On January 2, Portland’s newly elected city council convened to select its council president.
Many expected that role to go to Candace Avalos, a former charter commissioner and key architect of Portland’s new governance system. However, after nine rounds of voting, Avalos narrowly lost to Elana Pirtle-Guiney.
In Episode 10 of Stump Talk, Avalos and her District 1 colleague Jamie Dunphy reflect on the vote and what was at stake.
For Candace Avalos and Jamie Dunphy, the council’s leadership choice was a missed opportunity to signal City Hall’s commitment to East Portland.
“This first vote was symbolic because it represented the direction we wanted the leadership of the council to take,” says Avalos, who was nominated for the presidency by District 4’s Mitch Green, who later shifted his vote to Pirtle-Guiney to deliver the council from deadlock.
“In my opinion, we spent a lot of time talking about what the council president would do for us as city councilors, and not enough about what they would do for the people of Portland,” Avalos adds.
Avalos and the five councilors who initially backed her—Dunphy, Green, Kanal, Koyama Lane, and Morillo—believed an Avalos presidency was the logical extension of a reform process largely aimed at increasing representation for the historically marginalized neighborhoods she serves in District 1.
“Candace was absolutely the right person,” says Dunphy, whose resume includes serving as a staffer to former City Commissioner Nick Fish. “I really wanted to see the first council president come from District 1. I’m sad that’s not going to happen.”
“It’s always going to be messy.”
Avalos’ candidacy, however, proved divisive—even within District 1. Her fellow district representative, Loretta Smith, was the councilor who nominated Elana Pirtle-Guiney (D2) after previously supporting Olivia Clark (D4), who had tied with Avalos in two earlier rounds.
Although Smith did not present specific arguments against Avalos, she described Pirtle-Guiney—a former staffer for Governor Kate Brown and communications director for the labor union AFL-CIO—as a compromise candidate who would listen to all council members. Ultimately, seven councilors cast their votes for Pirtle-Guiney: Clark, Green, Novick, Pirtle-Guiney, Ryan, Smith, and Zimmerman.
While Avalos and Dunphy admit they are disappointed, both are quick to note that there are no hard feelings.
“We ended up with a leader that we all have confidence in,” Avalos says. “That’s what Portlanders care about, and that’s what I care about.”
Dunphy echoes the sentiment and adds that while the first vote may not have come easily, it demonstrated the council’s ability to “disagree without being disagreeable.”
“It’s always going to be messy. You know, they refer to law-making as sausage-making. It’s something you don’t want to see,” he says, “but sausage-making in public is actually a good thing. It’s good for people to understand where we come from and how we approach these things.”
We’ll be back—a little sooner than usual!
At Rose City Reform, we generally try to spare your mailbox. But we might be back with another podcast within the week. We think it will be worth it: we’re bringing back the City Hall reporters who kicked off our first podcast in September, in what is still our most downloaded episode.
Stay tuned for more analysis of what is proving to be a very eventful first month in office for the new government.
Stumptalk is edited and produced by Jon Garcia of Lake Productions.
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