Aretha Franklin’s
Powerful Legacy
‘City
of
Roses’
Volume XLVII • Number 33
Funeral services
planned for
undisputed
‘Queen of Soul”
See story, page 2
Family
Holds PSU
Accountable
Pushes for
disarming force;
firing officers
See Local News, page 3
www.portlandobserver.com
Wednesday • August 22, 2018
Established in 1970
Committed to Cultural Diversity
by D anny P eterson /t he P ortlanD o bserver
Jo Ann Hardesty, the front-runner for a seat on Portland City Council, briefs her campaign staff on Saturday before they head out for door-to-door canvassing from her
campaign headquarters at the Filipino American Association at 8917 S.E. Stark St.
by D anny P eterson
t he P ortlanD o bserver
There wasn’t a minute to waste as Port-
land City Council Candidate Jo Ann Hard-
esty greeted supporters and reached out to
voters. The frontrunner to become the first
African American female city commis-
sioner was fully engaged in her signatory
boots-on-the-ground activist mode.
Meeting at the Bipartisan Café, just
down from her campaign headquarters in
southeast Portland, Hardesty had the phone
to her ear. She thanked a union representa-
tive who had just given her their endorse-
ment. Another endorsement is delivered
in person when a woman running for the
State Legislature canvassing in the same
neighborhood stops in to greet her. Hard-
esty then finds a moment to turn to an el-
derly man who was sitting next to her at
the cafe, making sure he got the sandwich
Focused
on
Issues
Hardesty’s boots-on-the-ground campaign
he ordered.
“You come in here an awful lot,” the
man told her. “You must be the governor
by now.”
“Not yet,” Hardesty quipped. “I’m just
running for a little small post like Portland
City Council.”
The man listens intently as Hardesty
answers my reporter questions while also
keeping the potential voter in her orbit.
As the decisive May Primary winner for
a position currently occupied by retiring
City Commissioner Dan Saltzman, Hard-
esty is running confidently. Her optimism
shows just as it had the night before at a
Race Talks Forum which also featured
Hardesty’s opponent, Multnomah County
Commissioner Loretta Smith.
Hardesty, 60, a former state representa-
tive from Portland from 1995 to 2000, and
a longtime grassroots political activist and
former president of the Portland NAACP,
has centered her campaign on four main
platforms: Housing and homelessness,
green jobs, police accountability, and ac-
cess to local government.
On her point to make entering politics
C ontinueD on P age 4