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Portland Commissioner Steve Novick and challenger Chloe Eudaly approach the November general election for Portland City Council with vastly different financial resources.
Novick, who first won election in 2012, has about $88,000 in his campaign account, according to filings with the state. Eudaly, owner of Reading Frenzy bookstore, has less than $6,000 on hand—an unusually low amount for a candidate trying to unseat an incumbent.
Don't expect this race to come down to fundraising alone. Do expect that money—and moneyed interests—will be a major theme of Eudaly's campaign.
On Tuesday night, the candidates met for an informal debate sponsored by City Club of Portland at The Slide Inn bar and restaurant in Southeast Portland, where Eudaly attempted to portray Novick as cozy with big business and wealthy donors who can write big checks to support his campaign.
This is not the easiest needle to thread.
Novick has accepted significant contributions from businesses that are potentially responsible for paying to clean up the polluted Willamette River. He's taken money from Airbnb, although it flouts city rules. But he also has a decades-long track record as a reliable lefty with deep ties to organized labor.
Eudaly made her case against Novick last night while addressing his Aug. 10 vote to support a proposal by developer Homer Williams to turn city property in industrial Northwest Portland into a temporary homeless shelter. Novick voted in the majority, allowing the project to go forward.
Eudaly decried that decision Tuesday night, saying that the site "is not an appropriate place for human habitation" and that a wealthy developer had been allowed to circumvent public process to get approval for his endeavor. Williams is seeking private donations to fund the project.
"We are not in a position to look a gift horse in the mouth," Novick said, defending his vote.
Last month, Eudaly criticized Novick for taking $2,000 from Williams before his Aug. 10 vote. (Novick countered by saying he'd also taken money from donors who don't support the project.)
Eudaly also plugged a proposal from Commissioner Amanda Fritz to spend Portland money on city council campaigns by creating a matching fund for small donations, a move that advocates say will amplify individual voters' voices.
"We need to stop letting moneyed corporate interests run our city," Eudaly told Tuesday's crowd of about 100 people, before later noting that Novick had declined her invitation to join her by limiting campaign spending in his campaign.
Novick never responded directly to Eudaly's criticisms, which were far more muted and polite than anything voters are seeing on the national stage. The one-hour debate was far from fiery. It may even be a stretch to call it a debate.
As is his custom, Novick threw out a number of policy positions he wants to pursue if re-elected to buttress his progressive bonafides. That list included old standbys from the Novick camp, including the idea of prohibiting what he called "abusive scheduling" of low-wage workers' hours. He pitched his idea for a CEO tax.
He said he hoped to draft a city rule that would allow people who own unreinforced masonry buildings—those most at risk of collapse in a big earthquake—to sell their air rights to developers at other locations, if the building owners agree to put the proceeds into retrofitting or rebuilding their properties.
He also said he wanted grocery stores like New Season to post information about how much energy went into producing food on their shelves so shoppers could see the "carbon content" of lentils versus red meat, for example.
Willamette Week