City Council Entrance Interview: Moses Ross

Seeks to represent: District 4 (Westside, inner Southeast)

Age: 58

Pronouns: He/him

Job: Political consulting for Democrats

Fun fact: His go-to karaoke song is anything by Frank Sinatra.

Moses Ross’ grandparents immigrated from Mexico and worked in the fields of the mid-Willamette Valley. “They taught me that as parents, you do what is necessary to provide for your family and strive to ensure the American dream for your progeny and for your community,” he tells WW.

Ross, 58, says that lesson grew more resonant when his daughter’s mother moved to Utah and he became a single dad.

“I want my daughter to know that her father did all he could do to make Portland a better place and that one person can truly make a difference in their community,” he says.

For the past 22 years, Ross has operated Smart Voter Contact, a phone bank that provides voter outreach for Democratic Party candidates. He was also the chair of the Multnomah Neighborhood Association for three years.

He has received $40,000 in matching funds through the Small Donors Election program. Overall, his campaign has raised $61,000. He’s been endorsed by state Sen. James Manning (D-Eugene), the Independent Party of Oregon and the Oregon Progressive Party.

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

WW: What are your top three priorities if elected?

Moses Ross: It comes down to revitalization: community revitalization, economic revitalization and environmental revitalization. I’ve been proposing a Portland “clean and green” program, which is very similar to a very successful one done in Philadelphia last year, where we do a citywide effort to clean up and green up the city. When it comes to economic revitalization, it’s all about stimulating the arts and culture environment. I’m a proponent of the Portland State University plans for an entertainment center in South Portland. I have this vision of a greenway coming from South Portland, going down the Park Blocks, going across the river and hitting the Albina Vision Trust and going down along the Eastbank. When it comes to environmental revitalization, we have to embrace clean energy and transition to an electrical grid.

How would you support local businesses and foster economic growth in Portland?

We need an Office of Small Business specifically devoted to small businesses. Right now, we’re running against the national narrative of downtown not being a safe place to be, and we have to counter that narrative. We have to clean up the trash and clean up the graffiti in the downtown core to make it a thriving business environment again.

What aspects of the city’s current approach to drug use and overdose deaths do you support and what would you change?

We need more shelter space. We need more beds and addiction recovery programs. We have lost a sense of empathy for those that are going through these mental health challenges and addiction crisis challenges. We have to reestablish that sense of empathy for our fellow human beings. If we provide the shelter spaces, people will respond. Portland Street Response is going to be that liaison between the challenges on the street and the programs that we’ve developed to help them.

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

I do for the time being. I like the new negotiations that were made, giving the city options to get out of the agreement if JOHS is not communicating or complying with some of the aspects of it. We have to have much better scrutiny of the budgets that are going over to JOHS.

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

Dan Ryan or Carmen Rubio. I think they have been put in a situation where their values have been sorely tested, and I think that they have done the best they could.

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

We have to be ready for any negative response that folks might have. I don’t think it’s going to be as dramatic as people think, especially with the Harris-Waltz ticket. I think we’re going to see Trump lose by large enough margins where it’s going to be indisputable. I don’t think it requires a special task force.

How do you feel about the new structure of city government and ranked-choice voting?

I’m very excited. I served on the Multnomah County Charter Review Committee in 2015, and I championed the countywide campaign finance reform measure on the ballot. So I have a lot vested in this, in the sense that if my campaign can be successful, it will just prove my point of the need for the benefits of statewide and citywide campaign finance reform. Twelve other candidates in my district have qualified for matching funds from the city, but none of us have an advantage financially over the other. That means that they can’t outspend me. That means that it’s all about the strength of our arguments.

See the other Portland City Council Candidates here!

Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Moses Ross was the Chair of the Multnomah Neighborhood Association for three years. He was re-elected in 2020 and has been chair for eight years. WW regrets the error.