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Speaker 1
Welcome to our Portland with Sarah Ayana Roan 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
Hey Portland, Sarah. And around here I'm running for Portland mayor. My pronouns are she, her, uh, election day is coming Tuesday, May 19th. However, you can mail your ballot in Oregon's vote by mail system, but if you do so, you need to make sure you post it by Thursday, May 14th. Now postage on those ballot envelopes is prepaid, which is new this year. So take advantage of it. Not having a stamp is no excuse for not turning in your ballot, but make sure if you mail it, you mail it by Thursday, May 14th. Otherwise you have to drop it in one of the official spaces. Uh, there'll be a list of those in the notes for this podcast in case you need a map. Alright. Now to the real business at hand, this is a special episode of a conversation I had on Instagram live with Mohanad L Shiki. Now he's a comic. He was here in Portland for a little while. He writes for full frontal with Samantha B. He's quarantined in New York city right now, which is a hotbed of COBIT 19 activity. It was a really interesting conversation. Funny as you can imagine. I hope you enjoy it.
Speaker 3
Hey everyone. How's everyone? Uh, well there are people here yet. Uh, hopefully people will join in soon. I, well, um, uh, so today I'm going to be talking to, uh, Sarah in a row who's running for Portland mayor. I'm really excited to talk to her. She's, she's my preferred candidate now under race and, um, she's joining me from Portland. Uh, I am currently in New York city, allegedly. I have not seen this fee in so long. I am not sure if I am still in New York. I can be anywhere. Honestly, I don't know if the city is still still exists outside, but I don't know. I'm banking on it. Maybe. Maybe it still exists. I don't know. I haven't left the house in 29 years and I am 29 years old. Uh, so who knows if the city is still exists. You know, I do not remember a time before, uh, the city when I was outside.
Speaker 3
I only remember being inside between these walls and do I hate it? Maybe. I don't know. I feel like I have Stockholm syndrome now and I'm just like, I'm inside and I'm just enjoying it anyways. This is not about me. I don't know. I am talking about myself, but I just wanted to share my feelings about being inside for so long. Uh, I'm really excited about interviewing Sarah. She's, she's fantastic and I'm really hoping that she becomes Portland mayor. Uh, I, cause I am not a big fan of the current mayor at all, but also I think she's fantastic. I think she's the one for the job. Uh, someone said that my hair looks great. Yes. Thank you so much. I like that you think that, well, Sarah will be joining me, uh, very soon and we're going to talk about a lot of, uh, her players.
Speaker 3
We'll just city policies what she's, uh, preparing to do for the election? Well, her first days in office and all of that, all the core staff, uh, once, once we're, once we're, I don't know, done talking, I wouldn't say done talking about like halfway through or whatever. We'll just say questions from people. So if anyone has a question to Sarah that she, that they want her to answer, she will be more than happy to answer that. I probably, I probably can not answer your question. She can. I don't know anything about policy, but, so, um, I'm hoping to learn so much from her tonight. Okay. Let's see. I think she's here.
Speaker 4
Okay. We're just waiting. Hello.
Speaker 2
Hi. How are you? East coast. This is prime time. I feel like Seinfeld.
Speaker 4
I know. Well, you're funny year, so I'll give you that.
Speaker 2
How are you doing? It's been such a hotspot. There
Speaker 4
I am. I am doing really well, uh, sort of New York. I am not sure if New York still exists outside. I haven't left the house at check in two months, but I'm sure, I'm sure. I'm sure it's around. I'm sure. I'm sure it's still there. How are you, how are you? How's, how's everything in Portland? Yeah, just staying safe. Keeping it together. That's good.
Speaker 2
You know, it's been interesting. The Portland response is always to be, homesteading was kind of our brand. So for those of us with the privilege and opportunity to hunker down, I think we probably are the bread baking capital of the world. If I had to guess.
Speaker 4
Have you, have you been baking a lot of bread?
Speaker 2
I baked it before Kobe, but now I'm not doing it out of protest just to be iconic. Classic.
Speaker 4
That is, that is, that is peak Portland. I'm running for mayor. I have to make sense. Exactly. I'm like, yeah, I'm not doing it now. It's too mainstream. Way too mainstream. Yeah. No, I refuse to bake bread. I just go outside and buy it and it tastes really good. If anyone, if anyone is concerned about that. Well, I'm so happy that you're here. I'm so happy to get to talk to you about you running for mayor. That's, that's I am. I'm hoping that you win. Um, I'm banking on that. Uh, cause next time I'm important. I would love for you to be the mayor. That would be great. You know? Yeah.
Speaker 2
Portlanders are hoping for that. I think we'll see how it goes on election day.
Speaker 4
Yeah. I'm hoping 50% plus plus one would with a w would think the same way cause cause that would be cause that would be wonderful. Uh, no. Yeah, I've, I've, I mean I'm, I'm a big fan of yours and I want to say even though I'm not really into local politics that much, so that saves a lot cause I feel like your campaign and like just seeing your website and everything, I was like this is, this is fantastic. This is, this is maybe the only time I was interested in knowing what's happening important locally. Uh, and one thing I love about your website is like, it's very, it's very detailed. It has like plans for everything. And I feel like for someone like me and so many other people who are not going to look everything up on the internet and they read it, your website does a fantastic job of like just explaining what does that policy mean and how, how are we going to do it?
Speaker 4
Uh, and I mean a lot of, a lot of your, a lot of your plans when it has to do with like climate change and like housing and uh, just like, uh, social justice and all of that is a lot of these things is stuff that I personally like would love to see important stuff that I agree with would love to see in the whole country. But I mean we have to, we have to start somewhere obviously. Uh, so I guess like my, my first question to you would be, since you are running and there are like maybe 18 other people running, is that right?
Speaker 2
Yeah. Two other people on the ballot, whether or not they're all actively running as another, there are awful lot of names on that ballot. Yes,
Speaker 4
that makes sense. Yeah. So what would you say makes you different from all of these people who are running currently?
Speaker 2
Well, I'm here talking with you, right? I mean, in some ways out this community and grassroots approach we have, you know, we're not New York or even Manhattan, nor do we aspire to be. There's something very special about Portland that I've always found in terms of boxing outside our weight class on quality. You, when you think about when you come here, what are you excited to, to experience those wines that microbrew the amazing food, the trees, the quality of life here is exceptional. And the fact that we haven't been able to make that a reality for everyone who lives here, that some Portlander would come experience, like some visitor can come to Portland and experience a better quality of life of Portland than an actual Portland resident infuriates me. And so when I think about the fact that we have the capacity to make Portland an amazing place for all of us, why wouldn't we focus on that? Because we never set out to be some global darling so that the New York times would have this love affair with us and 36 hours, Portland isn't that precious. We wanted to make a good place for Portlanders. So now if we keep doing that, it's gonna. We don't have to compete. Just being yourself and being your authentic self is a comparative advantage in the global marketplace. And so someone who's connected to that, I think it's just a different perspective than how a lot of city leaders are thinking about how their cities should go. I mean,
Speaker 4
yeah, no, that's fantastic. I've, there's something I've read on your website I thought I really liked and I was like the last year or two maybe like, can I expand more on it? But it says that we are as safe as the, uh, most marginalized people in our city, which I think it's, it's a great quote obviously, but like what, what, what do you mean by that? What do you say that,
Speaker 2
well, you can't call yourself a dream city leader or a sustainable city if it's not sustainable for the most vulnerable person. In your city. Think about that. If you're only working for the elites and the affluent, like that's just a, what is that? It's not, it's not deep. It doesn't resonate with everyone who's there. And so for me, that's why I say we are only as mobile as the person who has the hardest time getting around. If you're on crutches and you can't get to work or if you were um, you know, S seeing the stabled and you can't get what you need in our city, then does the city work just because it works for me as fully able then fully sighted, then that doesn't make us a city that works. And so if you actually build your city from the position of people, immigrants and refugees, well, policing doesn't work here and public safety doesn't work for immigrants and refugees who gives us, if it works for me, right. Woo. That's not a big accomplishment. Same thing with traffic. Like, if we can't keep our streets safe for someone crossing the street, we had 51 traffic deaths in Portland last year was supposed to be some kind of transportation, you know, model city. Like if we can't keep Portland safe for people crossing the street, what good are we? That's my perspective on that.
Speaker 4
Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, you, you mentioned you mentioned immigrants or refugees obviously, and I've lived in Portland for five and a half years and uh, lived there, worked there, started doing my, my, my career there and everything. Uh, and obviously like as someone who lived there, I, I wanted to have a say in what was happening in the city. Cause like I'm someone who obviously as I said, lived there, pays taxes and everything, but I don't think now there's like, like anything, any system in place where people like me who can't vote, uh, who are not citizens to have a say in anything happening in the city. So what are some of the things that you are thinking about like implementing to kind of like amplify people's voices in, in or that, in that, in that communities.
Speaker 2
I mean that's such a great example, isn't it, in terms of how we need to be thinking about making sure talent like you, one, I want you to stay here and not go to New York and come back please as soon as you can. But um, how we can make Portland a place that prospers is by tapping into everyone, right? I don't want anyone left out of this. And so we forwarded a good government plan at my website. I'll do the shameless plug and get it out of the way. [inaudible] dot com there's a good government policy on there because rebuilding our civic fabric is going to be at the core of anything we're trying to solve. Housing shortage, transportation, climate change, economic development. You can't do it unless the people can come together and work together. So I propose things like making sure every resident can vote, whether it regardless of their us citizenship status, um, making sure we have participatory budgeting cause it's not just enough to decide who our elected officials, we have to decide together how do we use our money and where and who gets to say, um, things like rank choice voting or star voting so that instead of having this first pass the post like winner takes all like what if you like three or four people?
Speaker 2
Well you can rank them and maybe that helps other people move. So it's not this acrimony that comes out of this competitive nature, politics, all sorts of good reforms in there. I'm so thankful you brought that up because not a lot of people are talking about the fact that healthy democracy is the answer to so many of our problems right now. It's like look at the federal level.
Speaker 4
Yeah.
Speaker 2
The absence of a good democracy is really undermining anything we're trying to do.
Speaker 4
Absolutely. Absolutely. No, I know you definitely recommend that people go to your website. It's, as I said, it's, it's amazing. And I've learned and I've looked through like other people's website as well, especially the current mayor, Ted Wheeler and uh, yeah, I mean the things, the things I've learned from my dad, his name is Ted and he's his height probably. And, and he's a man that's so, uh, I feel like these were the main things, so I'm not sure what people are paying to vote for him cause he's tall, if that is that the criteria that he's proposing. But if that's his thing, that's his thing. You don't have to say anything about him. I'll just leave that for me. Uh,
Speaker 2
I think it does exemplify a little bit though of politics when you think about like, just to be on a level playing field, I have to have public financing, exemplary website, a library of policy podcasts and entire army and be setting records for the most contributions in the city of Portland elections history. And maybe they'll consider me a contender.
Speaker 4
No, no, no. I mean, I mean you're right. You're right. It is, it is. It is insane. Like, like I have never seen someone like, like this mayor who's not enthusiastic about keeping the job. I guess like the website was like more like, Hey, I'm still here and I know things suck, but we got used to it. Right. Let's miss, let's do four more years of, it's fine. Uh, so, so going, going back to that, obviously like we, we are in a pandemic right now, which is unfortunate and no one would, no one saw that. I mean, obviously we did kind of see that coming, uh, cause it happens in other places. But uh, there, there hasn't been like a good job, uh, about it. Uh, I'm not sure what was the response in Portland regarding that on like a city level, but if you were the mayor this year and what things would you have done differently when it came to this pandemic?
Speaker 2
You know, this is a place where it's really tough to an armchair quarterback, the incumbent, because I'm not in that position. But what I can say is that if I had been elected in 2016 when I first ran and only candidate for a place, we would have a lot of the things that we need in place to get us through this that we don't have, that he's having to build on the fly, a small business capacity. I bring a background in small business. So the fact that we having to put together a small business task force, well, I had proposed in 2016 we actually would have an officer for small business and entrepreneurship who would be able to have that network in place that would have all those relationships in place and we wouldn't have to be building that in the middle of a pandemic.
Speaker 2
Same with community safety hubs. I proposed rethinking the public safety budget. When you think about the millions of dollars that we pour into the militarized policing, especially, uh, uh, black and Brown bodies and people impoverished in Portland, talk about our goals with regard to equity and inclusion and sustainability. They're completely counter when you think about the hypocrisy in that. So I have proposed rethinking public safety budgets to include things like community safety hubs, even access to what would it mean if we're having to send frontline workers back now? Um, two jobs, we're beaming, essential that we pay like $12 an hour. Can we at least get them childcare? I mean, how are we thinking about keeping families secure is what I want to be spending the city budget on. That just seems common sense to me and I don't get why more cities don't think of it in that way.
Speaker 4
Well, I mean it's, as you said, it's common sense. So I mean that's, that's the main reason. Uh, no, I mean I'm, I'm glad. I'm glad you, I'm glad you brought that up. Especially like the policing issue. And I mean, like I've, I've only been in New York for like six months now, so I've, I've been important when a lot of like the protest had been happening and stuff, especially like those like proud boys and I'll try rallies and, and, and all of that. And obviously as we all know, not just a city on like a national level, the job that has been done around it is, was not, was not, uh, was not a good job. And I'm pretty sure once they spend them is over hopefully tune these things will come back like these rallies and, and all of that. So what, I mean I, you talked a bit about like, like spending like more budget on like safety and all of that, but like when it comes to, when it comes to those rallies specifically in the past and in the future, what would you say would have been a good thing to do in the past?
Speaker 4
Or maybe like kind of like not have them hurt people like David cause they obviously have done a lot of harm and what should be done about them in, in the future?
Speaker 2
Listen, you have to have a moral compass, right? I was so frustrated when the incumbent invited one of the alt-right leaders into the app, into city hall for sit down. I'm like, are you mad? Like we do not entertain this nonsense in our city. These people were not welcome at city hall. We not take meetings with them. Meanwhile folks like my campaign director, Greg Kelby, who is on the front lines protesting things like black lives matters getting locked out of city hall. Like that's the exact opposite, right? We need to be putting our municipal power behind people who are focusing on promoting human rights and civil rights and equity and inclusion. Not people who are opposing that like zero tolerance for the, for the coming to our city to incite riots, zero tolerance for the Portland police, sympathizing with white nationalists like hello. If y'all are going to be out there in the streets, sympathizing with white nationalists who come to town to incite riots, y'all might as well stay in your office cause we don't need you in the streets with your backs to the private caterers and facing the people who are, they're calling themselves everyday.
Speaker 2
Antifascists putting their bodies on the line to protect vulnerable people.
Speaker 4
Yeah, I mean it's pretty ironic to like have like the sense of like antifascists be like radical of some sort, which it shouldn't be. It's just, I feel like
Speaker 2
runny fascism is bad. Hello.
Speaker 4
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like if I'm like, I'm like, it has always been bad. Like what's what changed here? And I feel like a lot of people are like, Oh, I mean like these are like people like from the community and whatnot. Like these people are not even from Portland for the most part. They come from like all around the place, like even outside the state or outside the country for these, uh, for these riots. And to me it just seems like nothing that has been done about them or like they're only doing stuff about like, as you said, like black lives matter and like, like these movements is, is obviously like insane to me. And it's just like, does it doesn't, it doesn't make any sense. And I mean, like we, we, we say that we shouldn't negotiate with terrorists. I guess. Like when it comes to white nationalists for some reason, do not consider that there's cause
Speaker 2
white dudes with bazookas in the subway aren't terrorists.
Speaker 4
Yeah. There's just, there's just concerns
Speaker 2
green, right? Like,
Speaker 4
yeah, they're, yeah, they're just concerned about freedom of speech and the freedom to shoot people I guess, or whatever. Yeah, it is, it is, it is. It doesn't, it doesn't make any sense to me. And yeah, I've, I've seen it happen in Portland and like the police response to, and also, and I mean like in, in, in Portland. I mean I talk about that in, in, in my comedy and whatnot, but like there so many like black lives matter, uh, like science and refugees are welcome and immigrants are welcome and, and, and, and all of that. And like, I mean you, you've talked a bit about like marginalized communities and like what would you do to uplift that, but also what like what, what would be the first thing once you're in an office that you're going to do about like how the police treats these groups, who protest against, I guess like antifascist or again, like honestly like sometimes it's not anti-fascist. There's just like people protesting industry for like their rights cause someone cause someone was shot by the police or like very basic things and they get like attacked by the police and like taken to prison and all of that. What can be done in the Portland police force to change that.
Speaker 2
So we've thought about this carefully and that's why we've proposed this radical rethinking of public safety right down to the budget level, right? When you think about the fact that we're spending millions of dollars funding police overtime for them to come to these riots slash protests, um, protests that turn into riots once they arrive. Oftentimes it's a self reinforcing system where they have a vested interest in their presence being essential. And I want to not make that the case. I want more training. You know, I don't want all this military gear. I don't want these armored cars running through these streets. I don't want this militarized police presence in our city. This is not like a war zone, which is down in cities all around the world. This whole military industrial complex that has infused municipal police departments across this country isn't a con to me.
Speaker 2
It has nothing to do with keeping Portlander safe. And so when you think about the reforms that we need to make to keep Portlander see, that's about deescalation training. That's about anti-biased training. That's about negotiating. So we can fire cops who have demonstrated bias, especially racism in their work. Like how is it that we can't fire people who do racist stuff while they're on the city payroll that's in that corner? Like we need to get around that. Um, and so fighting for that. But I also think leadership is so important when you've got an incumbent who talks around like there's good people on both sides and blah, blah blah. Or you have someone who's like, nah, white nationalism is fascism. Zero tolerance for it. And now let's invest in what an anti-racist future looks like and how we're going to dismantle white supremacy through our public infrastructure vestments. I mean, that comes down to housing. I'm talking about eliminating racist zoning where we have places all over Portland that people have decided they have these fancy neighborhoods that they want to call historic so that apartment buildings can't be there. And I'm kind of like, can't call yourself a climate leader while you're keeping out multifamily housing when you've got a beautiful light rail transit stopped in your neighborhood. Right. That's really the reverse redlining that we're just carrying forward. You know, years of systemic and institutionalized racism through art, our, our city planning even.
Speaker 4
Absolutely. Absolutely. Uh, no, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's fantastic and great to hear. And I mean, as, as a person who, who lives in Portland, I mean I know that a lot of people important are aware of what's happening. Uh, I feel like people are good at just like acknowledging the problem, but what would your message be as Elliott Futurely Portland, like to Portlanders themselves? What steps that people should take, especially people who are privileged to fix their city. Cause like obviously you cannot do it on your own. Like yet you need the peoples to rise up as well and like and like being more engaged. So what, what's like, what's the message to get more people more engaged and like to help with their community and like what would you be doing to encourage them to do that?
Speaker 2
Well, I'm not going to make it optional. You know, I kind of, I can't tell if I bring school teacher vibes or moms, but it's like this is not optional. This is our work and we're building a people's coalition to elect someone like me because this is the people that want to be in this work. And what we're going to say is this dismantling of these structures that have excluded so many people for so long, not acceptable. Now everybody step into this, work with me and let's do this together. And that's through education. That's through investments right down to the community level. As I suggested in rebuilding the civic fabric, we need to come together and talk about things like why are equity and inclusion, not some kind of feel good diversity, you know, initiative. But there's a basis of our future like on this planet, if we cannot be an inclusive equitable society, we're dead.
Speaker 2
We're done. And so someone who comes with that messaging again and again the us being an inclusive, welcoming city, I don't care if you're a tech bro from San Jose, California or a climate refugee from you know across the globe you are welcome in Portland. You are welcome to be a part of the city and what we're going to do is come together and make sure you feel like you're a part of this city. Like whatever you bring here is welcome here and that whatever we create together here is important. And that to me is so uplifting. I think people are to be psyched about it. I don't think people are going to be disappointed and say, I mean there's going to be the haters but a lot of people are going to be like yeah this is the Portland I signed up for cause this is what I imagined Portland was all about.
Speaker 4
No absolutely. I mean like when, when I first moved to Portland it was like described to me as a utopia that people love it and show me and everything is perfect, which obviously, I mean it's doing better than other city, but it's not completely, it's completely true. And uh, I feel like a lot of people like would describe Portland as like, I mean, yes, Portland is definitely one of the whitest cities in the country, but it's not, I don't like it when people call it a white city cause it's just, yeah, cause it's just like, okay, what about the people of color who live there? We just like trying to erase them or just like forget about them. And I feel like just using that term itself has made it that we're just like, well I mean it is what it is, is just has always been like that.
Speaker 4
I mean there's nothing we can do about it. So I do appreciate that you brought up the point where you're like, we're not doing just diversity just to feel good. We're actually doing it for like to achieve a purpose which is which, which makes sense to me. I mean like as someone who works in the entertainment and everything, a lot of the time I feel like diversity is a thing that is just like to make people like, like, well we did something like we have our writer's room, it is 100% white except this one person who is a person of color that we're just like waiting for to speak for everyone and just like encompass all of these experiences into one identity, which is obviously impossible to do. I mean also, um, people can feel free to ask questions if they want and I feel like a lot of people are watching so if they have questions I'll read them to Sarah where she can read them cause she can see them on the screen.
Speaker 4
Uh, but one, one, one other question I have is about the Portland house. Like a lot of like there's a lot of houseless people in Portland and it's, it's, it's, I mean it's been an issue issue for awhile and I feel like I feel like the current city or like the uh, the, the, the current mayor of like or in general even like some Portlanders are treating homeless people as if they were the issue and not the circumstances around them or like what, what brought them to, to where they are right now. What would be one of the first things that you would do to kind of like, like help with help with this issue? Like how and the homeless homelessness problem in, in Portland or at least or at least make it more manageable.
Speaker 2
Yeah. I love that you frame that as we have problematized the human existence of being impoverished because that the problem is ours. That we have allowed that to happen in what we call civilization. That anyone should be living without a home, without drinking water, without food is, is a Testament only to our failure, not that individual's failure. And the fact that in 2017 over half of the arrests made by Portland police Bureau where people experiencing homelessness suggest to me our priorities are way out of whack. It means we're thinking about this from the perspective of someone who's potentially housed or has access to privilege and feels threatened by that person as opposed to saying, what is the basic human need that is going on that here and can we put the resources behind that instead? But it's always been my priority. And one of the major reasons that I've run is I think we're addressing it at home.
Speaker 2
You know, and now that codes come and the CDC says, Oh, sweeps of the homeless are actually going to endanger their lives. You can't sweep the homeless during the conflict crisis. Well, if you'd been listening to the people I've been listening to for years, they could have told you sweeps kill from day one because they lose their money, they lose their medicine, they lose their cell phone, they lose their contact information. People, they lose their tent, they lose their clothing. It's difference between surviving the day and not. So I knew that we should not be doing that from a policing perspective, but a human rights and human health perspective. Same with, um, what does it mean in terms of mobilizing everything in the city? Well, if you're in the middle of a housing crisis, now they're setting up the, the, the kind of emergency shelters that the people who experiencing homelessness have been saying they weren't for some time, which is smaller communities that people are able to camp with peer support and access to hygiene services.
Speaker 2
But we waited for the covert crisis for that. Like if you were listening to people before, we would have this kind of thing on every church parking lot across the city. And right now we're making it more expensive and more difficult for that to happen when we should be giving them money and saying, here, set up a place where women with children who are escaping domestic violence and let's get you some resources. Um, it's just the basics. Again, just this community based approach where when you leave all the community capacity on the table, why would you waste energy and resources at a time when we need people? Most I, it just doesn't jive with me. I don't get it.
Speaker 4
Yeah, no, absolutely. Absolutely. That's a fantastic answer. Uh, so I'm going to read to you a question that I have here from Olivia. Uh, Sarah recently signed the human rights pledge. Uh, she can talk about what it will look like for the city of Portland to honor human rights in its, uh, in its current policy procurement policy. I can't read that word cause I do not understand anything about policy.
Speaker 2
So procurement is about where we spend our dollars as a municipality. We buy a lot of stuff and the same way as I don't really spend a lot of money with Amazon. I don't, I'm not a huge fan of them. So I go out of my way to find an alternative that is local. It means that when I'm the mayor, I'm scaling that up, right? It means I'm making sure that when I spend public dollars are not going into corporations or entities, institutions that are committing human rights abuses. It also means on the flip side of that, that what I am doing is investing in local minority owned women owned initiatives. It means that if I can create a joint venture where maybe we don't have the capacity here at home, but there is some outside capacity we need, what can I make sure that someone local is partnered there so that we're building local capacity.
Speaker 2
I want every single dollar that we spend in the city of Portland to uplift Portlanders, to uplift our local economy, to uplift a local people and make sure that we're being stronger and resilient, um, through everything that we do. Because the global marketplace doesn't give a shit about us. I mean, to be really Frank, they don't, they don't care about our housing crisis. They don't care about hunger here. They don't care about homelessness. They just want to scrape value off our community. So if we want to protect Portlanders, we need to invest in partners and invest in our, in our economy.
Speaker 4
Yeah. So for, for the people who don't know, obviously the elections are coming up very soon and it's on, what day is it of this month?
Speaker 2
What is this March timber? I don't even know what month it is. This is the time code.
Speaker 4
It is anything between 6:00 PM and July. I have no idea. Yeah.
Speaker 2
According to calendars that I have seen, there is no election day and it is next Tuesday, May 19th and folks have to drop their ballot off at a drop box or even a public library no later than 8:00 PM that day. Now because Oregon is amazing, we have vote by mail and because we're double amazing, it is postage paid and I hope that the rest of the world is looking at this as a model that is easily replicable and not very corruptible. It is honest, it is accountable and we can do it. But if you are going to mail that prepaid ballot in, you have to drop it in the mailbox by Thursday the 14th so either mail by Thursday or vote by next Tuesday. Check the box for Sarah, I, Anna Rome. And really, no matter what happens this election as Portlanders or whatever city folks are watching and getting engaged on a problem that matters to you, your power in your voice are so important no matter what the issue is, that everybody just needs to stay in it despite the disappointment sometimes because our sustained engagement is really going to make a difference. Absolutely.
Speaker 4
Well, Sarah, thank you so much. This, this has been a pleasure, uh, to get to talk to you about, about the election and everything. I'm really, I'm really excited. I'm not, I'm not important now, uh, still here, but I'm, I'm hoping the next time I'm in the city, uh, that you will be, uh, the mayor, at least mayor elect, you know, cause they know it's, yeah, I know you're, you're not going to be, it's not until January if you yeah. Yeah. And, and with this one, if you get, if anyone gets less than 50%, and you have like two people, okay. Yeah. But if you get more than 50% then and like one, then there's, there will be no November elections if, if, if I'm understanding this right.
Speaker 2
It's just like a ballad. It just has my name on it or something. You know what I mean? It's a formality because you're the mayor elect for a really long time. But the most important thing is that no matter what, I mean I've kind of been baby marrying a lot. Right. I show up and get a lot of shit done. So we're just going to keep our head in the game on showing up and getting things done here in Portland. Cause that's what we gotta do.
Speaker 4
No, that, that is very true. You are definitely doing way more work than the current mayor, so that's fantastic. You're,
Speaker 2
you're killing it. I mean, I don't think he's watching this. He doesn't follow me. He doesn't follow me. Yeah. Yeah. He doesn't follow me when he doesn't know where the true talent lies is.
Speaker 4
That's, that's one of the reasons I'm like, you don't know what you're doing. You don't follow me on anybody on any platform. Yeah. Like, who, who is he? Who is he fan off? I need answers. I have no idea. Yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't think so. Yeah. No, I'm, um, uh, I mean, I, I, I hope you win. That's as much as I'm gonna say. Uh, I think you're, it's fantastic. And, uh, you have a great taste in comedy, obviously, which I appreciate. Yeah. So that's, that's fantastic. Well, I, people should go to your website and read through your plans. They're very thorough. They were so many details about everything. People don't need to Google anything, obviously. It's just everything is there.
Speaker 2
So it's actually kind of funny because if you're not a person who likes to listen to read through a fantastic policies, you can listen to a podcast. And even if you're not important and learn something and trying to poke your policymakers wherever you're living to a needle there,
Speaker 4
you definitely know what the youth are into because people don't want to read. Uh, so that's, that's good. And I mean like obviously some people, yeah, I mean, it helps everyone. Uh, so, uh, well, thank you. So any, do you have any closing remarks?
Speaker 2
I just, for the joy and the comedy, I have been so thankful. You know, someone I was doing a live stream earlier. We talked about the fact that my campaign is really colorful and engaging and that's on purpose. We need to get young people engaged. We need to be joyful. So keep bringing that politics to your comedy and keep bringing comedy to politics cause we need you. You're so important. I love your voice and thanks for everything you do. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Speaker 4
Bye bye. Okay, bye everyone. That's, that's been fun. I thought that would end after that was Sarah talking to Sarah. Uh, thank you so much everyone for joining. Please, please vote for Sarah. She's, she's amazing. As I, as I said, and I'll say that every day. Uh, this is funny thing is this has been my first Instagram live, so do not expect any, uh, informational Instagram live in the future. They're probably not going to be as beneficial as this one. This one was good. My futures, my future Instagram lives will not be as good. I promise you that. Uh, have a good night. Bye.
Speaker 2
This has been a production of friends of Sarah for Portland.
