A day after Portlanders reelected Mayor Ted Wheeler to a second term, Wheeler expressed excitement for the future and touted the strength of his support in Portland.
Challenger Sarah Iannarone officially conceded the race Wednesday evening and urged the city to rally around the incumbent.
During a virtual news conference Wednesday, Wheeler said he believes broad public support for the way he has led and will lead the city through the pandemic, housing people experiencing homelessness and other challenges led to him securing more votes than Iannarone.
He said that, while he hasn’t found middle ground with constituents on what police reforms should and shouldn’t be in place, he thinks there is unanimous agreement “that public safety in this community needs to evolve.”
He said he supports a new police oversight board, the framework for which 82% of voters approved Tuesday. He also said he supports the alternative first responder program Portland Street Response and hopes the City Council spends the next six to eight months talking with the community to get more consensus on additional public safety investments that don’t involve more police.
“I don’t think there is going to be too much disagreement on those broad values that drive this administration when it comes to new ideas, new concepts and innovations,” Wheeler said. “I will work with anyone and I will listen to anyone who wants to work with us to move this community forward for everybody.”
In a livestreamed video about six hours later, Iannarone thanked voters and her campaign team for their support, said she was encouraged that more than half of the people who cast ballots in the mayoral race selected someone other than Wheeler and that the community must hold him and other elected leaders accountable for making progress on promises he made on police reform, homelessness, housing and other issues.
“We must unify this city and move Portland forward with the leadership that we have,” Iannarone said. “Together, we must push to become the city we all truly know it can be.”
The urban policy consultant and two-time Portland mayoral challenger said she was looking forward to catching up on sleep and downtime with her daughter and staying active in civic engagement.
Wheeler received 46% of the vote in his victory Tuesday over Iannarone, who garnered 41%. Another 13% went to write-in candidates.
Portland Commissioner Chloe Eudaly lost her bid for election to a second term on the City Council. (Amy McMullen via Eudaly's campaign)Amy McMullen for the Eudaly camp
The election also brought the defeat of incumbent Commissioner Chloe Eudaly, who garnered 43% of the vote against former political science professor and ex-city employee Mingus Mapps, who earned 56%.
On Wednesday, Wheeler said he was “energized” by the win and talked glowingly of working with Mapps and Commissioner-Elect Carmen Rubio, who both join the council in January, and Commissioner Dan Ryan, who was elected in August. Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty, the only person on the five-member council whose seat wasn’t up for election this year, rounds out the group.
“Starting in January, it’s going to be one of the strongest City Councils, I believe, that has ever been impaneled in the city of Portland,” Wheeler said.
But voters and some of Wheeler’s colleagues on the city council weren’t as optimistic on the prospects of four more years under his leadership.
And protesters for months have called for the council to make heavy divestments from the Portland Police Bureau and for those funds to be reallocated to community programs and initiatives to improve the quality of life of residents of the city’s historically marginalized communities. Loud and repeated calls for cuts by critics of police in Portland have ranged from $50 million to complete abolition.
Five months of nightly protests have prompted widespread criticism of Wheeler from constituents, fellow elected leaders and the police bureau regarding his oversight of the city. Wheeler is the city’s police commissioner.
Polls leading to the election showed Iannarone with an edge to win support despite a 25-point gap between her and the incumbent in result of the May primary, in which Wheeler narrowly missed the 50%-plus-one vote to reclaim the mayor’s post outright.
About an hour after Eudaly discovered she wouldn’t gain a second term Tuesday, she told reporters that a council with Wheeler and Mapps “a step backwards for progress,” believing neither “reflects Portland’s progressive spirit.” Hardesty had endorsed Eudaly’s reelection bid.
Hardesty withdrew her support for Wheeler’s reelection bid in late September and endorsed Iannarone five days before the ballot deadline, saying Wheeler had exhibited “limited, status quo thinking.” She said Wednesday she believed the election results meant “my job on [the] council just got much harder.”
“I will continue to work with Mayor Wheeler where we find areas of alignment, of which there are many, although our differences on policing have been profound,” Hardesty said in a statement. She said she hoped the mayor took receiving less than 50% of the vote seriously as a sign he should “do more to meet my vision for community safety that I have worked collaboratively to build with our community.”
The next opportunity could come Thursday when the City Council will decide on proposed amendments to the city’s $5.6 billion budget. Hardesty and Eudaly have proposed cutting $18 million from the Portland police budget, in part to fund coronavirus-related relief efforts. The City Council approved $15 million in police budget cuts in June.
Wheeler said he planned to read a city analysis of the latest police budget cut proposal Thursday morning, before the City Council meeting.
During his second term, Wheeler said, he plans to interact with constituents outside of City Hall more, provide more data and feedback to the community on what city initiatives are working and failing, and listen to and collaborate with the public more frequently. He also said he is open to reconsidering who oversees police and all other city departments at the beginning of 2021.
Wheeler has repeatedly refused Hardesty’s public calls for him to appoint her as police commissioner. Hardesty currently oversees the city’s other first responder bureaus, including fire and emergency management.
Under Portland’s form of government, the mayor is the sole decision maker on which council members are in charge of which city bureaus.
“I have not made any pre-determinations about which bureaus get assigned to whom,” Wheeler said Wednesday. “It would be premature for any commissioner to presume that they would be the commissioner in charge of any particular bureau.”
— Everton Bailey Jr.; ebailey@oregonian.com; @EvertonBailey