Chris Coby with a League of Women Voters apportland. You're watching the Video Voters Guide. Along with Metro East Community Media, we are here to talk with candidates running in the May 2020 primary election. With me today is Chloe Utilay, running for Portland City Commissioner, position four. Welcome Chloe, and please tell us a little bit about yourself while you're running for City Council and what unique characteristics you have among all candidates for position four. Sure, thanks for having me. My name is Chloe Adaly, I'm running for a re-election to position number four. I was born and raised in the Portland area, I've lived in Portland proper since 1988, and for 22 years before I joined City Council, I ran an independent bookshop called Reading Frenzy. I'm also a lifelong activist, disability advocate, and in the last few years, I've got deeply involved in the housing justice movement, which is what led me to run for City Council. I was a cost burden renter, struggling to keep a move from my family's head. And I didn't see our council taking the kind of action renters needed for relief. So I ran on that issue, I won on that issue, and I've made a lot of progress on that issue since taking office. I am the eighth woman to ever be elected to City Council in over a hundred years, so that's one unique quality. I bring to City Council. And I'm also the parent of an amazing young man with a significant disability, and being his mom has really led me down and unexpected, but really very fulfilling path as a parent and as an advocate. So I also bring that experience to council, as well as being one of the few renters to be elected to Council in a very long time. The tumultuous times we're living in in the pandemic and resulting devastation of small businesses, city employee layoffs, and housing displacement will be with us for some time, unfortunately. How would you seek to address the fallout from the pandemic, including the reduction in city revenue? Well, we've taken some really important first steps. Of course, the shutdown encouraging everyone to stay home and stay safe and only allowing essential businesses to be open. The eviction moratorium, which, while important, really is just a stopgap measure to keep people housed in the short term, we're going to have to revisit that issue very soon as the crisis evolves, and we're seeing that this is going to last a lot longer than originally anticipated. We also have to help homeowners keep their homes, keep everybody housed. I'm working closely with the small business community. I come out of that community in particular retailers, restaurant owners, and music venues. A lot of places that were the first to close, the hardest hit, in some cases, they're not able to generate any revenue, and will be some of the last to reopen. So working with elected leaders at every level of government, business owners, community advocates to bring relief to the small business community. And I believe you asked about the impact to the city budget. Today, we announced that non-represented employees are not going to receive COLA merit pay increases, and we're going to have to start a furlough of one day per pay period, which is a 10% reduction in hours. Similar changes are likely to impact our representative employees as well. We're taking so far a somewhat different approach than we did to the recession in that we are trying to preserve vital essential services and protect as many jobs as we can. So we're starting with these cost saving measures, hiring freezes, and really doing as much as we can before we consider layoffs. If we maintain the current Portland government city, the city structure for Portland, what city bureaus would you want to oversee if reelected and why? Well, I'm pretty happy with my current portfolio. I oversee the Portland Bureau of Transportation, the Office of Community and Civic Life. I am the arts liaison and the liaison to venture Portland. I would love to oversee parks at some point, but really I have a very wide ranging interest. There's not a single bureau that I wouldn't welcome to my portfolio. How would you address the public's significant concerns about police community relations, the use of deadly force and officer accountability? This has been a tough question for me during this election cycle because we are in the early stages of negotiating the police contract. So I can't discuss the details of that negotiation or necessarily the specifics of what I want to see. What I can say is that I support police reforms and a variety of police reforms. And I want a meaningful transparent process for this contract negotiation, which of course is going to be challenging given that we are all. Now, meeting remotely and still kind of figuring out the public engagement piece as we hold council sessions and other hearings. We have a lot of work to do to repair the relationship between community and police. I'm hopeful that we can make progress. We have certainly made progress towards satisfying the DOJ settlement. And I believe other improvements are on their way. I have time for one last quick question. I hope the city's park system faces serious financial challenges even more so since the closures caused by the pandemic. What ideas do you have for securing the financial stability of the park system? Well, we'll, similar to our roadways, we historically have not done a good job planning for or saving for basic maintenance and repair and parks. Some facilities are in pretty bad shape because of that. We as a council looked at a variety of options last year. Commissioner Fish actually brought forward a look at sustainable funding sources for parks. And the source that seemed to make the most sense at the time were general obligation bonds. Out of all the options we considered that was the kind of most stable least volatile seemingly most viable options. So I look forward to that conversation going forward. Of course, we're going to have some really tough other very tough conversations before that happens about the budget. Thank you, Chloe, for your thoughts. This has been the Video Voters Guide. The primary election is Tuesday, May 19. Be sure to inform yourself about the candidates and the ballot measures. And exercise your right to vote. Thank you for watching.