Amid COVID-19, a tanking economy, and ubiquitous homelessness, the issue of city code status for neighborhood associations was all but invisible in the May elections, with the notable exception of the race for Portland City Council Commissioner Position No. 4.
The race pitted outspoken neighborhood association system critic Chloe Eudaly against four challengers, one of whom, newcomer Mingus Mapps, drew particularly strong support from the neighborhood association establishment…with stunning results. The incumbent garnered only 31% of the vote, far short of the simple majority needed to avoid a November run-off against second-place Mapps at 29% and barely enough to edge out third-place finisher former Mayor Sam Adams at 28%.
Although some may disagree, Commissioner Eudaly’s relatively poor showing was in large part due to alienating many neighborhood association leaders this past year. Assigned by Mayor Wheeler to head the nascent Office of Community & Civic Life (Civic Life), formerly Office of Neighborhood Involvement, Eudaly advocated early on for an end to what she views as unwarranted privileged recognition in the city code for neighborhood associations dating back to the 1970s. Bad relations between Civic Life and the neighborhood association establishment reached critical mass last summer when Eudaly, in a speech at the opening of a “Neighborhood Associations Rock!” art exhibit packed with neighborhood association supporters, insinuated that neighborhood association leadership was systemically elitist and insular—this on the heals of a City Club speech by Civic Life Director Suk Rhee branding the system as “racist.” Fueling the fire was the creation by Eudaly and Rhee of a “Code Change Committee” without neighborhood association input that was predisposed to expanding Civic Life’s support for “historically marginalized” minority interest groups at the expense of neighborhood association status. But City Council didn’t buy it, declining to act on proposals long on platitudes and short on specifics (e.g., criteria by which groups would qualify for inclusion, the number of groups to be included, and a calculus for divvying out funding to numerous groups).
Though both considered political “progressives,” Chloe Eudaly and Mingus Mapps differ both in terms of background and temperament. Comparing backgrounds, Eudaly is a white female who attended Portland Community College, owned a small business, and rents her residence. Mapps, an African American male homeowner who attended Reed College, has a PhD from Cornell, taught at Brandeis, was a Visiting Fellow at Harvard, and held positions with Multnomah County and the City of Portland (though parting ways with Civic Life over a management dispute). As for temperament, an Oregonian editorial took Eudaly to task for “polarizing politics” via divisive rhetoric, while lauding Mapps as the “moderate, thoughtful alternative to Eudaly.” Capitalizing on the endorsement, a Mapps flier concluded: “He listens to Neighborhood Associations. He is no drama. He is often the adult in the room.” There was no mention in Eudaly’s voters’ pamphlet of either the Office of Community & Civic Life or neighborhood associations in the listings of achievements and endorsements, omissions not lost on Mapps.