City Council Entrance Interview: Stan Penkin

Pronouns: He/him

Seeks to represent: District 4 (westside)

Job: Retired construction consultant

Fun fact: He’s been to every continent except Antarctica.

Stan Penkin never dreamed of running for Portland City Council. But he’s fallen in love with Portland over the two decades he’s lived here, and he wants to take the next step in caring for his city.

“When discussing running with my family, my oldest granddaughter said to me, ‘Pop Pop, this is your career [exclamation point],’” he tells WW.

Since moving from New York City to the Pearl District in 2003, Penkin, 80, has served on numerous boards and committees, including as president of Oregon Children’s Theatre, the Pearl District Neighborhood Association and the West Side Public Safety Action Coalition, which created multiple committees to explore collaborative ways to improve safety (it became inactive last year due to volunteer attrition).

He is also the co-founding chair of HomeShare Oregon, a nonprofit that helps match people with empty rooms.

“We’re helping to prevent homelessness before it starts. We need to support organizations like us who are tapping into existing inventory to find affordable housing for people,” he tells WW. “It’s for those who may be a paycheck away from being homeless.”

Penkin has received $40,000 in matching campaign funds from the Small Donors Election program. Overall, he’s raised $85,000. He’s been endorsed by former Portland Mayor Sam Adams, who is currently running for the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners); Paul King, co-founder of dance presenter White Bird; and all of the city commissioners except Mayor Ted Wheeler.

We spoke to Penkin about his campaign. Questions and answers have been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.

WW: What are your top three priorities if elected?

Stan Penkin: My first priority is making sure we have a functioning City Council. We need to have a functioning government to rebuild trust and confidence in our city. I would put my priorities under having a vibrant community, so prioritizing homelessness and housing reserves, everybody’s public safety, which is very much related to our homelessness issue, and the revitalization of downtown.

We need to bring people back. We need to bring tourists back. It’s vital to our economy to have a thriving downtown.

Is the city doing enough to bring back downtown and economic development? If not, what should it be doing that it’s not?

I give the city credit for trying. We have to help incentivize small businesses with tax credits. It’s my understanding that the tax credits apply to businesses with 15 or more employees. It should also apply to businesses with fewer employees. In addition, the city should work with property owners to develop a plan to provide rental and tenant improvement subsidies to jump-start and incentivize the activation of vacant spaces, which is needed to revitalize our central core.

A real key to bringing back our city will be using arts and culture as a catalyst. We have [a plan to renovate the] Keller Auditorium, which I support. We’re very close to having a James Beard Public Market downtown.

Beyond policing, what measures would you take to improve public safety in Portland neighborhoods?

We need to better connect the police to our communities. At the Pearl District Neighborhood Association, we had a monthly public safety report, where representatives from the Police Bureau would come talk to the community. That there should be storefronts in each district where police can go to do their paperwork, and people can come and meet them.

Right now, police training happens in Salem. I think we need to create that training here where we can train them specifically for the needs of our city.

We need to expand the public safety support specialists program, which can take some of the burden off of the administrative work of our officers. We need an expanded Portland Street Response that can be 24/7 and get people into services rather than just giving them a bottle of water and a candy bar.

Do you support the city staying in the Joint Office of Homeless Services? What’s your plan to address homelessness?

I do support it, but there has to be a set of metrics and a set of outcomes that shows that the $30 million we’re putting in as a city is having an effect.

I really support the development of safe rest villages and the larger temporary alternative shelter sites like the Clinton Triangle. Those tiny home villages have shown some success in getting people into permanent housing, as opposed to the county shelters, which are congregate shelters that people don’t want to go to. I think we need to continue to build those tiny home facilities, but we have to provide the wraparound services, and we need to obviously put more money into detox facilities and transitional housing.

Would you change the Portland Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund?

No, it was designated for climate-related projects, and that’s where it should stay. If we were to start digging into that for a specific budget shortfall in a bureau, it sets a precedent that other other entities will want to start digging into it.

Which current City Council members do you and your policies most align with?

I work with all of them, and all four commissioners endorsed me. I’m aligned with all of them to one extent or another. I can’t pick out one.

How do you want police to respond to the riots in November if Trump wins?

I know that the police are preparing for potential riots. I want to see them respond with restraint, and the problem in those situations is, how do you distinguish between the protesters and people who are just there as innocent bystanders or protesting peacefully? I certainly want to see the police have restraint and only act when they absolutely have to.

What motivated you to run for City Council?

It hasn’t been my lifelong ambition to be in office, but I love the city. I’ve been so deeply committed in my 21 years since moving from New York. I’ve been involved in many aspects of community service, from my neighborhood, livability, public safety, advocacy, my work on homelessness, my work in the arts, leadership in the arts, I’ve been doing so many things that this feels like a natural progression for me.

See the other Portland City Council Candidates here!