Richard Winters

**Richard Douglas Winters** was an American politician who served as the mayor of Portland from 1983 to 1990, and again between 2001 and 2003.

## Biography

### Early Life

Winters was born into a middle class family on the Upper West Side of New York City in 1942. His father, Douglas Winters III (1913-2008) was a hotel manager originally from New Jersey. His mother, Holly Dulau Winters (1912-1989) was a homemaker. His mother was descended from Spanish, French, and Romanian immigrants while his father was English, a descendant of Edward Mason Winters (fl. 1690) who originally came from Berkshire County, England. He has a younger sister, Melanie.

Winters and his family moved from New York City shortly after the end of World War II to suburban New Rochelle, New York. Winters would spent the rest of his childhood there. His father would commute every other day from New Rochelle to the collection of hotels and restaurants he owned in the city. In 1950, when Richard was 8, his parents divorced. His father moved to Beverley Hills, California to work for the Hilton Hotels Corporation. His father would later lead a program that would install air conditioning in every Hilton hotel room, a landmark achievement at the time.

Douglas Winters remarried in 1955 to Margaret Betly, with whom he had a daughter with in addition to her young son from a previous marriage. His father would make regular visits to New York to visit his children, while Richard would spend at least a month every summer with his father out in California. His mother and father enjoyed a amicable relationship and even considered each other friends for the rest of their lives. Richard's mother, Holly, re-married twice during his childhood. First to a retail store owner Harold Drozd, of which their marriage lasted two years. She remained single up until Richard graduated high school, when she married marketing executive A. Taylor Welch, who she remained married to for the rest of her life.

### Education

Richard Winters would attend the private Iona Grammar School until 9th grade, when he transferred to the public New Rochelle High School. He began to flourish at New Rochelle High School, where he was team captain of the track team and class president two years in a row. He was also a member of the City School District of New Rochelle's "Student School Board" where he and five other students had the chance to work with school district officials. In 1960 he crafted a legislation that would equip all New Rochelle public schools with new technology including televisions and upgraded tape recorders, printers, and cameras. He often cited this event as the beginning of his serious interest in a political career.

Winters graduated from New Rochelle High School in 1961 with an honors diploma. He would then go to attend Tufts University in Somerville, Massachusetts. He initially began a degree in history but switched to political science. In 1966 he went on to attend Linelin State University's college of law in Linelin City and obtain his Juris Doctor. While at Linelin State, he became close friends with later mayor and adjunct professor of law Hollis Mims. He graduated from Linelin State in 1969.

### Political Career

Winters initially entered a career as a lawyer at lawyer Fraser & Lewis in Linelin City. According to himself, he soon learned that being a practicing lawyer was not for him. This made him seek out Hollis Mims, who was running for mayor, for any opportunities in his campaigns. He became a campaign officer in 1970, a campaign which would later succeed in electing Mims in 1971 as mayor of Linelin City. Winters then returned to litigation, however joined the school board of Linelin City School District (LCSD) in September 1971 and would serve for two years. In 1974 he was elected as a city councilman for Hollis Mims' second term as mayor. He was one of the most well respected and favorite politicians in the city, appearing as a comparatively young and ambitious candidate as opposed to his fellow council members.

In 1979 he ran for mayor against native Linelin politician Fred Werner but lost by a slim margin. During Werner and Mims' second term the city had experienced a serious increase in crime and degradation, and Werner and his council members became the target of serious criticism.

In 1983, Winters ran again, winning this time against Werner. He was the first republican to serve as mayor in Linelin since Francis Ladue in the late '50s. He adopted a strong, budget-conscious approach to the city's finances. He re-financed the city's mental wards and made it increasingly difficult for homeless people to settle on city streets. He was a passionate supporter of the city's museums, parks, and public infrastructure. He is most known in this regard as having moved the aging Seaward Expressway that ran across most of the Forlin waterfront and replacing it with a long park, designated today as Richard D. Winters Greenway.

However, he is often criticized for targeting majority black neighborhoods during the 1980s efforts to "clean up Linelin". He increased police presence and maintained strict on the city's policies towards drugs, crime, and vandalism. Some sections of the North Linelin neighborhood were demolished to make way for new public housing and other public services, a move which, though generally positive, is often said as being not performed carefully enough. In 1989 he was recorded using "several racial slurs" in a conversation with councilman Daniel Leathers Jr. He publicly apologized for this incident.

In 1992 his second term ended and he retired from public life. He began to be cited as Linelin greatest mayor, significantly decreasing the city pollution, crime, and increasing tourism and public services. He went to work as a campaign advisor for