Portland observer., May 06, 2020, Page 6, Image 6

Page 6
May 6, 2020
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Don’t Shoot Founder Runs for Mayor
Activist stands
out in field of 19
candidates
b everly c orbell
t he P ortland o bserver
After Teressa Raiford’s young nephew was
killed by gun violence in 2010, she moved
from Texas back to Portland, her hometown,
and became a community activist to demand
accountability for senseless gun deaths.
Raiford’s activism led to an invitation to
meet former First Lady Michelle Obama
at the White House. It was 2013. After vis-
iting with Mrs. Obama she followed up the
following year with the creation of the non-
profit Don’t Shoot Portland. By 2019, her
organization was one of the top human and
civil rights nonprofits in the city voted by a
Willamette Week reader’s poll.
Now Raiford is taking her activism a step
further and is running for mayor of Portland,
joining a field of 19 candidates, including in-
cumbent Mayor Ted Wheeler.
Raiford said she became disappointed
with Wheeler, the former State Treasurer and
Multnomah County Chair, soon after he took
the reins of Portland’s government, accusing
him of isolating himself in office and creating
an environment of distrust and dishonesty.
“We got somebody full of excuses that
picked allies so that he wouldn’t have to be
accountable or responsive to community
members,” Raiford said.
“My priority is to communicate with com-
munities, build civic participation and en-
gage them on issues that matter to us, so that
when outcomes happen people are part of the
planning process,” she said.
Raiford had a rough childhood growing
up in northeast Portland. She and her siblings
were in and out of often abusive foster and
group homes until they were adopted by her
grandmother, she said.
As an adult, she worked in low level jobs
at Nordstrom’s but moved to Dallas to get
away from domestic violence, she said, and
later found she had skills that were in de-
mand at a major bank.
“I was in sales support, generating calls,
and in six months I was the department man-
ager,” she said. “When they came in with a
new banking system, I picked it up fast and
moved on up into deregulated energy in busi-
ness services.”
After her unit was dissolved and she was
laid off, Raiford went into business for her-
self.
“I started my own company called Gene-
sis Mobile Tax, because I figured all this stuff
they were teaching me I could use to help
by
Photo by b everly c orbell /t he P ortland o bserver
Teressa Raiford, founder of Don’t Shoot Portland and candidate for mayor of Portland, says she got involved as an activist
candidate to bring change to Portland government, “We’re criminalizing poverty, we’re criminalizing brown people, we’re
criminalizing mentally ill and disable people and not doing anything about it,” she said.
other people,” she said.
Raiford said her entrepreneurial and prob-
lem-solving skills would serve Portland well
if she is elected.
“I love Portland and I love all our chil-
dren and want to give them opportunities,”
she said. “We haven’t given everybody those
opportunities and I want to be the leader that
makes that happen.”
The city is moving too fast creating “a
globalized city of technology people,” Rai-
ford said. “But if we’re building that city
on top of our vulnerable community mem-
bers, then we’re creating a crisis that we’re
living in right now and it’s only going to
get worse.”
Her concerns were expressed during an
interview with the Portland Observer ear-
ly last month before the devastating losses
of employment, the closing of schools, and
public health crisis brought on by the corona-
virus pandemic.
The city needs to do more to create jobs
that lead to stable incomes and stable hous-
ing, Raiford said, and, if elected, she wants
to do a complete survey of city services early
on in her term.
“In the first 100 days, I want to bring in
a team to audit the work that our bureaus
are doing through the mayor’s office so
we can see where those efficiency models
can be supported and where we’re lack-
ing in effective bridging or distribution of
resources, how we can compromise to do
better and what partners do we need to let
go,” she said.
Raiford said the city is doing too many
demolitions; that parks need more funding;
preschools should be better supported; and
the foster care system needs to be over-
c ontinued on P age 11