Rene Gonzalez – Portland City Council
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Portland needs a win!

Are you in it to win it?

Our once beautiful city is struggling in ways that were unfathomable a short time ago.

We are at an inflection point in the story of Portland. We cannot sit back idly and watch the city we love struggle without working to help solve its problems.

If you’re like us, you agree that rising crime, declining livability, and City Hall’s ineffective ideologically driven policies are ruining the city we used to proudly call home.

Priorities

HOMELESSNESS

We have a crisis of addiction and mental illness on our streets, not just affordable housing. Taking a hands-off approach to homelessness is not compassionate or progressive, it is dangerous and inhumane.

If elected, I will immediately:

  • Prioritize emergency shelter for the thousands of vulnerable unsheltered currently living in unsafe conditions on our streets while continuing to pursue permanent housing as our overall goal.
  • Work with the county to immediately step-up addiction and mental health services, followed by job training and other critical opportunities for the unsheltered.
  • Immediately relocate illegally parked RVs to safe locations in order to free up our public rights-of-way and allow for cleanup and restoration of a safe environment.
  • Clean up our parks, neighborhoods, and multi-use pathways so that they can be used safely by everyone again.

CRIME & PUBLIC SAFETY

Many of our neighborhoods have become too dangerous for our kids to play in parks or for our older residents to go for walks. Together we can make Portland safe and livable again while being responsive and accountable to the diverse local communities that define who we are and make Portland such a great place to live.

If elected, I will work to:

  • Establish a Municipal Court for misdemeanors and low-level offenses. This will allow us to break the revolving door cycle that currently paralyzes the system, allowing our public officials and bureaus to do their work more effectively
  • Immediately restore gun violence task force and other critical units – such as transit safety officers – that were cut before the recent spike in violent crime. It’s time to protect the most vulnerable among us
  • Change the unhelpful rhetoric coming out of City Hall. Unfortunately, my opponent chooses to frame local issues that ought to bring people together in polarizing terms that drive them apart. Voters can count on me to be a firm and constructive voice that balances the very real challenges of police reform with our ongoing public safety and health needs.
  • Focus on training, cultural competency, de-escalation, and building community trust – across ALL public safety departments. We’re in this together. Our approach to public safety should reflect this fundamental fact.

FAMILY WAGE JOBS AND
A STRONG MIDDLE CLASS

Our economic recovery should be built on a strong middle class. This means investing in ALL of Portland, not just downtown. It also means supporting trade unions that offer family wage jobs and excellent benefits, as well as apprenticeships program that provide a pathway to skilled employment in critical sectors serving the local economy.

If elected, I will work to:

  • Invest in small businesses – particularly those that are women and minority owned. Small business is the backbone of our economy and local communities throughout the city. They need investment and targeted opportunities with public dollars.
  • Incentivize people to choose and source locally. Local supply chains have shorter transportation costs and lower carbon footprints. The money also stays in the local economy 14 times longer than it does when shopping non-local.
  • Increase the number of projects in the pipeline and ensure public funds mandate the use of local union labor, and their apprenticeship programs. The Blumenauer Bridge was built non-union under PBOT. We much ensure that opportunities for our local workforce are never abandoned like this again.
  • Establish a permanent labor liaison in my office so that local unions have a voice and a seat at the table again in the policymaking process.