Mr. Anderson
Servant Leadership
for the
Citizens of Portland's 3rd City Council District
Mr. Anderson
Servant Leadership
for the
Citizens of Portland's 3rd City Council District
Neighbors, the job of being your council person is about more than plans and programs!
Job #1 is providing SERVICE to you.
The job is to provide you Support, Advice, Counsel, and when needed Solace!
The job is to pay ATTENTION to you - and PROBLEMS that are unique to you!
My door will be open, and my office will be available,
24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
BECAUSE EVERYONE NEEDS AN EQUALIZER SOMETIME!!!
Support Mr. Anderson
If service is important to you, please vote for me!
If service is as important to you, as it is to me, please make a contribution!!!
WHY I'M RUNNING
"IF NOT US, WHO?"
See the sign in the back of this picture that says "If NOT US"? I'm holding that sign. In 2019, word came to the vendors of the Saturday Market that MAX was closing 4 Blue Line stop in Old Town!
We were stunned… Why close those stops? Whose perspective were they taking? Whose problems were being considered? Whose priorities were most important? We should not have had to protest to be heard or to be answered...
I’m running to be your representative to the Portland City Council - to bring your perspective to every agency and every department and every corner of government. I am running to ensure that no one in the 3rd district will be left to fend for themselves against the city - the way the Saturday Market was.
I am running because everyone needs and EQUALIZER sometimes - and your Council person should be it!
I am A Different Kind of Duck
- My campaign is represented by a Blue duck to let you know that I'm running to be a different kind of democratic official.
- The point of the campaign is to make those differences plain, and to ensure you can choose my different path if you want to.
Difference 1 - Taking Your Perspective
I’m running to GUARANTEE that in every meeting and behind every closed door it’s your problems that matter, your priorities that are in control, and your perspectives that guide decision-making
For years, despite all our officials and candidates seeing the problems, (https://www.opb.org/article/2024/02/08/portland-oregon-economy-livelihood-voter-survey/#:~:text=When%20asked%20an%20open%2Dended,and%20crime%2C%20and%20affordable%20housing), action has been slow come. Why?
Your Perspective - Your Priorities - Your Problems
What kind of official lets things get so bad for you?
For the official who is a bureaucrat, the job is the point - not you. For the official who is an activist, the cause is the point - not you.
Bureaucrats and activist do great things... BUT WE DO NOT NEED ANY MORE in office. We need, and you should only accept, officials who know they are making decisions on YOUR behalf. People who know how to serve you.
From my time in the Air Force to my time in the Classroom I have been a servant. Like at the protest, in the back; not in the limelight, but holding up the light. I have, like you:
- Built a computing center to bridge the digital divide
- Been a "Big Brother" to an at risk youth
- Been helped and hindered by our Department of Human Services getting care for a child in my family
- Witnessed the troubles and struggles of mental illness and substance use disorder up close, serving as a the Social Security Payee of a close personal friend
- Worked with homeless ex-offenders, peer-counselors, and recovering addicts to start my small business, Andy Adams Candy
- Worked with the Oregon Department of Agriculture to get a business license
- Struggled with the City of Portland Business Division to get a permit
- Gotten help from Multnomah County's Landlord/Tenant court - as a landlord!
- Used Multonomah County's Family Court as a Solo-Father.
- Soldered through with Portland Public Schools to get a child on an IEP
All the candidates see the problems our district is having. And we all have programs and positions we believe will solve them. But do all the candidates have your PERSPECTIVE? Do they see what you see - the way you see it? I do!
Difference 2 - Addressing Your Priorities
I am a "Blue Duck Democrat" (BDD)! And like "blue dog" democrats from years gone by, I consider myself a conservative democrat.
What that means is that as a black man I appreciate diversity, equity, and inclusion like no other. It means that I feel safer in a city that treats trans-men well than in a city that does not. But I also have a passion for business, development and order! I love civil rights and surely believe that my black life matters, but know too that everyone needs to earn a living and we need to send our children to good neighborhood schools.
These passions impact how I would approach the problems we have and with what priority.
Fixing your Problems
1. Crime, Community Safety, Addiction and Unsheltered Homelessness -
Ensure that the Police and Communities of Faith have a prominent role in all efforts to end urban camping, unsheltered homelessness and open-air drug use.
2. Education -
Portland's schools must work for parents
Collaboration further with PPS to expanded after hours use of all school facilities - in particular the kitchen to address issues of food insecurity in the community.
3. Development, Infrastructure, and Transportation -
Portland's' government must work for worker,
and the Boss is usually amongst the hardest workers.
Ensure the replacement of PBOT's main Garage (https://www.wweek.com/news/2024/04/10/the-garage-that-portland-forgot/) (https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2023/08/portland-city-maintenance-worker-impaled-by-wrecking-bar.html?outputType=amp)
Initiate project to pave ALL unimproved roads within our city limits
4. Climate Change -
Partner with landlord and church associations to support apartment and church chargers for electric cars
Work with the bottle drop program to improve service and products
Promote Carbon Capture/Geo-Engineering in our Region (https://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/2024/05/google-spinout-lands-in-oregon-to-suck-carbon-out-of-the-air-fight-climate-change.html)
5. Housing Affordability -
Work with development community to liberalize zoning restrictions to build more houses
Work with neighborhood associations to "densify" housing
6. Democracy, Accountability , Transparency & Reform
Promote policies that support dark skies (https://www.darkskyoregon.org/) (https://www.portland.gov/bps/planning/dark-skies)
Support Reproductive freedom
Biography
Servant Leader
TEACHER
Master of Teaching, Warner Pacific University
Algebra @ Central Catholic High School, McDaniel's High School, and Parkrose High School.
VETERAN
United States Air Force
ENGINEER
BS Mechanical Engineering, Cal Poly Pomona
Founded a church-based computer lab in Los Angeles
IT work for Johnson Controls, AMDOCS, and Intel
Homeowner in the Parkrose neighborhood of Portland.
Small business owner in Portland's Saturday Market
Before Portland, I'd lived in Colorado Springs CO, Austin TX, Guam, Los Angeles, Denver CO, and Seattle.
Before teaching, I've worked in Pune, India and Santiago De Queretaro, Mexico.
I became a first-time first-time father at 51!