“Standing Tall for All of Portland”

Hi. I’m Steve Novick, and I’m running for Portland City Council.

I love this city. Even though I grew up in Oregon – in Cottage Grove – I barely saw Portland when I was a kid. But in the early ‘90’s, when I was working for the Federal Justice Department in Washington as an environmental lawyer, I brought a case against the Port of Portland for violations of the Clean Water Act. It was during a visit on that case that I looked around and realized that Portland was the place I wanted to call home.

I’m running because, like most Portlanders, although I love the city, I recognize its problems. Many of those are problems we share with the rest of the state and the country – but that doesn’t mean we can’t do more to solve them right here at home.

  • We don’t have enough jobs – and we sure don’t have enough good jobs.
  • Both families and employers – public sector and private sector – are being strangled by rising health care costs.
  • Our schools, once the pride of our city, have been battered by budget cuts for twenty years.
  • We pride ourselves on our progressivity but live in a context of unconscionable inequality. The economic divide between rich and poor, between white people and people of color, between the outer East Side with its miles of unpaved roads and the Pearl District with its gleaming streetcar, is staggering.
  • Our police are forced to operate in the context of a mixed-up State / county / city public safety "system" that spends too much on prisons and too little on prevention. One result of that, as Portland police officer Russell Brandt told the Oregonian, is that too often, “police end up being the first-responders to those in mental health crisis ... I don't think police are the best people to deal with them."

I’m running because I think city government could do more to meet these challenges.

I think it’s time to try a new strategy on jobs and economic development. One of the biggest problems employers and families face is rising health care costs. I propose that the City of Portland work with employers and unions, in both the public and private sectors, to adopt an innovative health care cost control plan that will give us a competitive advantage over other cities.

I think it’s time for a new relationship with Portland schools. It’s hard to exaggerate the hits Portland schools have taken in the past 20 years.

Portland can’t be a great city, and it can’t be economically competitive, without great schools. The city government can’t replace everything the schools have lost – but there are things we can do to strengthen them.

I think it’s time for a new approach on public safety.The public safety system is divided into pieces: the City has police, the County has the jail, the DA, community corrections (supervision of released offenders) and addiction and mental health treatment; the State has prisons, and provides some of the county’s money for community corrections.

I think that all three governments could create a more efficient and effective public safety system – a system that prioritizes prevention - by working much more closely together. I have some ideas on how we can start.

I think the City must have a stronger focus on equity. Last year, the Communities of Color Coalition released a stunning report outlining the huge gaps in income and education between communities of color and whites within Multnomah County.

I think that the ideas I mentioned above – a job creation strategy based on reducing health care costs; targeted investments in the schools; and a new deal on public safety – will, indirectly, help to alleviate inequality. But the city also needs to take more direct action on this score.

These obviously won’t be the only issues I will face as a City Commissioner. We’ll have a lot more to talk about. But I appreciate your reading this far. And I look forward to hearing your ideas for Portland out on the campaign trail. But please don’t wait for me to come to you!  If you have any ideas or want to share your priorities, contact me.  And please get involved with the campaign.  People power has always fueled every cause I have worked on, and this campaign is going be another example!

 -- Steve