@TianaTozer
I would never throw trans people under the bus to earn a vote from a transphobe. I wouldn’t do it for all the votes necessary to clinch a seat. Transphobia is a scourge and I repudiate it in the strongest terms possible, and I think most people in D4 agree with me on this.
We should stop outsourcing critical city functions to contractors and instead bring that work in house, where we can build administrative capacity, make more efficient use of our public dollars, actually execute to mission, and create good union jobs.
Rene is a conservative who has worked to get anti-LGBTQ+ extremists elected to school boards across the state, he's abused the public trust, his only contribution is trying and failing to destroy PSR. Don't rank Rene.
There's a lot to gain by pushing a false "Downtown is Dead and in Shambles" narrative: favorable tax treatment for business and roll back on progressive values. But, it's just not true: Downtown office leasing is outpacing the suburbs. Let the evidence guide us, folks.
I'm calling for immediate ceasefire resolutions from both city and county governments. As a veteran, I can't see Aaron Bushnell's sacrifice as anything but a measure of inaction and complacency at all levels of government in the face of genocide. This must end now.
In the next few weeks, I'll be expanding my website with the issues that I'm running on, but for now I wanted to say that I'm in this because I believe the public sector can take a decisive lead in ensuring that we live with abundance around us. Not scarcity. No more zero-sums
This is an example of what prompted me to run for city council. We've got a situation where the structures and systems we have today, as a product of past investment, are no longer calibrated to the urgency of the moment. But, we don't throw up our hands: we invest again.
Due to excessive heat, all MAX trains are running no faster than 35 mph to reduce heat-related mechanical issues. Expect up to 15-30 minute delays.
Please plan extra time and check before traveling.
This is great news. Now, you're going to hear from the pro-hungry kids caucus that there's no such thing as a free lunch, and that this will cost taxpayers. But, the public *already* bears the costs of having hungry kids in school. This is an investment that benefits all of us.
I’m going to be the first Portland City Council member to also be a season ticket holder for our WNBA team. I believe it’s important to get in on the ground floor of a winning team. You can do the same by donating $5 to my campaign 👇
Extremely disappointed to learn that Prosper Portland (our development commission) voted to sell city land to Live Nation for its bid to destroy the independent arts scene in Portland. Two economic demerits in one vote.
Extremely excited to receive top billing for the
@portlandmercury
D4 endorsement. Proud day for Team Mitch. Thanks for not betting against Portland, Merc. Looking forward to fighting for the city we deserve.
Here’s the thing I like about Walz: he isn’t afraid to say that good things are good. Unapologetically. And then put the onus on the opposition to explain why being against good things isn’t just weird behavior. That’s been too rare for too long and we’ve suffered for it.
Setting aside the Trumpian rhetoric here, it's just not a claim supported by the facts. Virtually all in and out county movers are producers. The people leaving who are "fleeing" taxes are households who make an Adj Gross Income of $104k, well below the preschool tax burden. 1/n
@carmelitapdx
.
@CommissionerRG
says rich people are producers and unhoused people don’t produce.
Cries about the plight of rich people having to pay taxes.
That people are giving birth to babies on tarps outside is a gross policy failure. But make no mistake: the failure runs back decades as we have systematically underinvested in a robust public sector led social safety net. The only way to fix this is by building that safety net.
At my launch I closed my speech with the appeal that while things feel bleak in politics, we can still win the future we deserve if we build a united front between labor, climate, youth, and renters movements. This is what
@PortlandDSA
is about and it's why I'm a proud member.
🚨Endorsement Alert 🚨
Elect
@mitch4portland
to Portland City Council District 4 ✅
Mitch is a union member, energy economist, and longtime member of DSA ✊
Donate:
I have picked up a lot of new followers today, so I'm going to tap this sign. If you want to see me in city hall, please kick in $5. I'm up against people who support Rene's agenda and have a lot of cash. But, we can stop them if we get organized.
This is why we need social housing with tenant unions as part of its governance structure. We can do better with our public money than whatever this is.
As Portland rolls out an ambitious plan to build tens of thousands of new affordable housing units over the next 20 years, housing experts question whether the city is capable of keeping developers in check.
A recent example that's given them reason to:
The thing about Grievance Politics is that it's very thin and only provides a temporary feeling of satisfaction for those with the grievance, but it doesn't fix anything. Grievance politics can't build institutions, it can only tear them down. Meanwhile, we have serious problems.
Rene is a conservative who has worked to get anti-LGBTQ+ extremists elected to school boards across the state, he's abused the public trust, his only contribution is trying and failing to destroy PSR. Don't rank Rene.
Team Mitch is also excited to earn a ranking from the
@wweek
this morning. It's true, we're running to the left in D4 (open socialist here 👋), because we believe there're voters here who want a movement candidate in city hall. If that's you, rank me
#1
on your ballot 📝
I’m so excited to earn the endorsement of the Oregon Working Families Party. I’m running on the idea that Portlanders still believe we can do big things, but we need bold leadership to move our values into action. As an economist for the working class I’m ready to fight for you.
I'm running for council because I'm tired of the cynics who spend their time tearing Portland down, while kicking real solutions to our problems down the road.
My goal is to get 100 new small donors to my campaign by the end of the week. Can you help?
The lesson for me is that a couple rich men would rather get together and crowdfund a campaign that tears down our city, creating a narrative that Portland isn’t a place to visit, rather than spend any of that wealth building it up. And then hope for tax cuts on the back end.
"They increased chaos and cynicism at a time when we needed, and still need, to lift one another up."
After 3 years, sharp-elbowed advocacy group People for Portland closes shop
via
@jrlsilverman
Inspired by my friend
@TeacherTiff4PDX
who refused to throw her fellow workers under the bus and instead continues to stand up for the public schools we deserve. She’s a fighter and I can’t wait to work with her on city council.
Seeing a lot of campaign signs in the public right of way. That’s illegal. Pisses me off more when it’s campaigns I like. The public trust is on thin ice, folks. Please don’t throw kettlebells on that ice.
We should be fully funding Portland Street Response. Full stop. This is a critical program that, along with building up bike & pedestrian infrastructure, keeps our cities safe and connected. Arguably the biggest no-brainer.
When it’s clear on election night that Rene’s Make Portland Great Again gambit isn’t turning into the numbers he needs to win, he’s going to tweet out ‘Stop the Steal.’ Calling it now.
It should raise alarm bells that a mayoral candidate/ team threatened libel against a journalist for doing his job.
The role of a free press is to hold power to account—officials don’t get to decide what official acts the press tells the public about.
Props to
@shanedkavanaugh
Bizarre to go on the radio and brag about being against the teachers strike during a heat wave in which parents are told, “Sorry, your kids don’t get to learn as much today because it’s too hot and we never bothered to put AC in these classrooms 🤷♂️.” A demand of the union no less
Receiving some feedback on my volunteer praise post that I have a lot of support from 20-somethings and ... that somehow how that is bad? It's good actually that young people are excited in a political campaign. They have a long future at stake! It means I'm doing things right.
The Oregonian refused to even interview the only 2 candidates endorsed by Portland DSA — despite their status as the top recipients of small-donor dollars in D3 & D4
(and it’s clear why!)
Read more:
First 100 degree in September since 1988. Third one since WW2. Expect this frequency to pick up as we march through time. Why does this matter? Because we haven’t built for this frequency. Fortunately we have the Portland Clean Energy fund to make climate resiliency investments.
Team Mitch HQ is open for business in Old Town. It’s important to me that we’re investing and campaigning in the part of the district where people are suffering the most. If you’re in the trenches doing the work here to improve people’s lives, please stop by. I’d love to chat.
We made it! With your support we’ve been able to unlock the first $40k in matching funds, and we did it in less than 90 days. Thanks to you we’re set up to head into the next phase of the campaign with the resources to win. Let's go.
Congrats to
@mitch4portland
for getting Certified! Mitchell has met the requirements to qualify for matching funds. Now our program will start matching the campaign's small donations from Portlanders. This is how we centralize everyday PDXers in our democracy
First IG live and I cried a little talking about the many families that are homeless in Portland. Idk how to talk about that without getting emotional and I don’t think ever will, and so I’m committed to ending so I don’t have to weep on camera again.
I think a big part of why Portlanders are so dissatisfied with local government is due to the tendency toward Grievance Politics. E.g., Rene's attempt to sabotage PSR was borne of his grievance for Hardesty's policy achievement. He scored personal political points at our expense.
We knocked almost 800 doors today. Strong start to the field phase of my campaign! Proud to have
@PortlandDSA
out there with me and my team and many others who are ready to go big in November. Sign up to stay plugged in for our future canvasses.
A sea of red knocking doors across Sellwood today for
@mitch4portland
✊
Almost 40 canvassers on the doors to elect a working-class fighter for Portland City Council 🌹
I signed the Renters'Bill of Rights pledge because even as we fight to expand the supply of housing (very crucial) we need to protect tenants against eviction, displacement and out of control rent hikes. Pro-build policy with regulation is good. That's called industrial policy.
Lot of love and joy in this city. Still full of people who refuse to accept that we deserve anything less than being a place where we measure our success by how well the least fortunate among us do. Don’t bet against Portland.
Mitch Green, running for D4, is a union member and energy economist. Mitch is a housing and climate champion. If elected, he’ll fight to protect Portland’s Clean Energy Fund and secure investments for public transit and social housing.
I've been so busy I haven't had a chance to celebrate this, but I have been certified at the second tier of public matching. This makes me 3rd in D4 qualify for that milestone (
@lykinsforpdx
beat me to it by about a week). Thanks to all of you and the hard working folks at SDE.
On my way to hear from SEIU Oregon members about the issues they’re organizing for. This union represents the tens of thousands of essential workers that make our regional economy run.
Two of my favorite candidates in this race
@pnwpolicyangel
and
@TeacherTiff4PDX
each sent mutually supportive emails to their lists. Conventional wisdom is that you need to run zero sum campaigns. That's wrong, of course, so kudos to these two fighters for leading with principles
We're closing in on the next level of matching dollars from the Small Donor Elections program, which unlocks another $40k to fuel my grassroots campaign. I don't take money from big corporate interests. Can you chip in $5 to $350 today?
The conventional wisdom warns one off from talking about Gaza, suggesting that its a distraction from the issues of the city. I disagree. People don’t want to be party to genocide, and so organizing any attempt, however remote, in opposition is front and center for them.
This is exactly the type of failed governance Portlanders are tired of.
Having failed to impair charter reform & Portland Street Response, Gonzalez is attacking another popular City program.
Perhaps not uncoincidentally, all of these programs are opposed by his big $ donors.
PCEF is broken: prone to political patronage & lacking accountability; questionable ROI on carbon reduction efforts; fails to close community’s deficits in resiliency & infrastructure; & doing little to make our air and water cleaner.
My office is looking for a deeper discussion
MYTH: creating more affordable housing is too expensive. FACT: creating more affordable housing is not only possible, but is economically just! SOURCE: me, an economist.
The cost is $7billion plus:
➕generations of O & M liabilities
➕foregone work that could improve local streets in Portland and Vancouver, with improved transit.
➕ increased risk, frequency and intensity of extreme weather events.
➕ doubling down on the loss of prime land
lmao how much asphalt and concrete can you buy with SEVEN BILLION DOLLARS?
thanks to the
@ibrprogram
new video, you can see just how much of Portland and Vancouver our state DOTs want to pave over:
#orleg
#orpol
#walege
Long day on the campaign trail, but some reflections:
- my foot sort of works again
- my team is amazing
- preventing evictions remains the least cost approach to housing people
- addressing our climate crisis is going to require socialism.
You never see any hand wringing over long - run costs when the proposal is to start jailing people for having no place to live (the costliest way to house a person), but council is quick to balance the budget on the backs of organized labor. That’s wrong.
City Council is battling with labor unions over employees' healthcare benefits.
If city maintains existing benefits, it will cost $16.3 million more than last year.
City Council is considering shaving benefits to lessen cost.
Unions very unhappy.
I'm honored to earn this endorsement. We have to go big on climate and I'm confident we will, because we have a whole city of fighters behind us. Let's go!
OR:
@mitch4portland
is an Army vet, energy economist, community college professor, & union member. He’ll ensure the council doesn't make backroom deals with fossil fuel companies like Zenith, & push to make clean energy investments & use funds from the Inflation Reduction Act.
Maybe it's just me, but I feel like most people don't want a local government that can be purchased by Jordan Schnitzer and his friends. That's elitist and antidemocratic. Fortunately, we have the Small Donor Elections program to give a voice to folks who can't cut $75k checks.
I have an amazing team of volunteers, that grows by the day. Feeling a lot of gratitude that all of these talented and passionate people are choosing to spend their time helping us win in November. Join us 👇
Have you heard about all the commercial vacancies downtown? I put my economist hat on and wrote about it. There’s a push to blame the downtown story on Portland’s progressive spirit, when really the rent is too damned high.
One of the most important issues for my campaign is fighting to ensure that Portland Street Response has the resources it needs to be effective, and that means fully funding it so that it can operate 24/7. Sign the candidate pledge here!
#savepsr
I’m honored to earn the trust of this fighting union. PAT members know that schools are the cornerstone of our communities, and when we unite to bargain for the public good we can win the city we deserve.
Donate to today keep up the momentum 🍎
I testified at the Joint Committee on Transportation hearing yesterday at PCC. The most efficient lifecycle cost solution to solving regional traffic and congestion issues is clearing the bottlenecks to Trimet’s system. Build the downtown tunnel and hire more drivers. Let’s go.
Everybody worried about longshoreman on the grounds they are standing in the way of the abundance agenda needs to take a step back and realize it’s market structure and lack of coherent industrial policy that’s doing that. Workers should get the best contract they can get imo
Heading into Mother's Day weekend, I thought I'd drop a few stats: If you're a single parent with one child, you need to earn about $100k to thrive in this city. If you have two children, then that's $134k. Most don't earn this, which is why Preschool for All is so important. 1/3
It’s pretty important that Portlanders coordinate to elect a *cohort* for the next city council that understands that post charter reform leaves policy to the council, not the mayor. Mayor hopeful Gonzalez can beat his chest all he wants, but he’s not going to set policy.
Commissioner Rene Gonzalez wants to place control of the city's camping ban (not yet existent) under the future mayor and city administrator.
Gonzalez is running for mayor.
His stiffest competitor, Cmr. Carmen Rubio, calls his plan "inhumane."
Also, you don't sell off city land! Don't ever do it. One of the worst economic development choices a municipality can make. The city can and should capture the ground rent from its land to support its broad economic goals, instead of just signing that value away.
We’re almost exactly three years from the last heat dome that killed some of our most vulnerable neighbors. These weather events are supposed to be extremely rare. It’s urgent to elect climate leaders to city council who will fight for our future with the urgency it deserves.
"I think this is an event that will be remembered."
An extreme and long-lasting heat dome is forecast to hit Oregon, spiking temperatures near 110 degrees and lasting a week or more.
I wrote about how bad it'll get and where you can escape the heat:
I believe that Portland conservatives saw a moment in the pandemic to push otherwise unpopular policy in this city by embracing the Trumpian rhetoric that West Coast cities are plagued by do-gooders with big hearts. That rhetoric was as false then as it is now.
Huge thanks to everyone who supported my fundraising push last week. We just received our 250th unique small donation from a Portlander. The certification process will take some time, but I wanted to just share my gratitude right away. Y'all really are legends.
Where’s the “but how are you going to pay for it” for things like extending the UGB in terms of sprawl congestion and emissions? We do that for transit and pedestrian projects but not for the baseline impulse to continue growing the unfunded liability of freeway expansions.
I’m proud to take this pledge. We can’t fight for the sustainable future we deserve, while taking donations from the fossil fuels industry and their lobbyists.
Moving things along with the Small Donor Elections office, and pretty proud of these numbers. We're now in the top 10 by donation count across the whole city race (including mayoral). Top in D4, and only trailing Tiffany, Angelita and Nat in $ of micro donations 🚀
I'm thrilled to receive the support of the Ironworkers Local 29! There's an extraordinary volume of climate investment that we need to pull off in the years to come, and the members of this union will be there to build it with skill and pride just as their forbears did ✊
In case you missed it, Rose City Reform featured my ideas for social housing Portland last Friday. It's a good idea whose time has come, and I'll champion it for Portland if elected in November. Watch me describe it below.
I’ve had my eye on the
@PNWelcome
endorsement since I entered the race, and am proud to earn it. I’m also glad they highlighted my self identification as a “supply side progressive.” It might not be obvious what that means unless you have a 🏗️ in your handle. So a 🧵
Don't fall for this shit. Any city council or mayoral candidate running around parroting the They're Replacing Our Tax Base With Poor People talking point is doing so on dodgy stats with no legitimate causal story, and it only serves the wealthy who hate taxes 6/6.
Portland is at a crossroads. The policy decisions we make now will define this city for a generation. We have an opportunity to keep building for the abundance agenda, instead of slipping into retrenchment. Will you fight with me?
I'm featured in the Willamette Week's Entrance Interview series this morning. I think the tagline gets after what my campaign is all about: the city should not be afraid to mobilize the public sector to intervene directly to solve our issues.
I live about 13 miles from work with some serious elevation change. Pretty grateful for my e-bike, which makes that trip a pretty joyous experience. We need to make those bike connections in SW safer and that’s something I’ll be working towards on the next city council.
One of the first things you learn in an economics program of study is how to distinguish a stock from a flow. You learn it early because it's really important for understanding market dynamics, and hopefully it keeps you from making analytical errors. A mini lesson 🧵
With the Pamplin empire in shambles, Portland has a once in a generation opportunity here. When I’m elected and ram this through city council, we’re going to annex Ross Island and Big Sasquatch into D4. People want district reps who deliver results.
The union means more than just collective bargaining for wages and benefits. It also means you get to stand together and fight against intolerable cruelties wherever they may be. This is what international solidarity looks like. This is the stuff that gives me hope.
SEIU joined 6 other labor unions in calling for President Biden to end US aid to Israel ahead of PM Benjamin Netanyahu's address to Congress.
Read more here:
One thing that bothers me about the transportation policy discourse is the idea that driving as a primary mode of transport is taken as a matter of natural law, and so every alternate is measured against that inevitability.
📚 We received the wonderful news this morning that PCCFFAP (my old union at Portland Community College) has endorsed our campaign. Another high honor, not just bc I’m a former member, but also bc they’re fighting union full of members willing to put it on the line. Let’s go.
I wasn't named in this article, but I'm one of these fifteen. I was fourth in the D4 race to become certified and 11th overall. And I got there in under 90 days, which is pretty good. What's my secret? I think voters are ready for action and I'm not afraid say we need to go big.
Fifteen candidates vying for a spot on the next Portland City Council have qualified for taxpayer-matching campaign funds under the city’s Small Donor Elections Program.
If you can please get down to the Hatfield Federal Courthouse for a press conference by 10am. Let’s show support to the
@ufcw555
for their opposition to the proposed merger between Kroger and Albertsons. Then head to a picket like. I’ll be at Hollywood just after noon.
For those of you who have liked my tweets up to this point: Know that you are among my Strongest Soldiers.
Going forward I'll assume, by faith, you're on the front lines fighting for me in the Marketplace of Ideas.
My entire adult life the political narrative has been about mobilizing the youth vote. But, when young people get activated and tell us what they care about, they’re told to shut up and get in line. And then people scratch their heads when they don’t turn out to vote.
Knocked a door last night and not only had the person already heard about me via phone call, but they were excited to come to their first GM this weekend with
@PortlandDSA
. We've called over 14k phones and knocked 7k doors. That's the DSA Difference™️
Broke: F*** them teachers and f*** them kids, too.
Woke: The PAT was forced into that strike by decades of neglect. Thank them for their service.
Bespoke: We’re electing labor and climate champions who are going do a Green New Deal for public schools
Not sure it's a slogan, but I keep saying: Doing nothing ain't free.
Every day that we delay action to decommission the tanks at the CEI Hub, or continue to let Zenith run bomb trains through our city, is like running up a debt that gets increasingly costly bear.
Environment and resiliency advocates have been warning us of the risk of running oil trains through our neighborhoods, and now we have this very close call. We need to Stop Zenith now - this is a ticking time bomb.
We're very close to unlocking the next $40k in matching funds from the Small Donor Elections program. A big push this week would get me there. Thank you for your support, which has made this success possible.