ANGELITA’S PRIORITIES
SANITATION
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We’ve all walked through Portland holding garbage in our hands because we don’t want to litter, only to find that it took walking 10 blocks to find a single garbage can. If you’re like me and you’ve assisted your houseless neighbors with campsite cleanups so that they don’t get swept, you’ve also found that it’s incredibly complicated to figure out which government agency to contact for garbage collection. Neighbors that spent hours picking up garbage in their free time are approached by a government employee who arrives and informs you that you’ve collected the “wrong” garbage and they can’t take it away.
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Right now, garbage pickup is managed by the City of Portland, Multnomah County, and Metro. Each of these governments have dozens of agencies that they contract for different classifications of garbage or for different neighborhoods. This has resulted in a deeply inefficient garbage collection system that leaves both the employees triaging these issues and constituents frustrated.
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Portland needs to streamline sanitation services by creating one Sanitation Bureau that is shared by the City, County, and Metro that services the entire City of Portland.
Portland City Council must coordinate with sanitation unions and agencies to ensure that this new bureau has the option to have a staff union that is designed with input from workers who will be directly impacted.
HOUSING & HOMELESSNESS
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As a Paraguayan immigrant that was raised by a single mother, I know how hard it is to find affordable housing in Portland, and I have firsthand experience being discriminated against as a Latino renter. I’ve also been homeless, and I know how difficult it is to access resources and get back on your feet when you’ve lost your housing. The grace and support of my community gave me the resources I needed to finish college, start policy work, and run for office. Everyone deserves to have the same opportunities that I did.
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Coming soon!
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Coming soon!
TRANSPORTATION & INFRASTRUCTURE
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I was raised by a single mother and grew up without a car. It was too expensive for us to afford one, so we got around by bike, on foot, or by bus. This taught me that in order to serve the people who most need it, public transportation should be accessible, inexpensive, and frequent. Roads should be safe for pedestrians, bicyclists, and cars alike.
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Right now our public transportation system is not usable, affordable, or accessible. Cars have been prioritized in city design for so long that we don’t have enough safe areas for children to play outside in neighborhoods without the risk of getting hit by a vehicle. Many Portlanders are eager to try alternative modes of transportation like bicycles to get around, but are intimidated by a lack of safety.
In the past decade we’ve also seen a rise in hostile architecture implemented throughout Portland, presumably to prevent homeless people from finding places to rest. When we make public spaces inhospitable to homeless people, we make them inhospitable to all of us.
In our transit system, this presents itself as slanted benches that are extremely difficult if not impossible for anyone with a disability to use, a lack of covers for bus and train stops that force people to wait in the rain and the cold, and infrequent services.
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With a climate crisis and a housing cost crisis, more people are turning towards alternative modes of transportation, like bicycles and buses. Even so, the majority of our infrastructure prioritizes cars above everything else. Our infrastructure needs to meet the moment by becoming more user friendly for bicyclists and pedestrians.
Currently, many Portland bike lanes are only outlined through paint markings that don’t protect bicyclists from vehicles. City Council needs to revisit popular bike routes and harden these barriers like we see in other cities. We can make bike lanes that are separated from traffic by curbs, planters, or parked cars to organize the street and make riding a bike appealing for everyone. Infrastructure changes like this increase ridership, improve perception of safety and actual safety, and are more user friendly than traditional painted markings.
In District 3 I will focus on César E Chávez Boulevard and Sandy Boulevard to expand bike lanes, and work with TriMet to create a Bus Rapid Transit lane from Sandy down to Division.
PUBLIC SAFETY
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We need to remagine what public safety means by examining the root causes of crime in our community: poverty, patriarchy, and white supremacy. When we invest in our communities, when we ensure people have their basic needs met, when children have spaces to play and families can afford rent, when we have a robust public health and mental health system, and when we have strong social safety nets, crime will be greatly diminished.
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Right now, public safety is narrowly defined as “crime reduction” with little to no analysis on the root causes of crime. The status quo solutions to public safety are the blunt tools of policing, surveillance, and an ever-expanding carceral system. These options focus on containment of crime after the fact, not prevention.
New York City, for example, has one of the largest police budgets in the world at $6 billion. On March 7th, 2024, the Mayor of New York announced they would send 750 National Guard members and 250 State Troopers to reduce crime on the subway. This is in addition to the over 1,000 police officers currently patrolling the subway.
Just days after all of these law enforcement agents were added, a man pushed his girlfriend onto the subway tracks after an argument, there was a high profile shooting on the A train (in a station with a precinct), https://www.audacy.com/1010wins/news/local/man-trips-into-path-of-oncoming-train-in-union-squarea man accidentally tripped onto the tracks and died, and another man was pushed onto the tracks and killed.
Simply adding more law enforcement and surveillance without addressing poverty, domestic violence, white supremacy, and the lack of resources and education in our communities cannot resolve crime.
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When we invest in our communities, when we ensure people have their basic needs met, when children have spaces to play and families can afford rent, when we have a robust public health and mental health system, and when we have strong social safety nets, crime will be greatly diminished.
Fully Fund Portland Street Response
Since 2013, 911 calls reporting "unwanted persons" increased by more than 60 percent. That's the designation dispatchers give when someone has asked a person to leave their property and the person refuses. The vast majority of these calls are about unhoused people or people experiencing a mental health crisis.
Before Portland Street Response was underfunded by our current City Council, the program was shown to not only be extremely successful in addressing mental health crisis calls, but also in reducing the number of welfare checks police officers were doing, thus freeing up their time to address issues within their purview.
Portland Street Response needs to operate citywide, 24 hours a day, and be granted access to private residences to address mental health crisis calls that happen in someone’s home.
Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design
In 2022, the Mt. Scott-Arleta Neighborhood Association approached Commissioner Hardesty with a problem: the neighborhood was experiencing recurring drive-by shootings. Constituents pitched an idea to add large barrels on the street so that people could not speed through the neighborhood, and would not do drive-by shootings because they wouldn’t be able to escape fast enough. After the installation of the barrels, shootings dropped by two-thirds.
Once the pilot program ended and was proven to be successful, cement planters were installed. The street was painted, flowers were planted, and solar fairy lights installed. This became the vibrant Mt. Scott-Arleta Triangle.
By using traffic-calming techniques that incentivize pedestrian transit, revitalizing public spaces, and creating spaces where neighbors can come together, Portland will reduce crime and beautify our city.