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<\/picture>A signature verification machine scans ballot envelopes at the Multnomah County election office in Portland, Ore., in this 2020 file photo.<\/p>\n
Kristyna Wentz-Graff \/ OPB<\/em><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Voters in Oregon\u2019s most populous county will select a new leader for the first time in eight years when they mark their ballots for the May 17 primary.<\/p>\n The race to replace outgoing Chair Deborah Kafoury, who is term limited from running again.<\/p>\n A 2019 file photo of Multnomah County Chair Deborah Kafoury.<\/p>\n Meerah Powell \/ OPB<\/em><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Kafoury\u2019s successor will take over at a time when Multnomah County faces emergencies on several fronts including navigating an exit from the lingering pandemic, bolstering a struggling local economy, addressing mounting concern over homelessness and sanitation, as well as providing support to those reeling from a widespread mental health and substance abuse crisis.<\/p>\n Three of the four candidates \u2013 Sharon Meieran, Lori Stegmann and Jessica Vega Pederson \u2013 are currently county commissioners. Each will continue to serve in their position for at least two years if voters do not select them for the top job, meaning they\u2019ll need to sell themselves as the strongest leader without damaging relationships to the point of losing their colleagues\u2019 votes and becoming ineffective.<\/p>\n The other prominent candidate, Gresham resident and Portland lawyer Sharia Mayfield, is the outsider. Mayfield said she\u2019s running to represent county residents who are fed up with a lack of visible progress in cleaning up streets and treating the wave of mental health and addiction problems the county is experiencing.<\/p>\n Although the race for county chair rarely draws as much attention as, say, races for Portland mayor, the three current commissioners may have to contend with a frustrated electorate. Polling conducted earlier this year on behalf of OPB suggests a majority of likely voters \u2014 as much as 75% in the Portland-metro area \u2014 believe Oregon is on the wrong track. They also consistently rank homelessness as the biggest issue facing the state.<\/p>\n Multnomah County\u2019s system of government has a clear structure when it comes to accountability: The chair of the board of county commissioners acts as chief executive, overseeing nearly 6,000 employees across seven departments and over 37 distinct offices dealing with transportation, land use, public health, food assistance, veterans services, Pre-K education, local elections and more. The county has a $2.8 billion budget with discretionary funding of more than $500 million.<\/p>\n In the four weeks remaining until the election<\/a>, each candidate will need to convince voters that their leadership style and approach to solving the emergencies facing the state\u2019s largest county represent the best path forward. Here\u2019s a look at their candidacies.<\/p>\n Multnomah County Commissioner Lori Stegmann is running for Multnomah County Chair.<\/p>\n Courtesy of Lori Stegmann \/ Lori Stegmann<\/em><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Stegmann <\/b>has represented east Multnomah County, from 148th Avenue to the Hood River County line, for six years. Before that she served as a Gresham City Councilor.<\/p>\n Stegmann is pitching a business-forward approach to provide \u201cwins\u201d for residents who the county has historically left behind. That includes low income families, immigrants, communities of color, and most people who live beyond 82nd Avenue.<\/p>\n Stegmann came to the United States as a child from Korea in the early 1960s as part of a movement started by Harry and Bertha Holt, two Oregonians who pioneered international adoption and led the charge in adopting more than 3,000 Korean children in America.<\/p>\n She said her background has cemented her appreciation of the opportunities her adoption provided as she recently watched scenes of war, turmoil and displacement in Ukraine.<\/p>\n \u201cIt has really hit home for me how important it is to have the privilege of being saved, and then taking that privilege and paying it forward,\u201d Stegmann said.<\/p>\n Stegmann said representing east county \u2014 including communities like Rockwood, Gresham and Troutdale \u2014 provides an opportunity to advocate on behalf of residents who see a stark contrast in the services and investments other areas of the county get.<\/p>\n In recent years, Stegmann has brought dollars to her district in the form of redevelopment projects. She advocated for the Vance Property Vision<\/a>, a plan to repurpose 90 acres at a former quarry in Gresham for county and community use.<\/p>\n She is the longtime owner-operator of a Farmers Insurance branch in Rockwood and a former member of Gresham\u2019s redevelopment commission. The connections and experience she\u2019s gained in those roles make her confident she can bring together interests of the business community and local government.<\/p>\n \u201cI can take my experience and expertise to scale, which means not only can I do these great things in the district that I live in and love, but I can do these kinds of things countywide,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Stegmann also recently led the charge to transfer four acres of county property<\/a> in Troutdale to Home Forward, an affordable housing developer that plans to build 100 apartments there.<\/p>\n She also wants to upscale a program called the Forensic Assertive Community Treatment team, a service the county contracts from mental health provider Cascadia Behavioral Health<\/a> which responds to acute, chronic emergencies playing out on the streets of communities across the county. Teams consist of psychiatrists, medical personnel, a criminal justice advocate and peer support.<\/p>\n Stegmann\u2019s idea to bolster the program would see 24\/7 staffing to help people in crises avoid potentially fatal interactions with law enforcement, much in the same way of what Portland Street Response<\/a> is doing, but for the entire county.<\/p>\n She said she\u2019s working with TriMet and the county sheriff\u2019s office to implement new de-escalation training for situations involving public transit and hopes to build up that work more aggressively as chair.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have to quit turning away from one another, and turn toward each other,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s many ways we can do that, behavioral health is one.\u201d<\/p>\n When asked why voters should give her a promotion, Stegmann said she thinks the county\u2019s done some great work since she was elected. She points to a record of \u201celevating marginalized voices\u201d as the reason voters should choose her..<\/p>\n \u201cThe best thing a leader can do is listen,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is about collective and distributive power.\u201d<\/p>\n Sharon Meieran, candidate for Multnomah County Chair.<\/p>\n Screenshot from votesharon.com \/ OPB<\/em><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Meieran is an emergency physician at Kaiser Permanente. She represents all of Multnomah County west of the Willamette River, as well as Portland\u2019s inner southeast side.<\/p>\n She won her seat on the county board in 2016, and was reelected in 2020.<\/p>\n Meieran said she will prioritize pandemic recovery and tackling public health crises such as mental health and addiction.<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t have to look very far to see that we\u2019re failing, and that people are living on the street in horrific conditions,\u201d Meieran said. \u201cWe\u2019re the local mental health authority. It\u2019s our role and responsibility to coordinate and oversee that we have functional systems.\u201d<\/p>\n She said her volunteer work with Portland Street Medicine<\/a> \u2014 a nonprofit that delivers medical care directly to homeless individuals \u2014 gives her a front seat to witness the ramifications extreme poverty, substance abuse and co-occurring mental health diseases are having on the county.<\/p>\n Meieran has two immediate goals to immediately address homeless and mental health should she become county chair. The first is to create \u201chamlets\u201d \u2014 or small villages \u2014 in each of Portland\u2019s approximately 100 neighborhoods that include up to 10 individual shelter structures, such as tiny homes or sleeping pods. There would also be congregate bathrooms, showers, hand wash stations, garbage and laundry services.<\/p>\n The second is safe parking sites for people to sleep inside their vehicles placed strategically throughout the county.<\/p>\n \u201cI meet with and hear from people regularly who are living outside. This is what they say that they would want,\u201d she said. \u201cA lot of people for valid reasons don\u2019t want to go into sort of your big, typical homeless structure.\u201d<\/p>\n Meieran said her experiences in the ER and ability to triage the county\u2019s priorities puts her at an advantage when it comes to responding to these emergencies quickly.<\/p>\n Meieran said she\u2019s the only one currently on the board who has \u201cconsistently spoken out and offered an alternative plan.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s challenging. It\u2019s a difficult place for me to be,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n In January, Meieran responded to a survey by Willamette Week asking candidates to grade Kafoury\u2019s work on homelessness. She gave her colleague a \u201cD.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cNone of my colleagues actually gave a grade, and sort of gave vague answers. I would point to the fact that the chair is the key role of the county,\u201d Meieran said.<\/p>\n Meieran has been known, on occasion, to disagree with her colleagues<\/a> on budget and policy decisions. Last year, she offered up a six-month plan that reimagined how the county addresses homelessness.<\/p>\n She was the only vote to approve hers, and voted against the majority plan<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe chair oversees the department heads and sets the budget. Commissioners come in at the end and we kind of tweak things, but the chair has the power,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n When asked why she should be promoted if she hasn\u2019t been able to effect the change she preaches from her position as commissioner, Meieran said that being the person who criticizes the majority and pushes for change makes it hard to actually get plans passed.<\/p>\n She describes herself as a \u201cdisrupter.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut I\u2019m also someone who brings people together with differing views,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m actually a bridge builder. I have excellent relationships with Metro, at our Legislature and in our federal delegation.\u201d<\/p>\n She said her plan focuses on a \u201charm reduction\u201d approach informed by her work on the streets administering medical care to people with lived experience.<\/p>\n \u201cI speak as someone who has actually stood up and said, \u2018we need to do things differently,\u2019 and been challenged on that,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019d like the opportunity to lead.\u201d<\/p>\n Jessica Vega Pederson, candidate for Multnomah County Chair.
<\/p>\n Courtesy of Jessica Vega Pederson \/ Jessica Vega Pederson<\/em><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Vega Pederson said she believes her work as a commissioner has already made a big impact on improving the lives of Multnomah County residents. She wants to expand the footprint of her work by leading the whole county.<\/p>\n She represented East Portland in the Oregon House from 2013 to 2015, then won a seat on the county board in 2016. She was reelected to represent a large swath of Southeast and Northeast Portland in 2020.<\/p>\n She said she\u2019s particularly proud of her work helping to create the local ballot measure taxing high earners to establish universal preschool in Multnomah County in 2020. The program just opened applications<\/a> to 670 children ages 3 and 4 for the upcoming school year.<\/p>\n \u201cI wanted to make sure that we were putting a system in place that served kids well, and that really supports the workers in that industry,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is a really critical time at Multnomah County, and we need a chair who has the kind of experience to take on these major challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n One of her biggest worries is about climate change\u2019s impact on low income families and communities of color, such as the effects of wildfire smoke and deadly heat events. She says as chair she\u2019d work to ensure the county meets its goal of shifting the community\u2019s energy needs to renewable sources by 2035, and by 2050 have 100% of the county\u2019s energy portfolio in renewables.<\/p>\n Vega Pederson said she will lead on that issue by continuing to bring together stakeholders from a variety of sectors such as manufacturing, transportation and energy so the county can meet that goal sooner.<\/p>\n She\u2019s also concerned about housing and homelessness. She said she wants to help site new shelters and projects, but also work with local communities to get buy in. Locating new shelters has been a challenge for county leaders; property owners in the Central Eastside recently sued the county<\/a> over plans for a shelter there.<\/p>\n Her plan is to convene meetings with neighborhood associations, school districts and businesses to let them lead the conversation on how the county can most effectively spend homeless services dollars, as well as boost programs that help families struggling with housing.<\/p>\n Vega Pederson wants voters to understand how much influence the county chair has in social, public safety and justice programs run by Multnomah County. In reality, she said, the chair is CEO.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s why this is such a critical election,\u201d she said. \u201cWe need a strong, proven leader who\u2019s able to step into the job of running the third largest government, and, on day one, tackle the work of addressing the complex issues that the county faces.\u201d<\/p>\n Vega Pederson acknowledges the county isn\u2019t where it should be on top issues. She commended the hard work of county employees, especially those in the Joint Office of Homeless Services, but said there\u2019s a lot more work to be done.<\/p>\n \u201cTo adequately address the solutions for those things is going to require that strong coordination with the federal government,\u201d she said. \u201cThere hasn\u2019t been as good of coordination as there should have been between the city, the county and Metro to really address these issues effectively, and I think that\u2019s why people are feeling frustrated.\u201d<\/p>\n She said her approach to leading the county will focus on increasing collaboration between all levels of government, as well as advocating for more resources and support from state and federal leadership.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m the only candidate in this race with a proven record of achieving impactful policies at both the state and the local levels,\u201d she said. \u201cI collaborate, work diligently, and I get results.\u201d<\/p>\n Sharia Mayfield is running as an outsider to county government, and she says she\u2019ll take a hard-nosed approach to issues facing Multnomah County.<\/p>\n Courtesy of Sharia Mayfield \/ Lori Stegmann<\/em><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Mayfield is running as an outsider to county government, and she says she\u2019ll take a hard-nosed approach to issues facing Multnomah County on behalf of frustrated residents who feel like there\u2019s no progress on key issues.<\/p>\n She has some aggressive views on how to better serve people living on the streets, and isn\u2019t afraid of controversial proposals that would see those who won\u2019t accept help pushed to receive it. She\u2019s also gung-ho about improving conditions for residents and businesses overwhelmed by unsanitary and unsafe conditions.<\/p>\n Mayfield is a civil rights and labor attorney with Meyer Stephenson law firm in Portland and teaches privacy law at Willamette University. Her interest in civil rights and public service stems, she said, from her father, Portland lawyer Brandon Mayfield<\/a>, who was wrongfully detained based on a faulty fingerprint match implicating him in the 2004 Madrid train bombing.<\/p>\n \u201cOur lives were essentially ruined at that time,\u201d she said. \u201cMy dad was facing a potential shipment to Guantanamo Bay, torture and a death penalty.\u201d<\/p>\n After law school, Mayfield worked for U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden on national security policy. She said her work helped curtail the federal government\u2019s surveillance powers within the Patriot Act.<\/p>\n Mayfield said she wants to be county chair because she feels the county isn\u2019t doing enough about the \u201cvisible livability crisis.\u201d She also believes the current \u201chousing first\u201d<\/a> policies embraced by local leaders aren\u2019t working. Her message is similar to the stances taken recently by the group People for Portland<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018Housing first\u2019 may seem like an OK idea in theory, but in reality the amount of cost that goes into that is completely unfeasible,\u201d she said. \u201cThe crisis is an intersection of homelessness, garbage, crime, drug addiction and mental health. And unless we address all of those concurrently, we\u2019re not going to find solutions to these problems.\u201d<\/p>\n She plans to work with Metro, Portland and neighboring counties to get at the root causes, which she identifies as mental health and addiction.<\/p>\n Mayfield said the county needs to implement mandatory treatment for mental health and addiction. She said that would start with building \u201cdual diagnosis centers\u201d throughout the county and getting people in front of judges to be civilly committed into new \u201cfree, easy and accessible\u201d programs.<\/p>\n She also wants to enforce camping bans with the intent of improving livability through sanitation efforts and increased public safety patrolling.<\/p>\n Mayfield describes her work in the areas of civil commitment and criminal law as the expertise that is missing in county government right now.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen there\u2019s only one voice dominating the conversation, we\u2019re not going to find solutions,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t feel like everyone\u2019s being listened to.\u201d<\/p>\n One of her first actions, she said, would be to identify sanctioned areas for camping. She said she\u2019s already found at least 60 sites that could potentially be used for camps and services.<\/p>\n She acknowledges her stance draws the ire of certain homeless advocates and groups opposed to camp sweeps, but that has not deterred her. She said she believes the county also needs better data on the number of people experiencing homelessness, that there\u2019s likely upwards of 20,000 people living on the county\u2019s streets. The county\u2019s most recent count took place at the beginning of 2019, finding there were just over 4,000 people experiencing some level of homelessness.<\/p>\n Mayfield pledges to update point in time counts by issuing them on a more regular basis to get a better handle on the need for dollars and services.<\/p>\n \u201cI am unequivocally committed to ending illegal street camping in tandem with humane, compassionate alternatives,\u201d she said. \u201cThese people need laundry services, they need toilets, they need showers, they need basic ability to get clean.\u201d<\/p>\n She said that she\u2019ll take ideas from places like Lane County and Salem, where safe sleep sites have been built that offer the type of services she\u2019s pitching and pair amenities with outreach and bolstered case work.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s not going to be a perfect solution,\u201d she said. \u201cWe need to start damage control. That is what I\u2019m trying to push for immediately. We just have to start controlling the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n Two other candidates <\/b>are on the ballot for Multnomah County chair: Bruce Broussard<\/a>, a frequent candidate for local offices; and former Gresham school board candidate Joe Demers<\/a>. Broussard has $140 cash on hand according to data filed with the Oregon Secretary of State\u2019s office, while Demers has yet to file any campaign finance reports.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"Multnomah](\"https:\/\/opb-opb-prod.cdn.arcpublishing.com\/resizer\/Z5oUxLs5_RYzZE7kBSogW1__szk=\/150x0\/smart\/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com\/opb\/QEU6BRNWUNHNLGEWDXEEEOKSX4.jpg\")
<\/picture>Lori Stegmann<\/h2>\n
![\"Multnomah](\"https:\/\/opb-opb-prod.cdn.arcpublishing.com\/resizer\/vU9o1lOkeAPYkuzfUR1-l_gPdoM=\/150x0\/smart\/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com\/opb\/ZANNP4DXDRDU7LGCNK6BJLEEKI.jpg\")
<\/picture>Sharon Meieran<\/h2>\n
![\"Sharon](\"https:\/\/opb-opb-prod.cdn.arcpublishing.com\/resizer\/86wAnEwnPNKcdxNrfKr6eabYYXQ=\/150x0\/smart\/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com\/opb\/IHENJBJELRE4VCWPYEEFXXGWLI.png\")
<\/picture>Jessica Vega Pederson<\/h2>\n
![\"Jessica](\"https:\/\/opb-opb-prod.cdn.arcpublishing.com\/resizer\/RLLbGgaX3CG6tTyAHizoOHurtu4=\/150x0\/smart\/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com\/opb\/EBKKO6KUWNFEPBUOVBZ3FYYQL4.jpg\")
<\/picture>Sharia Mayfield<\/h2>\n
![\"Sharia](\"https:\/\/opb-opb-prod.cdn.arcpublishing.com\/resizer\/kbGcDanX6frPSQmnXTYTeDn1ysg=\/150x0\/smart\/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com\/opb\/URP3RHHO5ZHI3L2JOBXVOP5BSA.jpg\")
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