Dan Ryan, elected to the Portland City Council Tuesday, said he looks forward to joining the council in September and helping tackle the city’s recovery from coronavirus and public safety reform. He said he plans to spend the rest of the month building his City Hall staff.
Ryan’s narrow victory over his runoff opponent, former Multnomah County Commissioner Loretta Smith, means he will take the seat formerly held by late City Council member Nick Fish. The term runs through the end of 2022.
Near-final results tallied as of 4 p.m. Wednesday show Ryan took 51% of the vote to Smith’s 48%.
Ryan, a former Portland Public School board chair and former CEO of All Hands Raised, which focuses on improving racial equity in education throughout Multnomah County, pledged during his campaign to champion the November ballot measure authored by Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty to create a new Portland police oversight system. And he promised to work to increase support services for the city’s homeless population and help create more affordable housing for Portlanders.
He cast himself as a bridge-builder who can draw on his past as a non-career politician to bring consensus on the city council and in the city.
Mayor Ted Wheeler, Hardesty and Commissioner-elect Carmen Rubio all reached out Wednesday morning to congratulate him, Ryan said.
In a Tweet congratulating Ryan on his win, the mayor said he is optimistic that Ryan’s addition would help the city make progress on homelessness, mental health, the city’s recovery from the pandemic and social equity reforms.
“Dan has big shoes to fill, but I look forward to him joining this Council and I know he will serve Portlanders well,” Wheeler said.
Although he campaigned as an outsider to local government whose perspective and experience were sorely needed, he didn’t lay out policy stances dramatically different to those expressed by the city’s four sitting council members or Rubio, who won a May election to succeed retiring Commissioner Amanda Fritz in January.
Hardesty endorsed Ryan in the runoff, calling him a “pragmatic progressive,” and cited his past educational leadership work as putting him “head and shoulders above the field.” Ryan and Smith advanced to the August runoff after being the top vote-getters in the May primary, in which Hardesty endorsed fourth-place finisher Julia DeGraw.
Ryan reiterated Wednesday that he plans to seek consensus, saying he planned to bring “the art of compromise” to City Hall. He told The Oregonian/OregonLive last week that he intends to pitch a “peace summit” that would include city officials, protesters, members of the business community and law enforcement to discuss the ongoing protests.
Ryan credited the city’s public campaign finance system with helping him connect with voters because it limited him to accepting donations of $5 to $250. In all, he qualified for nearly $300,000 of public matching funds to fuel his campaign.
Ryan thinks Portland’s form of weak-mayor government in which commissioners directly manage city bureaus, unique among large U.S. cities, should be replaced. Wheeler, Hardesty and Commissioner Chloe Eudaly have publicly expressed the same thoughts. Ryan said he is hopeful the city’s charter commission, which convenes beginning in January, will lead Portland voters to adopt a new approach featuring a city manager and with council members elected to represent different geographic area of the city.
“People are ready for a systemic change in how we’re set up to govern the city,” he said. “I think the time is right.”
A member and chair of the Portland school board from 2005 to 2008, Ryan, 58, worked more than three decades in the nonprofit sector. He served as development director at Portland State University and the Oregon Ballet Theatre. He then became the head of All Hands Raised for 11 years before stepping down in 2019.
Ryan in a statement Wednesday said he was honored to have been selected by voters, thanked Smith and said he was “grateful for the spirited debate we participated in throughout the campaign.”
“This campaign was about bringing Portlanders together to address the issues we all face,” Ryan said. “Our city is in crisis, and I am eager to jump in and get to work.”
Fish, who’d been on the council since winning the city’s last special election for a seat in 2008, died in January from cancer. The council has operated with four members for the last seven months.
Ryan said he agreed with the City Council’s decision last month to reallocating $15 million from the Portland police bureau and said he wants to track outcomes to ensure the reallocated funds are being used effectively.
Eudaly voted no on the reallocation, calling for a larger $50 million cut to police, echoing what hundreds of Portland residents testified they wanted. Smith campaigned on doing just that.
When asked Wednesday if he would like to see more money taken out of the police bureau, Ryan was noncommittal.
“We have to justify the strategy of what each investment is and what success looks like,” Ryan said. “It’s easy to destroy and it’s a lot harder to build.”
-- Everton Bailey Jr; ebailey@oregonian.com | 503-221-8343 | @EvertonBailey
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