have done it because they trust my values.
Speaker 2
They know they're not always gonna agree with me, but they know where they're going to stand and that they know, especially since I've put it in these comprehensive policies that they have, that we have a roadmap and they're going to say, Sarah, you said you would do this. Now are you doing that? What are you doing? And they're going to be able to hold me accountable. And I love that the program's called open and accountable elections. Every single donor, every part of the city, you can look at the map and it's covered. It's unbelievable because I think people want to have a voice in politics again. They want to feel like they matter. So I've been transformed, our campaign has been transformed and I think it's going to transform the policy that comes out of city hall when we're elected.
Speaker 7
And I want to add that we're not, we both do. And I believe that Ted Wheeler is a decent person, right? He's, he's kind and he's, um, so I think that a lot of people think that one, we, it incredibly just hang in. That is not the truth at all. I think both interacted you in 2016 and 2020 interacted with him on the campaign trail and he's, he's kind decent person. The um, and I, and the reason why I say that is because we have never, and will never say that the people who are writing $10,000 checks to Ted Wheeler are buying something from him. Right. That is not why campaign finance reform matters. Um, but one of the main reasons why it does matter is because Ted Wheeler spent this entire campaign and he called 350 people in the 350 people that he spent on the phone with.
Speaker 7
Those were not quick conversations. Those were incredibly wealthy individuals that were telling him what they think needs to be done in Portland. We spent our time talking to the 3000 people and way more, um, who are just people in Portland who have an entirely different perspective. And that's why it matters. Not because those people writing him big checks or buying something, but because they are telling him they have his ear. Right. And the people who have your ear everyday. Portlanders um, before I ask you my last question we did to get one thing, um, the LGBT community and communities of color are dependent on Noma County community sex clinics, but with cuts of funding, it's becoming increasingly harder to get appointments. Do you have a plan that can help this clinic? I do want to say there though, um, that it's my impression that had you haven't already there, we would have these community safety hubs where people would be able to get all of these things from the city. Right? And so instead of picking it up to the County or to the feds, et cetera, the city would be providing these things to Portlanders because that's the duty of the city.
Speaker 2
I mean, in some ways, yes, but in some ways too, it's about clarity. You know, when it does come to health, Multnomah County really leads on public health and that the city of Portland leads on kind of like the bricks and sticks I like to call it. So I really would like to look at what are some things maybe that we can have better relationship with County and city kind of the way with Vera Katz and Ben Stein had those two positions. I don't know that we've seen great collaboration between, um, the incumbents in both of those places right now, at least in terms of division of labor and who's doing what. So I'd also like to think, yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 7
The thing I had in mind was just a distributor. I mean, even for us, we, uh, in the beginning of this campaign when fascists were coming to town, um, and we wanted to definitely join the counter protest, something that I guarantee you the incumbent will never you in fact, he held an anti protest. I think that same broadness. Um, we collected, uh, supplies, right? Um, period supplies, um, for the community. And so what I, when I was saying the community safety cops, I was thinking more in that vein, um, that, uh, that they would be a place where anybody could go to see, um, hygiene products or, uh, sexual health products. But again, on the health side, you're correct.
Speaker 2
Yeah, like testing. I don't think the city would administer, but it also is, here's a good example though. We need testing for coven now when it comes to what the city part is, what is the places? I think of city as the places we make the places and the County does the services a lot. And that's a good way. Just like shorthand is an oversimplification. But the city of Portland really is about bricks and sticks. We build, do we do roads and sewers and really, you know, public safety is one. But even that we can think of more, um, uniquely too in terms of what keeps people safe. I think about infrastructure, keeping people safe. I think about shelter, keeping people safe, you know, things like that. So you said you had one last question.
Speaker 7
Yes. Um, and I also want to shout out Donovan, who made this, uh, sure. I know that you have lots of materials from him. And if we talk about, um, keeping, um, Portland businesses afloat, et cetera, uh, just wanting to make sure that I was shouting the shirt, which I loved.
Speaker 2
Your reflections is his brand, right? He's ignorant. Reflections on social media.
Speaker 7
Yeah. Um, but so my final question is a selfish one. Why did you pick whoop to run your campaign?
Speaker 2
Let's see. You can take a second. No one's ever asked me that question before,
Speaker 7
but it's, it's odd why I'll fill some space
Speaker 4
while you think about it. It's not normal. Not because I'm not qualified. I mean, I mean, I studied political science, I've ran multiple campaigns and worked on campaigns. This is what I do. I clearly had relationships with the press, my experience before, but it's not something Ted Wheeler never do, right? Like it's not something that many people running for office, whatever, do, I don't know what I'm going to do after this. Uh, so I guess, uh, what would the recommendation be?
Speaker 2
Because it speaks to my leadership style. And one of the things, what is in your glass, Greg, you can think about it. I think it's based on my leadership style because I have been quite critical of the mayor's staffing choices, right? And this is one place where I do think having a good finger on the pulse of talent and capacity and power is that I see you as a powerhouse when it comes to understanding people when it comes to politics. Like I remember you calling me when I was in Europe and our time difference is very different. And he said, look at this Gordon Saarland debacle. How can we, uh, allow our city to be dragged into this international scandal? Like what the heck and what I really always have valued about you as you have a very astuteness with regard to tapping into people and what our community is interested in.
Speaker 2
And then leading on making sure that we're problem solving for that. And so what we try to do is, I think both of us have sought to in team building is we play to the strengths of the people on our team. You know, I'm this policy powerhouse. You're a communications powerhouse. I'm our operations manager is a, is a technical powerhouse. We have people who we bring power together. And when you're talking about team building or community building, it's not, you need to have elders and you need to have youth. We have elders who advise us, we have very young people who advise us. We have people in all corners of the city advising us across different organizations, institutional, nonprofit establishment in surgeon, radical traditional, like we don't leave anybody out. And I think that that inclusive approach, that building capacity, that power building capacity in the way that you were able to mobilize people in the wake of Donald Trump's election, but also to just really be out front on issues that are mattering to Portlanders in a timely fashion. Like power is what community power is. What's going to be the answer. And that's why they ask me all the time, what, what do you see about winning this election? And I always say, it's not about me when I win, I'm going to be there in that community. Power is just going to come right into city hall and be the force. So you're like me in that you see community power I guess. Is that, was that clear? I don't know if I got really close to it or not.
Speaker 4
I guess that was good enough. I would have said nicer things about me. Um, uh, last, last question actually. If CJ McCollum gets to do this on his podcast, he has out a wine section of his podcast. This is the best cheap wine ever. I'm not a rich person, obviously.
Speaker 2
Okay. So what is it though? We can't see the label, so you have to agree.
Speaker 4
Wait, okay. It's called 19 cracks. Sorry. It's not local, but it's only like nine 99. And ever since I was in Atlanta, that has been, because if you buy 99 99, it's gonna not be good at most of the time. But that has been great for us. Um, and so that is my CJ McCollum does his fancy one selections. Mine is how you can get a nine 99 wine that does not taste that. Hopefully that answers your question back. Hopefully we get maximum vote cause I really like Mac and we out here Mac. All right, that's all I have. Do you have any more?
Speaker 2
I know, just thank you for your hard work. I know that you're sacrificing a lot there where you get your sheltered in place with your family and managing a lot and you work hard every day. And I appreciate you and I'm looking forward to celebrating with you. Um, and how many days? There's a countdown clock. Uh, I think we have five days. What are days? What are days you and I are messaging each other at 3:00 AM and then 6:00 AM I don't know how it goes. Time has no meaning when you're campaigning. But yeah, maybe some of us will get asleep someday soon. I can't wait to sleep on May 19th so May 20th you can sleep on the 20th, May 20th May 20th yeah. All right. Hey, take care of everybody joining us. I hope you enjoyed this inside. Look into our campaign. It's been wonderful and yes, the gross out for the wind. I am such a gross out fan, so thanks for that recommendation and we'll talk to you all soon. All right, Melissa, when you get this, when you can go run for school board, we'll talk to you later. Bye. Journey. Hi everybody.
Speaker 4
This has been a production of friends of Sarah for Portland.
