The City Council Races: Where The Candidates Stand in the At-Large Race
On Nov. 3, Portland voters will elect three City Councilors on Nov. 3. In previous messages, we’ve focused on candidates from District 4 and 5. Today, we focus on the at-large race, which means all Portland voters are eligible to vote on this race. Three candidates are seeking to fill the seat now held by Councilor April Fournier, who is running for the state Legislature. The candidates are: Atiim Boykin, Joey Brunelle, and Kate Snyder.
We posed 12 questions to the candidates; and asked them to keep their responses to 100 words or less, when possible. But that was just a guide. If they needed to go over that limit, it was OK – and many of them did just that.
We hope the information here is useful to you.
Question 1: Why are you running for City Council and what specific skills do you think you would bring to the position?
Atiim Boykin: I'm a mental health clinician, currently Family Court Program Clinical Liaison for Maine State Forensic Services. Over 20 years as an educator and clinician — case management has always been one of my core skills, never the whole of the work — taught me trust isn't optional; it's the job. I co-founded the nation's first Young Adult Court in San Francisco, giving 18–25 year-olds a path through rehabilitation instead of a felony record. I also work as an electrician, rigger, and carpenter — trades I come by honestly, from a family of small business owners spanning janitorial companies to relatives managing HUD-compliant housing, including Alton Management in Oakland. I'm trained in systems, on paper and with my hands. That work shouldn't stop at a client's door — it belongs in City Hall.
Joey Brunelle: Portland currently faces significant challenges, and I believe we need a new approach to solve those challenges. We need new ideas, new approaches, and new leadership to address the needs of all residents when it comes to poverty, homelessness, housing, public safety, bike-ped injuries and deaths, and more. I will bring a decade of experience working with neighborhoods and advocates, and ordinary people to pursue many issues: clean elections, protecting public health, better transportation, renewable energy, and more. I have experience navigating government and pragmatically making policy. I have been appointed to three city boards, and been chosen to Chair two of them. I know how to bring together diverse viewpoints to arrive at workable solutions.
Kate Snyder: I am running because I have broad, relevant education, elected and work experience that I believe will help our city find meaningful solutions to our myriad of municipal challenges. I'm running because I love the place we live in and I believe we need a city council that is willing to work together, among a diversity of opinions, to find solutions that make Portland more livable for everyone: from our youngest to our oldest residents.
Question 2: What are the top 3 challenges facing the city and how would you address them?
Atiim Boykin: Housing Portland can actually afford — a faster lever and a fairer one: letting developers pick their own path under a flexible, project-based inclusionary zoning system, and piloting IZ-free zones to test what the market alone can deliver at the speed this crisis demands, while building housing for nurses, teachers, and school staff on land already available through the city and its partners. Behavioral health response that matches the need, not just more policing. And a Portland where the people who keep this city running — teachers, nurses, artists, service workers — can afford to stay in it.
Joey Brunelle:
Challenge 1: Affordability for everyone. Improve affordability for everyone, including homeowners, renters, workers, families, and businesses. This means building more affordable housing, taking pressure off property taxes, and bringing better jobs to Portland.
Challenge 2: Public safety. We should take a more proactive look at what we’re doing downtown and adopt successful models from other cities with similar issues. We aren’t the first city to be dealing with persistent, co-occurring homelessness, mental health issues and crime. There are solutions out there if we only look beyond the Piscataqua River Bridge. I have some ideas here: https://joeyforportland.org/issues/improve-public-safety
Challenge 3: A corrupt, anti-democratic federal government. The Trump administration is spending your tax dollars on gold-plating statues in DC while cutting funding to house the homeless, which has real effects for us on our streets. We are downstream of decisions made by the administration in so many ways, whether it’s ICE kidnapping our innocent neighbors, or the Trump administration clawing back revenue from our local government, or the Department of Justice threatening the integrity of our elections. We will have to find creative ways to adapt and fight back.
Kate Snyder: Housing + Affordability: We need more affordable and middle housing, and the city plays a key role in fostering new development. Housing costs for renters and owners rise yearly with the property tax levy. Since 2022, residents have absorbed 4.8, 5.9, 5.0, 7.4 and 4.9% increases. Everyday costs are squeezing wallets; the city's budget must be in check and reflect investments people value most.
Safety: Everyone should feel safe in Portland. Whether at home or in the neighborhood, doing errands, going to and from work or school, walking, driving, everyone deserves to feel safe from harm.
Transportation: We need to make generational investments to improve safe walking, running and biking.
Question 3: What would be your top policy priorities to address the interconnected issues of homelessness, substance abuse and mental health that are so visible in the streets of Portland?
Atiim Boykin: Portland has real service organizations doing real work — Preble Street, MaineHealth, Spurwink, Commonspace, Avesta — but they're not coordinated, and I know this firsthand: I served as a Forensic Intensive Case Manager in Cumberland County, meeting weekly with these same providers. Some coordination already exists — CHOM (Community Housing of Maine) has run FUSE Greater Portland since 2015, cutting hospitalizations 68% and ER visits 62% statewide for the people who cycle hardest through crisis systems — but FUSE, the Long Term Stayers initiative, and similar committees still meet in separate silos. Housing and crisis response are one failure split across six front doors. I'd formalize a single coordinated space — the Homelessness Services Center, Greater Portland Health, CHOM's FUSE work, and existing nonprofits sitting together — so a person's path doesn't depend on which door they knock on first.
Riverside already does some of this, and that's worth crediting — but access there requires a bed. You can't walk in to warm up, cool down, or get support without one, and someone court-trespassed from Riverside can lose access entirely for 30 days, 60 days, sometimes a year. A day center is distinct on purpose: coordinated with Riverside, not a replacement for it, open to anyone regardless of bed status or trespass history. This isn't a new program competing for funding: it's the connective tissue that makes every other plank actually reach people.
Joey Brunelle: Portland can’t solve these large systemic problems on our own - we need significant intervention by the State and Federal governments. We need expanded legal options for individuals with severe, chronic mental health issues, as DA Sartoris is pursuing with the Legislature. We need expanded treatment and residential options for people with severe substance use and mental health issues, which will have to be funded by the new Governor and the next Legislature. The County and its new Public Health department also have a role to play. Lastly, we need a new model that brings together different medical and social service providers to identify the specific needs of each unsheltered individual, following them until they’re housed and on a path to wellness - a model that’s been proven effective in Nithya Raman’s district in Los Angeles. Learn more here: https://joeyforportland.org/issues/end-homelessness and here https://joeyforportland.org/issues/improve-public-safety
Kate Snyder: I believe we need to work to change Maine’s town-by-town approach to General Assistance so that town, city, county and state governments coordinate responses to homelessness, mental health crises and substance use disorder. One city’s response, supported by local property tax revenue, is not enough to address the loss of statewide services and the many needs that exist. Portland works hard and invests both in compliance with GA and beyond in shelter, services and support, but even in partnership with local nonprofits, it's not enough. I believe we have an opportunity to work with the Legislature, county government and the Governor to move from a decentralized system to one with better coordination and outcomes.
Question 4: What changes, if any, would you make to the current 100:1 needle exchange ratio and the needle exchange program?
Atiim Boykin: I wouldn't revert to 1-for-1 — not my preference, but because Maine DHHS and Portland's own City Council already did this work. In November 2024, the Council unanimously rejected reverting to 1-for-1 after health professionals testified it would increase HIV and Hepatitis C transmission. In March 2025, the state legislature rejected the same idea, bipartisan, citing an active HIV outbreak in Penobscot County. That part isn't up for debate anymore.
Where there's room for real conversation: Councilor Sarah Michniewicz has said the ratio debate gets flattened into two extremes when the honest answer might be somewhere in between, and that the city owes residents transparency about where that number comes from. I agree. Settled doesn't mean closed to scrutiny.
A car with three wheels is still, in theory, a car — it just doesn't drive like one. Portland has the core policy right, and the buyback program's real results — 58% more needles returned since launch — deserve credit. What's missing: a mobile unit, since Portland currently has none; more fixed distribution sites, since there are only two; sharps boxes at those sites; parks and schools as no-use zones; and a real place — not a jail cell — for police to bring someone instead of an arrest, feeding into One Door.
Joey Brunelle: We are not the first community to have a needle exchange, and we are not the first community to have a problem with needle waste in public areas. Over a year ago the City implemented a new “buyback” program to reduce needle waste, and it has been enormously successful - the return rate is now over 80%. I live downtown, and back in 2023 and 2024 I used to see a lot more needles out and about than I do today. Today it’s a pretty rare occurrence, but we can still do better. There are still hotspots where needles appear more regularly. We should be looking to other communities with needle exchanges outside of Maine (and there are many) to other viable solutions to make our exchange more effective.
Kate Snyder: I think we need to always be looking at the latest research and data to inform our municipal decisions. At this time, I believe Portland (Maine) ought to revisit the decision of a 100:1 needle exchange. Here are a few resources that help inform my thinking at this time: NYT "Cities Move Away From Strategies That Make Drug Use Safer", The Atlantic's The Cities That Said Yes to Drugs, NIH: Harm Reduction Services to Prevent and Treat Infectious Diseases in People Who Use Drugs.
I believe harm reduction policies are well intended, and that they need to help people move to recovery. I also believe that people who live and work in Portland should be able to traverse the city’s streets, parks, pathways and schoolyards without coming upon a used needle.
To best serve Portland, we need to study, seek engagement of broad content area experts, and together determine how to move from 100:1 to another policy model that will seek to address people openly using needles on public streets, sidewalks and in parks to a model that preserves people’s dignity while also prioritizing health and safety in all public places.
Question 5: Would you support a safe injection site downtown? Why/why not?
Atiim Boykin: This one's genuinely controversial, and I won't pretend otherwise. Amsterdam has run drug consumption rooms since the 1970s — the number of sites has shrunk as IV drug use declined there, a long-term win — but the Netherlands still recorded 338 overdose deaths in 2023, the highest on record. Harm reduction isn't a cure-all even where it's most established. California tried twice to authorize pilot sites; Governor Newsom vetoed one in 2022 despite a cost-benefit study showing every dollar spent would save San Francisco $2.33 in healthcare and law enforcement costs. This isn't settled anywhere, including places far more resourced than Portland.
The place I'd actually look to is Rhode Island — closer to our scale than California. RI became the first state to legalize overdose prevention centers in 2021, opening the nation's first state-sanctioned site in Providence in 2024 — its own dedicated facility, sited next to Rhode Island Hospital, not folded into a shared space. New York's OnPoint sites have averted nearly 1,700 overdoses with zero deaths on-site and no rise in surrounding crime.
So: conditional support, only under Rhode Island's model. I'll be direct about the legal risk too — the first Trump administration sued to block Philadelphia's Safehouse, and a federal prosecutor has separately threatened OnPoint. That risk doesn't disappear because a state legalizes it. If Portland did this, it would need to be medically integrated, hospital-adjacent, and its own separate site — not layered into a shared recovery space. I've worked with people in recovery who have a real aversion to anything reminding them of active use; putting a consumption site inside peer-support space isn't compassionate, it's dangerous for people trying to stay clean. Get the separation right, and it's worth pursuing. Get it wrong, and it's worth waiting on.
Joey Brunelle: Currently there are folks taking drugs on the sidewalk or on park benches or in front yards of homes. This is not a healthy situation for anyone. Obviously we’d prefer that no one abuse substances at all, and that goal should drive everything we do. However, until that day arrives, an overdose prevention center (like in Providence and NYC) would move a good chunk of this activity off public and private property to a central, indoor location where trained professionals and social workers can intervene to help an individual get into housing, recovery, and medical resources. That can’t happen on a sidewalk or a stoop, where drug use is happening today.
Kate Snyder: We must always be evaluating what works and what doesn’t, and in the context of municipal policy evaluation we need to consider impacts to many constituencies. I am open minded to safe injection prevention centers as part of a larger policy context with clear goals so that we can build in evaluation. That said, I don’t think consideration of a safe injection site is a stand alone policy; I believe it could be considered as part of a more responsive and comprehensive policy response to needle distribution and use in our community.
Question 6: What steps should be taken, if any, to ensure that people who may now refuse help seek shelter and treatment? How should we measure "success"?
Atiim Boykin: I'll lean on research first, because clinical judgment without evidence is just opinion with a license attached. A national study by the Recovery Research Institute found the average number of serious recovery attempts before resolving a substance problem is 5.35 — but for people whose primary substance was an opioid, the mean jumps to 8.48, the highest of any category. That's Portland's population. You cannot force readiness on that timeline. You meet people where they are, every time they come back, because each attempt gets them a little further toward what stability actually looks like.
That's the logic behind One Door: a person gets a consistent hand reaching out, the same place, every time, linked to every other door instead of starting over. If they're using, that's a real link to medical care. If they've committed a crime, it's something else — and I know that system firsthand: as a Forensic Intensive Case Manager, I worked directly with York County Jail's staff, attending their Monday debriefings on who needed what support. They saw me as a trusted partner because I did the work. York County has run a 24-bed recovery center on jail grounds since 2018, and was building a 58-bed expansion in Alfred as of 2024 — status now unconfirmed, but when it was in place, it worked, and it solved a problem Cumberland County still has.
On measuring success: not just “housed or not.” HUD and HHS already track this the right way — movement along the housing continuum, days homeless per quarter, real health measures. Success is incremental because recovery is incremental.
Joey Brunelle: I contest the underlying assumption that we have a large population of unhoused people who “refuse help” - there may be some, but based on conversations I’ve had with quite a few unsheltered and formerly unsheltered folks, I don’t think this group is large. Instead, I believe our one-size-fits-all approach is letting some people fall through the cracks. Some perceive the HSC as unsafe (particularly women, and capacity is less for women than men at the facility anyway), others say there are too many drugs there, and some say they have been turned away for minor reasons. We should adopt a successful model like the one employed in parts of Los Angeles, where each person in this category is identified and engaged with to determine their needs and limitations, and then we stick with them until they’ve landed in permanent supportive housing and adequate treatment. We only have around 120 unhoused folks, at last estimate - not tens of thousands - so this should be feasible.
Kate Snyder: I don’t believe homelessness, substance use disorder or mental health crisis to be a quick-fix kind of situation. There will always be people in crisis, who need help and compassion. I think Maine’s towns, counties and the state will always be responding to people who need help. First - we need to work hard, across the whole state, to have enough shelter, detox and recovery beds available, in addition to supported housing and transitional housing, close to where people are from, where they have friends, family and community.
I think the ideal is to meet as many people as possible at the moment by pairing them with available shelter and treatment. If we can consistently pair those who need shelter and treatment I hope we can reduce the number of people at any one time who are in crisis because we are working as effectively as possible to keep pace with need.
Question 7: The city relies heavily on non-profits to provide services to the unhoused. What changes, if any, would you make to the relationship between the city and non-profits. For example, would you support licensing of the non-profits; or would you change the way food is distributed to the unhoused on public property?
Atiim Boykin: The coordination gap is real (see Q3) — good organizations without a shared system.
On licensing: conditionally, yes — the destination, not a sudden mandate. Portland's nonprofits do extraordinary work, and accountability shouldn't put anyone out of business. Any organization touching state or federal money already answers to that money's rules; I've built logic models for every nonprofit dollar I've managed. I'd set a five-year graduation period, with the city funding consultants to help nonprofits already doing the work build the measurable outcomes taxpayers deserve to see — not audit them into the ground.
On food distribution: No — Portland's model is already the coordinated one other cities are being forced toward. Preble Street's Food Security Hub cooks up to 10,000 meals a day through fixed partner sites and outreach teams, not ad hoc handouts. Nationally, 70+ cities have restricted food sharing since 2013, and the strongest legal precedent found those restrictions unconstitutional. The one thing I'd insist on: a food site can't become a de facto place to use — exactly why any future safe-use site needs to be its own place, not layered onto services people rely on for something else.
Joey Brunelle: Unfortunately, we have privatized so many different services and functions to non-profits, we’ve created a complex landscape that is difficult to coordinate effectively. Right now that coordination seems to be all ad-hoc and as-needed - in fact, we used to have a City board that could have coordinated different non-profits with the City as needs arose, but that board was disbanded a couple years ago. We need a new model for how to coordinate these different actors, to make sure that they’re adequately serving people in the most effective places, at the most effective times, and in the most effective ways. We should look to other cities for coordination models that would allow quicker responses to changing situations, better communication between agencies, and better outcomes.
Kate Snyder: Portland-based nonprofits do good and hard work to help people in need. I appreciate the work they do. I believe Portland’s conditional use permit process, allowing both the city and operators/nonprofit to inform the what, where and how is good practice - and - it needs consistent engagement by all parties, including neighborhood groups, to assess and address effectiveness and impacts.
I do believe there is an important and active role for the city to play in the administration of services for the unhoused and also when services are provided outdoors, ie: food distribution.
To the question of licensing, I am open minded, and I am interested to know if the Portland Mayor, City Council and city staff are working with the City of Lewiston to understand how their October 2024 AN ORDINANCE PERTAINING TO HOMELESS SHELTERS is working.
Question 8: What is your plan to address the longstanding shortage of affordable housing construction and create homes for residents, in addition to subsidized apartments for low-income residents and formerly unhoused residents?
Atiim Boykin: Portland faces a housing crisis, not a debate — it needs a faster lever and a fairer one, not a choice between them. Where inclusionary zoning applies, I'd let developers pick their own path: more units at a higher AMI, or fewer at a deeper one, locked into whichever they choose. I'd also identify specific sites for a fixed-term IZ-free zone, testing what market forces alone can deliver, with the city negotiating density and unit count directly instead of a blanket mandate. Stop selling public lots — build mixed-use live/work space instead, and housing for nurses, teachers, and school staff on land the city and its partners already have. Housing isn't just a cost — it's part of the solution: more workers housed means less homelessness, a bigger tax base, stronger schools. Portland approved a record 1,420 units in 2025 but completed only 187 — permit speed isn't the whole story; large stalled projects need financing tools, not just faster paperwork.
Joey Brunelle: To be a healthy city, we need to create housing of all different income levels, not just super affordable, but also workforce and family housing. That housing should be concentrated in our dense urban core and along transit lines. But I hear frequently that Portland is the most difficult place to build in all of Cumberland County, if not the whole state. I want to convene a group of housing experts to examine why that is, and propose pragmatic solutions - for example making our Permitting Office much more efficient and responsive to residents, or making surgical changes to building codes that could unlock huge gains, or making it easier to build ADUs. I also want the City to partner with real estate experts to find opportunities to buy land and make it developable, so the City can facilitate the construction of more housing. More ideas about how to increase housing production are on my website: https://joeyforportland.org/issues/build-more-homes/
Kate Snyder: Portland desperately needs more affordable housing. That means exploring all avenues with open minds and working to help create conditions that are beneficial to the creation of expanded and expedited housing opportunities in Portland as we have with Recode. We need to add inventory for so many: including but not limited to the elderly, those who perform critical life, safety and education functions, people who work in the arts, culture, food and drink industries that help define our sense of place and local economy. We also need supported housing for people in transition from homelessness. And we need housing that meets certain income eligibility requirements.
Beyond new development, I'm encouraged by restoration and reuse of buildings for housing and business, and believe the city has a larger role to play in fostering reuse.
Question 9: What policies, if any, would you support to combat sea level rise and respond to climate change?
Atiim Boykin: Portland's working waterfront caught fire on Custom House Wharf this past December — a three-alarm blaze driven largely by how old and tightly packed the wharf's timber structures are. Portland Pier itself floods during king tides and any tide 12 feet or higher. This isn't a future risk.
FEMA's BRIC program, the main federal vehicle for this work, was cancelled this year — I won't point anyone toward a program that no longer exists. But Maine built its own response: after two devastating 2024 storms, the state authorized $60 million in its supplemental budget, including a $25 million Working Waterfront Resilience Grant Program that's already put $21.2 million into 68 waterfronts, plus $69 million secured from NOAA. That money exists; Portland needs to aggressively pursue its share.
One thing I'd insist on: the state's fund requires a pier to be used by 10+ licensed commercial fishermen to qualify, so protecting the waterfront is a licensing question too. I'd bring the fishermen and aquaculturists actually working these piers to the table and ask them directly what's keeping them from functioning today.
This can't happen in one year — it's a multi-year commitment, with the people who work the water helping set priorities from the start.
Joey Brunelle: As a member of the Portland Climate Action Team’s steering committee, I have been advocating for rooftop solar on public buildings - something which other communities in Maine have done to reduce their energy costs. We should also establish a program to help residents buy and install plug-in balcony solar, which is now readily available. Much of our emissions come from transportation, so we should also reduce the need for automobiles by building better bike/ped infrastructure and more frequent, reliable and higher quality public transit. We must also accelerate adaptation to mitigate the potential damage from rising sea levels to our infrastructure generally and especially along our waterfront.
Kate Snyder: I believe Portland and South Portland’s shared commitment to One Climate Future offers a solid long term plan for response to and planning in anticipation of climate and sea level rise change. I also believe the Maine Won’t Wait plan offers ambitious but realistic
goals, within which all municipalities play an important role. We all feel the impacts of climate change and sea level rise in real time. Life in Maine is changing, getting warmer and wetter. I believe we should do all we can to mitigate the negative impacts of climate change and sea level rise. I will work aggressively to make investments in and improvements to local transportation infrastructure that allows us to move about by foot and bike safely are critical, and I am open to all local policy that will help us lower our carbon footprint.
Question 10: What changes, if any, would you support to control property taxes? For example, would you support specific cuts in city spending, or increases in non-property revenue sources?
Atiim Boykin: Maine already ran the experiment on freezing seniors' taxes — a 2022 stabilization program let them freeze their bill regardless of income, and the Legislature repealed it after one year because it disproportionately benefited the most expensive homes. The smarter replacement: income-tested relief through the Homestead Exemption, the Property Tax Fairness Credit, and a Deferral Program.
What most Portland taxpayers may not know: the city already has P-STEP, offering rebates up to $900 to homeowners 62+ who've lived here 10+ years. That's the information barrier I'd close — a website overhaul so these programs are actually findable. There's a live opportunity now too: the Finance Committee was already discussing expanding P-STEP to all ages and renters, since roughly 20% of rent effectively goes toward property taxes as well. I'd push that forward.
For essential workers: Orlando just approved up to $10,000 in rebates for homeowners who build an ADU and rent it as workforce housing. I'd bring that model to Portland, with a deed-restricted, below-market-rent commitment for a fixed term, so the city knows exactly what it's getting.
None of this should bankrupt the city. It should target exactly who we're losing: seniors who want to retire in place, and the workers who keep Portland's culture alive.
Joey Brunelle: I made an interactive city budget tool so that we all can better understand how our tax dollars are spent - I invite everyone to give it a look! https://joeyforportland.org/budget Property taxes are an affordability issue, just like rents, just like home prices. We can’t keep increasing property taxes faster than inflation. Elders should be able to age in place in the city they’ve called home. We need to create new long-term revenue streams for the City so we have more levers to pull than property taxes and parking fees as healthcare costs continue to skyrocket and the federal government continues to pull back from its responsibilities. For example, rather than selling the Midtown lots to developers, we could do ground leases and generate a little money to help sustain the city in the long term. This model could be used on publicly owned, developable land elsewhere. We should also encourage more mixed-use development in our dense urban core to enlarge the property tax base so it doesn’t all land on residential homeowners. Also, we could install more rooftop solar on public buildings to offset grid electricity, sometimes entirely, which would dramatically decrease our energy bills and take pressure off taxes. This has been enormously successful in Westbrook and several other Maine communities. You can read more ideas about taking pressure off property taxes on this page: https://joeyforportland.org/issues/property-taxes
Kate Snyder: Managing the municipal budget while being mindful of individual pocketbooks is critical. Property owners, renters, those who work in Portland and those who visit all bear the impacts of increased costs, and it’s imperative that local elected officials are always mindful of the choices being made annually within the budget and how increases impact the various
constituent groups. During my time on the school board, we had to make cuts in overall spending due to the 2008 financial crisis and resulting years-long effects. I have also been involved in municipal budgets that seek to increase revenues by way of levers like parking meter charges and purple bag cost increases.
I think we need municipal officials who are constantly assessing drivers within the municipal budget as well as external factors that impact individual spending so that we’re managing within context and respectful of complex inputs.
Question 11: Recently, some public officials have talked about creating a policy to reduce traffic speed to 20 mph on all City streets/roadways. Do you agree or disagree with the proposal, and why?
Atiim Boykin: I support “20 is Plenty” — but not as a blanket rule for every street, because that's not what safety actually requires. Around schools, parks, hospitals, and dense corridors like the arts district, 20 mph should be standard. But one number for every street regardless of what that street is isn't precision — it's a slogan. The city's own process already recognizes this: it only applies to municipally-controlled residential streets that qualify after a traffic investigation. I'd follow that same logic — target where speed is actually the danger. This is live right now: Portland's Sustainability and Transportation Committee takes it up September 9, and I'd want to be part of that conversation with the position above.
Joey Brunelle: We should be building our streets so they are safe by design. That’s why many neighborhood associations and advocacy groups have come together to build bump-outs and bollards around dangerous crossings all over the city. Portland should apply some pavement and concrete to make those permanent, so fewer people are killed or injured by careless drivers. But rebuilding streets will take many years, so in the meantime we should consider moving to 20mph in at least our residential neighborhoods, coupled with effective enforcement. Our roadways and speed limits were designed for an era when personal vehicles were a lot smaller. Since the mid 2010s, car companies have marketed much larger vehicles to Americans to such an extent that they have become the norm. These vehicles also happen to be much more dangerous. Not only is it harder to see pedestrians (particularly children) from the driver’s seat of these vehicles, it takes longer for them to stop, and it’s more likely that you’ll be seriously injured or killed from an impact with one. Because we have chosen to drive more dangerous vehicles, speed limits should be adjusted at least in our residential neighborhoods, and there should be copious enforcement to prevent needless injuries and deaths.
Kate Snyder: I haven’t seen the proposal to reduce traffic on all streets to 20mph. That said, I am in favor of decreased speed limits to improve safety overall. I am in favor of prioritizing and funding safe public infrastructure for people on bicycles, people walking, people pushing strollers, and people running, through our annual municipal budget.
Question 12: If you have other campaign issues or comments that you would like to share, please include them here.
Atiim Boykin: Protecting our coast starts closer to home than the ocean itself. Portland's purple bags — in place since 1999 — break under normal use, get torn apart by seagulls and crows before collection, and contribute to microplastics and street litter. Price increases haven't fixed it.
Here's the complication: those bags are real, non-tax city revenue that also funds Portland's recycling program. “Get rid of the bags” isn't a design fix — it's a funding question.
The answer is a model already working elsewhere: a monthly utility fee tied to bin size, not a fee per bag. Pasadena, San Diego, San Jose, Santa Rosa, and Seattle all run this way — residents choose a bin size, pay monthly the way they pay water or sewer, and put whatever bags they want inside. Denver switched in 2023. Tenants would pay their own bin fee directly, not buried in a landlord's tax bill.
This isn't a “no cost” fix — it's a fairer one, replacing a revenue source that's breaking under seagulls with one that funds the same services more reliably. Protecting our coast means fixing what leaks onto our own streets first.
Kate Snyder: We can never know exactly what’s coming down the pike. I urge Portland voters to think about how candidates will respond to the known issues, but also those that may surprise us. I offer Portlanders my experience, and also an open mind, a willingness to learn and to collaborate.