Who’s Hot and Who’s Not in Oregon Politics: Gresham, Tobias Read, Mayor Hales

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Friday, May 22, 2015

Douglas Fasching, GoLocalPDX Contributor

Every Friday, GoLocalPDX breaks down who's rising and who's falling in the world of Oregon politics. Check out who made the lists this week

HOT:

Jake Weigler

Campaign consultant Jake Weigler notched another victory this week when first time (yet highly qualified) candidate Amy Kohnstamm defeated Bobbie Regan for the Zone 3 Director position on the Portland School Board. This campaign was no walk in the park. Not only was this was the most high profile school board race in Portland history with the two major candidates raising over $250,000 combined, but the opponent was a three-term incumbent with Mark Wiener in her corner. So if you want to win your next election, give Mr. Weigler a call. It's that simple. 

Joel Shapiro

We should all have Joel Shapiro's passion and drive. Mr. Shapiro has worked for a very long time behind the scenes leading the fight against sex trafficking in this state. Last week he got some much deserved attention as he was invited to be a presenter at the World Summit to End Sexual Exploitation. This event, hosted by the Carter Center and Rotary International, brought together policymakers and advocates to help vulnerable women and children around the world. Mr. Shapiro's leadership in shaping policy in this state earns him a spot in the Hot Column.

Gresham Mayor and City Council

What do the elected leaders of Gresham, the 4th largest city in Oregon, get paid? Trick question, because the answer is zero. That was the case until this week when voters approved 2 initiatives crafted by Mayor Shane Bemis and the City Council that set parameters for the officials to start earning a paycheck. Upon hearing of this, the Mayor of Salem was heard saying, "Wait, you can do this?"

NOT: 

Incumbents

This election showed that there was no advantage to currently occupying the seat you were running for. For example, Doug Montgomery lost his seat to Stephen Marc Beaudoin on the Multnomah Education Service District board, Diane Noriega lost her seat to Michael Calcagno on the Mt. Hood Community College board and Courtney Wilton lost his seat to Michael Sonnleitner on the Portland Community College board. Let this be a cautionary tale to future incumbents. Don't get lazy or complacent. The voters giveth and the voters taketh away.

Representative Tobias Read

The future State Treasurer got himself into a hot mess this week when he introduced HB 3555 that would suspend the estimated $473 million kicker rebate and divert the money to schools and to the state's rainy-day fund. Rep. Read does not make the Not Column because he is actively thwarting the will of the voters, which is bad enough, but rather he makes the column for introducing legislation that will go nowhere. This bill would need approval from 2/3 of the House AND the Senate to pass and that will never happen. The merits of the Kicker law should be debated, but there have got to be better ways to get the conversation started.

Mayor Charlie Hales

One-term Mayor Charlie Hales once again did the developers a solid this week when he proposed postponing an increase in the city parks fees for one year. Mayor Hales' proposed pushing them back to July 2016 to give builders more certainty because the increases would affect commercial and residential development costs. When asked how much these increased fees would impact them, a development spokesman said, "They would affect us because the amount of fees we pay would be further away from $0 which is the opposite of our goal."

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