Page 6
April 4, 2018
Photo by m ark W ashington J r ./t he P ortLand o bserver
Five candidates running for a future open seat on the Portland City Council appear at the March 24 candidates’ forum sponsored by Black Voices United at Maranatha
Church in northeast Portland. Pictured (from left) are Jo Ann Hardesty, Felicia Williams, Andrea Valderrama, Loretta Smith and Stuart Emmons.
Issues Raised at Black Voices Candidates’ Forum
b everLy C orbeLL
t he P ortLand o bserver
Editor’s note: The following
story is being repeated after it was
accidently cut short in last week’s
print issue. A correction was made
to comments on sanctuary cities
that appeared online and are now
properly attributed to the candi-
date who made them. We apolo-
gize for the errors.
A diverse group of candidates
running for a future open seat on
the Portland City Council voiced
their concerns during a March 24
Black Voices candidates’ forum
at Maranatha Church in northeast
by
Portland, advocating for change
on hot topic issues like homeless-
ness, gentrification and racism.
The five candidates, Andrea
Valderrama, Loretta Smith, Stuart
Emmons, Felicia Williams and Jo
Ann Hardesty, answered questions
posed by local moderator and civil
rights activist C.J. Robbins, in-
cluding their greatest concerns on
and why they were running for the
position No. 3 seat which will be
left vacant at the end of the year
with the political retirement of
current City Commissioner Dan
Saltzman.
Black Voices United, a start-up
community organization structure
striving to create new educational
and political spaces for the black
community, sponsored the forum,
which included an earlier session
for Multnomah County Commis-
sioner candidates.
Andrea Valderrama, a David
Douglas School District school
board member and current City
Hall staffer, said people may have
good ideas for combating home-
lessness and housing shortages,
but the City Council needs to
adopt workable funding measures.
“I understand how to address
these issues, not just to get good
ideas, but have the means to put
them into action and what type of
budget makes the most sense for
what type of action,” Valderrama
said. “Those are things I’ve al-
ready been working on.”
Stuart Emmons, a Portland ar-
chitect and community activist,
said he has been a housing advo-
cate for the last 20 years.
“We need someone with a suc-
cessful track record delivering
housing, and I am that candidate,”
Emmons said. “I will bring de-
cades of private sector experience
and actually getting projects built,
and not just talking about them.”
Loretta Smith, a current mem-
ber of the Multnomah County
Board of Commissioners, who
can’t run for re-election to her post
because of term limits, has thrown
her hat into the City Council race.
On creating more affordable hous-
ing in the city, Smith said she
wants to clean up polluted lots and
build homes on them.
“There is no question that hous-
ing is probably the most important
issue for folks living in Portland
and the state of Oregon. But there
are opportunities we can take if
we just push forward and be very
deliberate and intentional about
what we’re going to do.
“We have about 989 brown-
fields in this community, proper-
ties that need to be cleaned up,”
Smith said. “We can use those
to get mixed-use (buildings con-
structed) so more folks can get af-
fordable housing right here in this
inner city area.”
Smith said she also believes the
city should consider housing the
homeless in the long-empty and
never used Wapato Jail in north
Portland.
C ontinued on P age 15