Faerie Coffee Circle Voting 5/6/23 Summary

About ten people engaged in a conversation about the May 16th ballot; this is a short ballot so there are not a lot of difficult issues or candidates to discuss. Rather this effort is focused on helping assure people that they feel informed about the choices and issues so that everyone will feel empowered to vote.

Due to the many districts contained within Multnomah County and Portland each person’s ballot was different and most races on all ballots are uncontested. On all the uncontested races we agreed to vote for the one candidate standing for that race. Thus, over the course of the conversation we discussed 2 measures and 5 school district races. On all these races the groups agreed on their votes. A summary of those votes is below:

·      Multnomah County Measure 26-238: To establish residential tenant resources program, eviction representation, capital gains tax

Voting No on this measure.

·      Portland Measure 26-240: Renew Portland Children’s Levy investment for five years

Voting Yes on this measure

Contested Races:

·      Multnomah Education Support District Position 3 Zone 2

Voting for Renee Anderson

·      Multnomah Education Support District Position 7 Zone 3

Voting for Katrina Doughty

·      David Douglas School District Position 5

Voting for Aaron Barrow

·      David Douglas School District Position 7

Voting for Kate Sherman

·      Portland School District Zone 3

Voting for Patte Sullivan

Discussion Summary

Most of these races we decided to vote for the candidate with more substantial endorsements in the county Voter Guide.

The two races that had meaningful conversations beyond that basic criteria were the Multnomah County measure 26-238 and Portland School Zone 3 race. A little further detail on those discussions is below.

Multnomah County measure 26-238 is the most controversial issue on this ballot. But we at best thought this was a ballot initiative with good intent and lousy execution. The initiative doesn’t seem to offer adequate detail in the creation of new type of tax for the state of Oregon and it appears to duplicate existing county programs. The endorsements that acknowledge these issues suggest we ignore these shortcomings. None of us thought that was a reasonable position. There were other ideas on why this was a bad ballot initiative; there were no further suggestions of support.

Portland School District Zone 3 race is interesting in that the apparently stronger candidate, Derrick Peterson has now withdrawn from the race and said if he does win the election he will resign (although now maybe that is in doubt) https://www.wweek.com/news/2023/05/07/derrick-peterson-sends-conflicting-signals-about-whether-hes-still-running-for-school-board/

Even if he resigned this would allow the board to appoint someone for this position. We agreed that we would rather vote for the other candidate who appears to be a rational actor rather than give the board that decision.

If he isn’t withdrawing we strongly oppose his candidacy since he is connected to a radical right church. https://www.opb.org/article/2023/05/03/derrick-peterson-exits-portland-school-board-race/