Willamette Week, October 19, 2022 - Volume 48, Issue 50 - "Vote Healthy: WW’s General Election 2022"

Len Bergstein RIP.

Oregon Democrats outnum ber Republicans by about 282,000 voters.

Ron Wyden still stans Fred Meyer rotisserie chicken .

Andrea Salinas’ staff bought her a whole bushel of corn 13

The Republican nominee for Senate District 18 is a school teacher who was fired for refusing to get vaccinated. 14

Tawna Sanchez expects traffic cops to ask her if she’s been drinking. 20

This year, the Joint Office of Homeless Services budget will be $262 million. 26

Laika’s not the only game in town. Netflix built a brand-new stop-motion animation studio in Milwaukie. 33

The Oregon Beer Awards’ fresh hop contest is the world’s largest. 34

Natural Wonders is Portland’s first Native-owned dispensa ry 36

A can of tuna causes an exis tential crisis in 21ten Theatre’s Laughing Wild 37

When Robert Pattinson is busy, you call Taylor Swift’s boyfriend 38

At last , a man who pays atten tion. 40

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On Oct. 13, WW broke the news on wweek.com that Mayor Ted Wheeler was preparing a citywide ban on unsanctioned camping and would seek to open three large campsites across the city, each with capacity for 500 people. WW then reported Wheeler’s office had asked Multnomah County Chair Deborah Kafoury for assistance in opening and running the sites. She was scornful of the idea. The mayor’s plan arrives amid an election season when Portland homelessness is voters’ top issue—and follows a federal lawsuit against the city by people with disabilities who say tents are blocking their access to public spaces. Here’s what our readers had to say:

TOMMCCALLSSCOTCH

GLASS, VIA WWEEK.COM:

“All it takes is a tight election cycle to get things done.”

SOPHLADY, VIA WWEEK.

COM: “The mayor’s so-called proposal is so pie in the sky it could cause diabetes.”

CITY COMMISSIONER

JO ANN HARDESTY, VIA

TWITTER: “Last week, Mayor Wheeler told me he was interested in creating addi tional, temporary sanctioned camping areas. I was told they would include a cap of around 100 people each. When I asked the most basic questions: Who? When? Where? How?

I was told they hadn’t figured that out yet.

“About an hour later, I read

in the news that the unseen mystery plan could include forcing people in extreme poverty to live in massive concentrated encampments or face jail, just as the upcoming winter brings renewed fears of COVID exposure and flu outbreaks.

“So that’s what I know. We need an ambitious, urgent effort to shelter and house those suffering on the streets as soon as possible, but we haven’t seen a real plan yet. If one exists, I’m sure I’ll have more to say then.”

RICHARD ELLMYER, VIA WWEEK.COM: “I hope this is true. If so, bravo, Sam Adams, for the idea and bravo, Ted Wheeler, for acting on it. It’s about time.”

Dr. Know

BY MARTY SMITH @martysmithxxx

My Voters’ Pamphlet says Measure 112 “removes language allowing slavery and involuntary servitude as punishment for crime” from the Oregon Constitution. Are they telling me that slavery has been legal in Oregon up till now? —Brylee C.

Tolerance and equity have been central to Ore gon’s identity throughout our 175-year history (except maybe for one brief 150-year period right at the beginning), so it’s surprising we’d scrambling to ban something that the nation as a whole abolished all the way back in 1865 with the passage of the 13th Amendment.

And, in fact, we’re not. I’m all for Measure 112, but making the story about Oregon buries the lede, which is that the aforementioned 13th Amendment did not actually abolish slavery. I don’t mean that in the sense that working at Amazon or suffering COVID lockdowns or hav ing Mom take away your phone is tantamount to slavery, either; I mean in the sense that, under the right conditions, slavery qua slavery is A-OK with the U.S. Constitution.*

How? The 13th Amendment says, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.” The language in our state con stitution (and many other state constitutions)

PEMBQUIST, VIA REDDIT: “Looks like Ted checked the political winds.

“I imagine this is going to be quite ugly. I am not betting that these are going to be anything but hellholes with the strong preying upon the weak. Since there hasn’t been much law enforcement as is, I don’t imagine there will be much inside these camps.

“Before building these, we could start by just laying down some simple rules, like no collecting of shit, no blocking sidewalks, only X square feet per ‘tent,’ etc.

“Oh, and no machetes or nail-studded baseball bats.

“ Will be interesting to see what kind of private contractor undertakes this little scheme and for how much.”

DALLEAGONIAN, VIA WWEEK.COM: “I support this. Portland needs its own versions of Hamsterdam…with services (medical, water, trash, toilets, security).”

WANG_SHUAI, VIA REDDIT: “I hope they don’t assign Com missioner ‘still looking for safe rest sites’ Ryan to this.”

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR must include the author's street address and phone number for verification. Letters must be 250 or fewer words.

Submit to: PO Box 10770, Portland OR, 97296

Email: mzusman@wweek.com

is similar. You don’t have to be Rudy Giuliani to see the opportunity for morally bankrupt opportunism presented by this caveat. As soon as Reconstruction ended (around 1877), the Southern white power structure set about passing laws designed to get as many Black men as possible “duly convicted.” No job? Vagrancy. Quit your job? Breach of contract. Walking along train tracks? Trespassing.

Once victims were pronounced guilty (sometimes the judge wouldn’t even bother to specify any particular crime), they could be rented out as “convict labor” to local farms and businesses. By some estimates, fully 20% of freed slaves endured this fate. This went on, in one form or another, until World War II.

I don’t think anyone is suggesting that convict leasing is about to stage a major comeback in the Beaver State, but you can understand why some find its implied presence in the state constitution increasingly unaccept able.

And the movement is growing: Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee and Vermont will also vote on removing similar language from their constitutions this fall. Counting Oregon, that’s, like, two wins already. The sky’s the limit! *Though not, to be clear, with current federal law.

Questions? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com.

VETERAN POLITICO LEN BERGSTEIN DIES:

Longtime political consultant, lobbyist and KGW commentator Len Bergstein died at his Portland home Monday night. He was 76. Known for his wit as well as his wisdom, Bergstein, originally from New York, moved to Oregon in 1972, and his career in politics ended only with his final breath. He worked for and with a long list of the state’s leading politicians, including as a staffer for Gov. Bob Straub and Portland Mayor and Gov. Neil Goldschmidt and adviser to Oregon Supreme Court Justice Betty Roberts, Multnomah County Commissioner Gladys McCoy, City Commissioner Charles Jordan and Mayor Vera Katz. Tributes poured in from the likes of Albina Vision Trust chair Rukaiyah Adams, U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden and former Gov. Ted Kulongoski. “Len and I came to Oregon around the same time and have been friends for over 50 years,” Kulongoski says. “He was a wise counselor and I enjoyed his company very much. I feel like a part of me is missing.”

PEARL DISTRICT STARBUCKS CLOSES OVER SAFETY CONCERNS: A Starbucks coffee shop in the Pearl District will close permanently Oct. 21 due to safety concerns. That makes it the fourth location in Portland to shutter in the past three months, all citing safety issues. The other clo sures include a Starbucks downtown, another in Gateway, and a third in Hollywood. “We continue to equip our partners with the training, policies and information they need to address the socie tal challenges that cross our store thresholds ev ery day,” Starbucks spokesman Andrew Tull said in a statement. “But when these efforts aren’t enough to ensure the safety of our partners, we will make the decision to close a store.” Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell met with downtown Starbucks managers in late April, according to his calendar, less than three months prior to one store’s closure.

MULTNOMAH COUNTY COURTHOUSE IS SHORT-STAFFED: The shortage of police officers and criminal defense lawyers has been making frequent headlines in Portland in recent months. But it’s not just cops and public de fenders feeling the pinch of a tight job market. There are 43 open positions at the Multnomah County Circuit Court, trial court administrator Barbara Marcille tells WW. That’s a job vacancy rate of 12%. “The court has an exceptionally high number of vacancies, it is taking longer to fill vacant positions, and too often new employees are leaving after being with the court for a short period,” Marcille wrote for Multnomah Lawyer

last month. She blames a “competitive employ ment market and the expense of commuting and parking.” The results of the short staffing? Phone and email response times are longer. And the court is swapping around clerks because there’s not enough on staff to dedicate to every judge. “It becomes very challenging to manage all our scheduled proceedings,” Marcille says.

OREGON’S TOP JUDGE RETIRES: Oregon Chief Justice Martha Walters announced plans Oct. 18 to retire at the end of the year. She’s the second Oregon Supreme Court justice to do so in the past month, giving Gov. Kate Brown another high-profile opportunity to shape the direction of the state’s judicial system before her term ends in January. Walters’ role as chief justice will be assumed by Associate Justice Meagan Flynn, a 55-year-old Portlander who was promoted by a unanimous vote of her colleagues. She will begin her six-year term facing a slew of crises—includ ing a revolt by public defenders who, underpaid and overworked, are frequently refusing to take additional clients. Walters had clashed with Steve Singer, the brash reformer brought in late last year to direct the state agency responsible for public defenders, and ultimately orchestrated his ouster in August.

SIGNATURE INVESTIGATION PROCEEDS: Ore gon Secretary of State Shemia Fagan’s Elections Division has concluded its investigation of irreg ularities in the gathering of signatures to qualify unaffiliated candidate for governor Betsy John son for the ballot. Johnson turned in more than double the required signatures in August, and those signatures had an unusually high validity rate of nearly 80%. But elections officials found irregularities in 74 signature sheets and opened a criminal investigation into the firm contracted to collect them, Initiative & Referendum Campaign Management Services. Now, according to Ben Morris, Fagan’s spokesman, officials have turned over the results of that investigation to the Ore gon Department of Justice. DOJ says it’s probing one sheet. IRCMS didn’t respond to a request for comment.

BETSY JOHNSON

DANNY

FULGENCIO

BETSY JOHNSON

VOTE Healthy

This election, don’t indulge. Choose what’s good for

ITis past time for an in tervention. Portland is unwell, and that means Oregon is suffering.

The city’s streets and highways are lined with a rainbow of tents and trash, evidence of citizens breaking under the weight of poverty, mental illness and addiction. Nearly every weekend brings a homicide—sometimes several. City parks are used as open-air drug markets and chop shops for stolen cars. Call 911 and the wait time can be 10 minutes.

Workers are reluctant to return to downtown offices because no job is worth risking a close encounter with someone at their wit’s end. We have what academics would call a crisis of the commons. In simpler terms: Portlanders have given up on each other.

Admitting this unpleasant fact is not disloyal. For years, people who dislike Portland have predicted its doom. Such ghouls celebrate every lousy headline. That’s made it harder to admit when something really is wrong. It’s made Portlanders defensive rather than constructive.

But loving this city means wanting it to both stay weird and be healthy.

For the past month, we’ve met with a steady stream of politicians seeking WW’s endorsement. As we’ve spoken with them, and debated among ourselves whom to pick, we’ve also discussed what makes a city flour ish. And while many of them are running campaigns targeting Portland and its ills as a scapegoat, the truth is, Oregon’s well-being depends on the health of its largest city.

Portland.

It answers the 911 calls. It spends taxpayers’ money in transparent, effective ways.

As we considered candidates, these ideals shaped our decisions—and we hope they’ll influence yours.

A healthy city is in dialogue with the state that surrounds it. Yes, we’re talking about bipartisanship: a shopworn, unpopular concept. But if Portland four, or even two, years ago fashioned itself a bulwark for progressive values, it also alienated much of Oregon with its moral arrogance. We need candidates who will give us more conversation between extremes, not less.

We also need a governor who celebrates Portland’s values instead of using the city’s woes as a boogeyman to frighten rural communities.

A healthy city is safe. It is a place where people can send their kids to play in the neighborhood park without fear. It’s a place where police are plentiful, responsive and held accountable. It’s a place where stores and restaurants use glass rather than plywood for windows and where catalytic converters stay under cars instead of in thieves’ backpacks.

A healthy city actively cares for the vulnerable. The mental distress and addiction on Portland streets are symptoms of indifference and smugness. For too long, Portland leaders have accepted a humanitarian crisis as a kind of merciful neglect—as if the creation of a citywide Skid Row were somehow allowing people their dignity.

A healthy city is functional. It picks up the trash.

Repeatedly in the following pages, we will reject popular ideas—and even some whose aims we agree with—because nobody considered the ramifications. Voters deserve fully vetted policies, not rough drafts. A healthy city gathers together. Any student of great cities knows a city is only as strong as the neigh borhoods where people gather. And the most important neighborhood? Downtown. Without a vital, prosperous center, cities like Portland lose the ability to pay for the services residents need.

So, yes: We’re picking candidates who we think will prioritize reopening downtown and re-creating the commons—in Portland and across the state. That can only occur with eyes on the street and people who engage each other.

Last week, the second-largest newspaper publish er in America, Alden Global Capital, announced its 200 newspapers would no longer publish election endorsements because the project is too expensive and too divisive. While it is a costly and often polarizing process, we think the effort is worth it.

In every contested local and statewide race, we’ve chosen the candidate or ballot measure we think will help Oregonians rebound. We asked candidates diffi cult questions and one lighter thought exercise: If the world were ending tomorrow, what one food or drink would be on the menu for your last meal?

Portland isn’t over and neither is Oregon. But we hope citizens—including elected officials—are ready to demand more of themselves and each other. The health of this place is up to all of us.

GOVERNOR Tina Kotek Democrat

In Oregon governor’s races, math is everything: Reg istered Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than 9 percentage points—about 282,000 voters. That advantage largely explains why Democrats have won every governor’s race since 1986, tying Oregon with Washington state for the longest partisan winning streak in the nation.

That dominance is imperiled this year. Understand ably so.

Oreg on’s woeful response to homelessness, its inadequate strategy for treating mental illness and substance abuse, and the dismal performance of the state’s public schools have many voters wondering whether Democrats, who have controlled both cham bers of the Legislature every year but one since 2007, are complacent, incompetent or both.

That feeling of dissatisfaction with Democrats’ governance of Oregon propelled former state Sen. Betsy Johnson (D-Scappoose) to run for governor as an unaffiliated candidate. The 20-year lawmaker quit the Democratic Party because she couldn’t stomach another four years of what we are seeing now.

Johnson, the 71-year-old daugh ter of a Redmond timber baron, is as comfortable drinking with Astoria fishermen as she is tippling with the state’s most affluent citizens. She has a deep knowledge of state govern ment, a biting sense of humor, and a precise diagnosis of how Oregon has lost its way.

She is the candidate who’d be the most fun to meet for coffee or a pull of Jack Daniel’s. But her frightful voting record on the environment, her lack of support for an increase in the min imum wage, and her opposition to restricting no-cause evictions make clear her candidacy is out of touch with the values of many Oregonians.

The Republican nominee, former House Minority Leader Christine Drazan (R-Canby), emerged from a scrum of candidates in the primary with the skimpiest legislative record of the three front-runners in the general—she served less than two terms—and the burden of Republi cans’ long losing streak. Drazan, 50, is not without experience in Salem. She served as a senior legislative staffer two decades ago when her party controlled the Legislature, and later lobbied for the Oregon Restaurant & Lodging Association and ran the Cultural Advocacy Coalition.

As a lawmaker, she did little more than lead her cau cus in walking out of the Capitol, frustrating Demo crats’ agenda. But on the campaign stump, Drazan has shown herself to be a natural. She’s an incisive communicator who can laser in on the state’s failings. She’s also done her best to avoid topics that put her at odds with a majority of the electorate: her party’s leader, former President Donald Trump, and her op position to abortion rights, all mention of which she wiped from her campaign website before running in the general election.

Drazan is smart, a realist and not, despite what Dem ocrats fear, a MAGA-style Republican. But for all her talk of bipartisanship, she can point to few examples of working productively with the party in power. We have

difficulty imagining her leading a coalition to shelter the unhoused or deliver more effective behavioral health care. What’s more, her opposition to abortion and gun control—or taking any meaningful steps to slow climate change—put her at odds with WW’s values. We cannot endorse her.

That brings us to Tina Kotek, the longest-serving House speaker in Oregon history until she resigned in January to focus on the governor’s race.

As speaker, Kotek, 56, drove legislation and the members of her caucus with precision, discipline and remarkable success. Under her leadership, Democrats passed family medical leave and historic increases in the minimum wage, expanded health care coverage and made Oregon the first state in the nation to scrap zoning for single-family homes, an impediment to building more housing.

Let’s make one thing clear: Kotek is different from the woman she hopes to succeed, Gov. Kate Brown. Yes, both are Portland liberals who have broken barriers for LGBTQ people. But Brown lucked into the governor’s office and never articulated a clear agenda for her sixyear tenure. Kotek is decisive, focused on bettering the conditions of working-class Oregonians, and driven to

the point of ruthlessness to achieve her goals. Kotek is a taskmaster. As speaker, her task was pass ing bills. She bowled over anybody who stood in the way of bills she wanted passed—Democrat or Republican.

For some, that was a traumatizing experience—but showed the kind of determination the state needs. As governor, Kotek’s task will be to ensure that agencies do their jobs and taxpayer dollars are spent efficiently.

We think her legislative skills would translate well to an executive position. Kotek’s challenge will be to widen her circle beyond the public employee union leaders who are her closest advisers, and convey a vision of Oregon that works for everyone, not just Democrats in the Willamette Valley.

There’s some irony in Democrats nominating their strongest candidate in a decade, only to see her run headfirst into the fiercest opposition to her party in recent memory. But the seriousness of the alternatives posed by Drazan and Johnson makes it imperative to elect someone who can bring about meaningful change.

Vote for Kotek.

On the menu for Kotek’s last meal: Sour cherry dumplings from Kachka.

Kotek drove legislation and the members of her caucus with precision, discipline and remarkable success.

OREGON LABOR COMMISSIONER

Christina Stephenson

Nonpartisan

For many Oregonians, the Bureau of Labor and Indus tries will always be the agency that fined a Gresham bakery a lot of money for refusing to bake a wedding cake for a lesbian couple. The matter went to the U.S. Supreme Court and back, making headlines all the way.

But there is much more to BOLI than that one no torious case. The agency is charged with protecting workers’ civil rights and making sure they are treat ed fairly by employers. It ferrets out wage theft, one of the most widespread crimes in the country, and punishes discrimination in the workplace. It aims to build a competent workforce through apprenticeship programs. And BOLI’s commissioner is one of just five Oregon offices elected statewide.

The current commissioner, Val Hoyle, is running to fill the open seat of U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio, who is re tiring next year. (That congressional district is outside our circulation area, so we aren’t making an endorse ment.) Two women are vying to fill the nonpartisan

Helt, a former Republican state representative, says she’s running because BOLI often treats businesses unfairly, fining them for violations before saying what they did wrong. “A lot of people are just getting fines and not understanding why they got them,” Helt, 52, says.

Stephenson, 39, says the opposite is true. Her expe rience—honed by her legal career representing work ers—is that BOLI doesn’t side with employees nearly enough.

Call us crazy, but we feel putting a restaurant owner in charge of an agency that deals with a lot of com plaints from restaurant workers is a mistake (see: fox, henhouse). Helt seems animated by her experience during the pandemic, when one of her three restau rants closed. State policies aimed at controlling the spread of COVID-19 caused “instability,” she says, and BOLI did nothing to help. Her critique lacked specifics. If elected, she’d create a more predictable environment for business, which in turn would be good for labor, she says.

Her plans seemed vague to us, while Stephenson’s seemed concrete, formed by a decade representing businesses and workers at BOLI. “It’s no secret that I’ve had a to-do list for BOLI for 10 years,” Stephenson says. “I write down things like, ‘Why can’t they send me less paper?’” She contacted the agency about up dating its website because information on a statute of limitations was wrong, she says.

As voters, we like that kind of attention to detail. Stephenson’s overarching vision for the agency appeals to us, too. She sees BOLI’s primary role as providing assurance that workers get the kind of fair treatment that secures them a pathway to the middle class. And her track record, which includes championing paid bereavement leave and tighter requirements in the workplace to prevent sexual harassment and discrim ination, suggests she’ll get the job done. Stephenson works for us.

On the menu for Stephenson’s last meal: Vegetari an crispy rolls at Pho Van Fresh.

position Hoyle leaves behind: Bend restaurant owner Cheri Helt and Portland civil rights lawyer Christina Stephenson.

There is much more to BOLI than one notorious case.

U.S. SENATE

Ron Wyden Democrat

Wyden, 73, has been serving in Washington, D.C., for a while. He first won election to the House in 1980—the year Ronald Reagan unseated President Jimmy Carter—and moved up to the Senate in 1996.

He doesn’t appear to have lost a step. Wyden holds a town hall in each of Oregon’s 36 counties at least once a year—he’s done more than a thousand of them. In conversation, he displays an encyclopedic knowledge of policy and people with an enthusiasm undimmed by repetition or rubber chicken dinners.

When the pandemic hit, Wyden, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, pushed through additional insurance benefits for the millions of Americans who lost their jobs. He passed a law raising the corporate minimum tax to 15% (many profitable corporations previously dodged federal income taxes completely) and was instrumental in the Inflation Reduction Act, which despite its gimmicky name, includes mammoth investments in green energy, which will be helpful to Oregon and provide new resources to the Internal Revenue Service to pursue tax cheats, long a passion of Wyden’s. He also plugged into that bill a requirement that drug companies negotiate the price of high-cost medications with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

By dint of his seniority and usefulness, Wyden has plum com mittee assignments, in addition to his chairmanship of Finance: he sits on Energy and Natural Resource, Budget, and the Select Committee on Intelligence, and has been the Senate’s leading watchdog for personal privacy.

Oregon Republicans have abandoned any pretense of chal lenging Wyden. This year, they nominated Jo Rae Perkins, 66, a perennial candidate from Albany. Although Perkins has never held office of any kind, she is making her third run for the Senate since 2014 and has also run twice for Congress. An anti-vaxxer, Trump enthusiast and election-result denier, she has embraced QAnon in the past. Also in the race: Dan Pulju, 51, the Pacific Green Party nominee from Eugene, who is running on an anti-war platform, and Progressive Party nominee Chris Henry, 58, a truck driver from Milwaukie.

We enthusiastically recommend a vote for Wyden.

On the menu for Wyden’s last meal: Perhaps the senator’s most impressive accomplishment is having eaten at each of the 51 Fred Meyer stores in Oregon. He’d sign off with a Freddy’s chicken dinner and a Private Selection cherry pie.

Suzanne Bonamici Democrat

Bonamici, 68, a longtime lawyer, has been in Congress since 2012, representing a sliver of Portland and much of rural Oregon west of here, from Sheridan in the south through Washington, Columbia and Clatsop counties, all the way to Astoria.

Thanks to redistricting, Bonamici’s district now reaches much deeper into Portland, including downtown, the South Water front, and Southeast Portland out to César E. Chávez Boulevard. Now, 23% of her district is in Multnomah County, up from just 8%.

Lucky her. The new district plunges Bonamici into what is probably the thorniest issue facing the city right now: home lessness.

We pressed Bonamici on the issue during our endorsement interview, asking what a federal official could do to help remedy a state and local problem. Specifically, she recommended more investment in low-income housing vouchers. More generally, she said the government must do more to increase housing construction. Low-income units must pencil out for developers, and we must find more skilled people to build them.

With downtown Portland in her purview, we wish Bonamici had been more specific about her solutions to homelessness and more detailed in her answers to our other questions.

On offshore wind turbines in Oregon? “I’m definitely sup portive of doing all we can to transition to clean energy.” On a transmission line to carry clean electricity between Oregon and Idaho that Idaho Power has been trying to push through a thicket of bureaucracy for 14 years? “Grid is infrastructure. Of course we need a way to transmit energy.” She was no more granular on whether land in Washington County should be used for semiconductor plants or farming.

Don’t get us wrong. We appreciate Bonamici’s aye votes on constructive legislation like the CHIPS and Science Act to bring semiconductor manufacturing to the U.S.; the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which will improve Oregon’s roads and bridges; and the Inflation Reduction Act, which will support clean energy and lower the cost of insulin for seniors.

There is almost no chance that Bonamici will lose her seat, even as she tries to straddle issues in Portland and, now, thanks to redistricting, Tillamook County, where Timber Unity signs dot the cow pastures and clear cuts.

Her Republican opponent, Chris Mann, 59, is a political novice. He’s a super-nice guy, with a record of military service. After ac tive duty in the Army from 1984 to 1989, the 9/11 attacks spurred him to return for two tours in the Middle East. But he doesn’t have command of the issues, and like so many candidates that the GOP puts up in strongly Democratic districts, he would be learning on the job.

So, we’ll take Bonamici and urge her, next time, to bore us with the details.

On the menu for Bonamici’s last meal: Rigatoni, with her late father’s tomato sauce.

U.S. HOUSE DISTRICT 3 Earl Blumenauer Democrat

New boundaries shifted this historically Portland-centric dis trict east. It now extends to Hood River County, having surren dered a big chunk of Portland to the 1st Congressional District. But it remains by far the most lopsided district from a partisan point of view, with registered Democrats outnumbering Repub licans by more than 3 to 1.

That means another easy victory for incumbent Earl Blu menauer, 74, who has held this congressional seat since 1996, when he succeeded Ron Wyden. As the congressman most representative of Portland, Blumenauer has made the city’s issues his own: the promotion of transit and cycling, federal cannabis legalization, and sustainable agriculture, to name a few.

Blumenauer is such an institution he’s getting infrastructure named after him. On July 31, the city of Portland opened its new est span, the Blumenauer Bridge, which carries bicyclists and pedestrians across Interstate 84 at Northeast 7th Avenue. It’s a tribute to a native son of Southeast Portland who served in the Oregon Legislature and on the Multnomah County Commission and Portland City Council before decamping for Washington, D.C.

There, he serves on the budget-writing Ways and Means Committee. Blumenauer co-wrote the Green New Deal and distinguished himself during the Trump era for his vocal op position to the president.

For the past two years, he has tried to expand earlier wilder ness protections he helped cement for federal lands around Mount Hood, although conservation groups have criticized him for not doing more. (Blumenauer hopes to pass a bill in the post-election “lame duck” session.) He has also worked hard to end federal restrictions that prevent banks from serving the cannabis industry and has built support for eventual federal legalization.

Is his crusty liberalism growing a little stale? Sure, and we wish he’d taken a position on difficult local issues like Portland charter reform. His prominent mention in a New York Times story about members of Congress trading stocks isn’t a good look. But Blumenauer’s opponents—Republican Joanna Har bour, a lawyer who lives in Estacada, and David Delk, a longtime anti-war activist running on the Progressive, Independent and Pacific Green party tickets—although nice people, won’t make Blumenauer break a sweat.

On the menu for Blumenauer’s last meal: Lasagna.

Willamette

U.S. HOUSE DISTRICT 1

your best you forward

Jamie McLeodSkinner Democrat

McLeod-Skinner, 55, has a track record of run ning toward crises. Decades ago, she oversaw the reconstruction of hospitals and schools in war-stricken Bosnia and Kosovo. More recently, she accepted a temporary position as interim city manager in Talent, Ore., to help the com munity recover from a devastating wildfire.

In the May primary, she unseated Blue Dog Democrat Kurt Schrader, who represented his district for seven terms in Congress. She was outspent 10 to 1 and still won 57% of the vote.

Now, she’s facing what may be her biggest challenge yet: a hotly contested fight to rep resent the 5th Congressional District, which during redistricting was shifted away from the Oregon Coast and now covers a broad swath of Central Oregon between Sellwood and Sisters. That’s Cascade Mountains, Portland suburbs, and America’s hottest Zoom town (Bend) in one district.

McLeod-Skinner is the rare Democratic candidate who can appeal to both hardcore

Bernie Bros and rural ranchers whose concerns are geared more toward water rights than civil rights. Her top priorities—climate change and prescription drug prices—are issues that Con gress can, and should, address in the coming session.

But she faces a serious challenge in former Happy Valley Mayor Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who has adopted Schrader’s mantle as the centrist voice in the race. Chavez-DeRemer grew up a Democrat. Now, she says, “I’m a Lori Republican.” The race is currently a toss-up.

Chavez-DeRemer is somewhat to the left of some Trumpers. She believes Biden was duly elected, for one. But her views on gun control (more restrictive laws are off the table) and public education (critical race theory teaches kids “to hate each other”) do not strike us as insightful or constructive.

This isn’t McLeod-Skinner’s first rodeo. She ran unsuccessfully for a different congressional district in 2018 and Oregon secretary of state in 2020. But her strong performance in this year’s primary shows she has the support this time to pull it off—and we hope she does. She deserves your vote.

On the menu for McLeod-Skinner’s last meal: Tom kha soup, with rice.

Andrea Salinas Democrat

Thanks to population growth over the past decade, Oregon was apportioned a sixth con gressional seat following the 2020 census. The new district covers Polk, Yamhill and parts of Clackamas, Marion and Washington counties. It’s fairly balanced between Democrats and Re publicans, with Dems holding about a 5-point voter registration advantage.

The availability of a new seat drew unusu ally deep fields in both major party primaries, with state Rep. Andrea Salinas (D-Lake Os wego) defeating newcomer Carrick Flynn, a little-known candidate who received $13 mil lion in contributions from crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried.

Salinas has a long résumé: staffer for three members of Congress—U.S. Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.), and Rep. Darlene Hooley (D-Ore.); years lobbying in Sa lem; and, finally, five years in the Oregon House. During that time, Salinas built a reputation for brains, hard work and effectiveness. She was the Rookie of the Year in WW’s 2019 ranking of state lawmakers “The Good, Bad and Awful.”

House Speaker Tina Kotek (D-Portland) trusted Salinas enough to lead the import ant process of drawing congressional district boundaries in the House. Although critics have

noted she is now seeking a seat she helped cre ate, that’s a straw man argument: If she were trying to create an advantage for herself, she would have drawn a district she actually lives in; instead, she falls just outside the boundary and will have to sell her home and move inside if she wins.

In the GOP primary, Mike Erickson, 59, a Lake Oswego logistics company owner, topped state Rep. Ron Noble (R-McMinnville). Er ickson has been a successful businessman: He reported annual income of more than $3 million on his congressional disclosure forms.

He’s been less successful in politics, losing two legislative races in 1988 and 1992 and two 5th Congressional District races in 2006 and 2008. In the latter race, an ex-girlfriend said the prolife Erickson paid for her abortion, an allegation he denied. In the current race, in which Erick son is running as the law-and-order candidate, the Oregon Capital Chronicle reported he’d been arrested for DUII in Hood River County in 2016 (he successfully completed a diversion program).

Erickson’s wealth is his only credential, while Salinas has established herself as an expert on health care, a consensus builder, and someone with whom others enjoy working. She’s an easy choice.

On the menu for Salinas’ last meal: Corn.

“After I won the primary, my staff bought me a whole bushel.”

U.S. HOUSE DISTRICT

U.S. HOUSE DISTRICT 6

COURTESY

OREGON SENATE DISTRICT 15 (Forest Grove, parts of Hillsboro)

Janeen Sollman Democrat

Sollman, 53, moved up to the Senate via ap pointment after the retirement of state Sen. Chuck Riley (D-Hillsboro). Sollman’s back ground shows a methodical consistency: She’s worked for the same company, Vernier Science Education, for 25 years. She served eight years on the Hillsboro School Board and five in the

House before getting Riley’s seat.

The daughter of a violent, alcoholic father, she’s made mental health and education her top two areas of emphasis since coming to Salem. She’s a middling lawmaker but independent enough to vote in 2018 against a top teachers’ union priority, bargaining on class sizes. She has also been a leader on gun safety, helping to close the “boyfriend loophole” that exempted unmarried partners from the state’s red flag law.

Sollman’s Republican opponent, Carolina Malmedal, 52, is a first-time candidate who owns an 18-employee plumbing company with her husband. She says her motivation for en tering the race is crime—specifically, multiple break-ins at her family’s business. “It’s cost us $15,000 each time,” she says. “We’ve had fuel lines cut and ignitions taken out of vehicles.”

Malmedal deviates from her party in that she’s pro-choice, but she has often failed to vote in the past and displayed a disqualifying disdain for the public hearings and work sessions that allow lawmakers and Oregonians to vet a bill before it comes to the floor for a vote. We’ll stick with the incumbent.

On the menu for Sollman’s last meal: Sollman is gluten-free. She’d break that stricture with one of Helvetia Tavern’s giant burgers.

Wlnsvey Campos Democrat

Just as colleagues in the House were getting used to Campos’ distinctive first name, the standout rookie lawmaker sought to move up to the Senate. The district, briefly represented by Rep. Akasha Lawrence Spence, runs from Cedar Hills through Aloha into some very rural

stretches of Washington County.

If Campos, 26, is elected, she’ll become Or egon’s only state senator under the age of 50. That speaks to her self-possession and a note worthy trend of progressive activists securing the Democratic Party’s nomination in subur ban districts where Republicans can no lon ger compete. Campos was a modestly effective lawmaker in her two years in the House—she passed a bill ensuring Medicaid coverage for undocumented workers.

It’s a sign of how anemic the Republican Par ty has become in the ’burbs that its strongest representation in this race is a guy who quit the GOP. That would be Rich Vial, 68, himself a state lawmaker until the gun lobby target ed him for a common-sense vote to close the “boyfriend loophole,” a gap in state law that allowed domestic abusers to keep their firearms if they weren’t married to their partners. Vial is now running as an unaffiliated candidate— and Republicans are left with Kim Rice, 52, a former schoolteacher fired for refusing to get vaccinated for COVID-19.

We applaud Vial for reminding Republicans what a person of principle looks like. But it’s Campos’ time now. She’ll bring a valuable new perspective to the Senate.

On the menu for Campos’ last meal: Chilaq uiles.

Elizabeth Steiner Hayward Democrat

Redistricting shifted this Senate district north and east. It loses Beaverton and picks up Forest Park, parts of Sauvie Island, and downtown Portland.

That means Steiner Hayward, 59, a family physician, gets to explain to voters in the central city why the state mental hospital is tossing distressed people back onto the streets of Old Town. She’s appeared in our office twice in the past month, to discuss her own candidacy and the pledge of health care as a right enshrined in Measure 111 (we’ll get to that on page 27).

We found her to be an intelligent, if prickly, defender of the status quo. It’s not many elected officials who would rise to defend Patrick Allen, embattled director of the Oregon Health Au thority, whom Tina Kotek has already pledged to fire. Steiner Hayward’s willingness to do so suggests that, as co-chair of the Joint Ways and Means Committee that doles out tax dollars, she sees her own legacy as entwined with the performance of Oregon’s government institu tions.

By now you’ve gathered we aren’t happy with that performance. But we do see Steiner Hay ward grappling, if awkwardly, with the most important issues plaguing the state. We believe her grasp of the complexities of the Oregon State Hospital is as firm as anybody’s in Salem. We’ll need her there. Her Republican opponent, John Verbeek, is a perennial candidate with nothing to offer.

On the menu for Steiner Hayward’s last meal: Natural, crunchy peanut butter.

Rob Wagner Democrat

dispositions. On one side is state Sen. Rob Wagner, 49, whose meteoric rise from union lobbyist to Senate majority leader has felt, at times, inevitable.

On the other is Ben Edtl, 44, a Republican provocateur who has made a name for him self protesting state pandemic restrictions. He owned several Portland cafes before lockdowns and mask mandates forced him, he claims, to shut them down. He was thrown out of Best Buy last December for refusing to wear a mask, and has launched a series of legal challenges to Oregon’s vaccine mandate.

Edtl is a social liberal with a refreshing sense of humor, but his politics are not pretty. He claims recent legislation to expand voter reg istration encourages fraud. He says he doesn’t know if the 2020 presidential election was sto len.

Wagner’s refusal to engage with Edtl in our interview was disappointing. Maybe he knows it doesn’t matter: He represents a solidly Dem ocratic district. Regardless, we need officials in Salem who are willing to talk to the public, no matter how difficult that task may be.

Wagner also struggled to articulate policy accomplishments during his four-year tenure in the Senate and offered few prescriptions be yond party-line platitudes: “My job this entire election cycle is to help my caucus members get elected and make sure we return the majority.” Still, he warrants your vote.

On the menu for Wagner’s last meal: A mug of Salt & Straw.

OREGON SENATE DISTRICT 18 (Cedar Hills, Aloha)

OREGON SENATE DISTRICT 19 (Lake Oswego, West Linn, Tualatin)

The race to represent posh Lake O and its sur rounding hills features two men of different

Kayse Jama Democrat

Jama, 48, won appointment to this seat when his predecessor, Shemia Fagan, was elected secretary of state in 2020.

Born into a nomadic family in Somalia, Jama emigrated to Oregon in 1998 to escape civil war. After earning a degree at Marylhurst Univer

sity, he co-founded and ran United Oregon, a social justice nonprofit that serves immigrants, refugees and low-income Oregonians.

In Salem, Jama got a prized committee chair’s gavel quickly. He leads the Housing and Devel opment Committee, where he has worked col laboratively with his GOP vice chair, Sen. Dick Anderson (R-Lincoln City). In his first session, he passed a bill that created a new state Office of Immigrant and Refugee Advancement. Along with state Rep. Khanh Pham (D-Portland), he persuaded the Legislature’s Emergency Board to allocate $18 million to relocate Afghan ref ugees after the U.S. removed its troops from their country.

Jama says his focus going forward will be looking for ways to speed housing construc tion of all types across the state. Oregon ranks among the pokiest states in the union on that score, so he’s pulling a work group together to examine building codes and other regulations that may be imposing unnecessary barriers.

Jama’s Republican opponent, Stan Catherman, a Navy veteran and pastor with Simply Blessed Ministries who lives in Damascus, has raised less than $2,000 so far and doesn’t venture be yond the typical GOP talking points. Vote for Jama.

On the menu for Jama’s last meal: “I came from a country that has a lot of bananas,” Jama says. “I can’t have a meal without a banana.”

Competitive seats often make for stronger candidates, and District 26 provides an object lesson. State Rep. Daniel Bonham, 45, owns Maupin’s Stoves & Spas in The Dalles and is perhaps the most sensible Republican we met this cycle. It’s not just talk: As a three-term state representative, Bonham was co-chief sponsor of a bill to ensure workers get paid family and medical leave.

Mark Meek Democrat

The incumbent in this district, Sen. Bill Kenne mer (R-Oregon City), is one of the state’s most experienced politicians. He was first elected to the House in 1986 and since has served three separate stints in Salem with three terms on the Clackamas County Commission sandwiched in the middle. In 2018, Kennemer retired from his second stint in the House, telling constitu ents he was done. But in 2021, Sen. Alan Olsen (R-Canby) resigned and Kennemer won the appointment to replace him. Now, at 76, he wants another four years.

A retired psychologist, Kennemer is a moder ate in his party and his health care background is useful. We think voters would be better served, however, by state Rep. Mark Meek (D-Gladstone).

Meek, 58, who currently represents House

District 40, has a powerful personal story. Often homeless growing up, Meek served in the Air Force, put himself through college, and then came back to Portland, where he bought and ran what is now Mulligan’s Bar on Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard. Now a realtor and prop erty manager, he’s the kind of working-class Democrat in short supply in Salem. He’s shown the steel to oppose the Oregon Association of Realtors, who bankrolled his first campaign in 2016. When he voted against the realtors on a no-cause eviction bill in 2017, they financed a primary opponent against him. He won anyway.

Meek opposed his caucus’s push to end the death penalty and stood up for his colleague, Rep. Janelle Bynum (D-Happy Valley), in her unsuccessful bid to replace House Speaker Tina Kotek (D-Portland). In short, Meek is a grinder who has consistently shown independence and whose values reflect a once-red district where Democrats now hold a 7-point voter advantage.

On the menu for Meek’s last meal: Apple pie (yes, he really said it).

OREGON SENATE DISTRICT 26 (Hood River County, parts of Multnomah and Clackamas counties)

Daniel Bonham Republican

Arguably the most scenic political turf in Ore gon, Senate District 26 spanned the Columbia River Gorge from Corbett to Hood River—and now stretches farther east to include Mosi er and The Dalles. Republican pear farmer Chuck Thomsen is leaving, and both parties have reason to think they can snag his seat. The political balance here is narrow: Republicans hold a 1,000-vote advantage over Democrats, but there are more than enough unaffiliated voters to swing the race.

We were less impressed by the Democrat in this race, Raz Mason, 53. She has an interesting and varied résumé, including a master’s of di vinity from Harvard and a stint as a life coach. She was a police chaplain and now works as a security officer at a data center in The Dalles. But as Bonham offered granular answers on the condition of Oregon politics, Mason retreated into national hot-button issues like guns and abortion—which was odd, since Bonham is hardly a culture warrior.

We look for lawmakers who show indepen dence and a passion for the state’s well-being.

Bonham has repeatedly demonstrated both. In the most recent example, his threat to quit the House Ethics Committee presaged the thaw of a long-frozen report on whether Tina Kotek had retaliated against a fellow Democrat who crossed her while she was House speaker. We ask Bonham to keep speaking truth to power in the Senate—and voters to give him that chance.

On the menu for Bonham’s last meal: “It would be more than one, and it would be tacos.”

OREGON SENATE DISTRICT 24 (Parts of East Portland, Damascus)

OREGON SENATE DISTRICT 20 (Oregon City, Gladstone, part of Happy Valley)

Ben Bowman Democrat

After redistricting, House District 25 now covers portions of Tigard, South Beaverton and Progress Ridge in Southwest Portland—a northeastern shift and substantial shrinking of a district that’s currently represented by Republican farmer Jessica George.

Ben Bowman is looking to end a near-20-year Republican hold on the former district, and it’s possible due to redistricting. Bowman, 30, is currently chair of the Tigard-Tualatin School Board and works at the Gladstone School Dis trict as the director of student support. He for merly worked as a policy analyst for the Oregon Department of Education, where he helped craft the state’s return-to-school COVID-19 policy and a 2020 rule that prohibited symbols of hate in classrooms, such as Confederate flags. He’s got relevant experience in Salem: Bowman previously served as chief of staff for Rep. Mar garet Doherty, who served Tigard.

His opponent, Bob Niemeyer, 68, has run for Oregon office a total of six times. He’s an inde pendent mechanical engineer who’s worked out of his home in Tigard for decades. He makes battle bots (none of which ever made it on tele vision, sadly) and claims over 30 patents.

He’s a staunch Republican and is running on a platform of cutting taxes and curbing the power of state agencies to impose and collect them—including the Oregon Department of Transportation. We appreciate that Niemey er thoughtfully penciled out his plans, but we disagree with his premise that transportation taxes are an overreach and that Pride flags should be banned in classrooms.

We liked that Bowman showed hard-tocome-by self-awareness when he admitted he and other policymakers at the Oregon De partment of Education and Oregon Health Au thority should have reopened schools sooner than they did. We’re also intrigued by his idea to remove the governor as superintendent of pub lic instruction. “It’s makes it weirdly political for the director of ODE” he says. We’re excited to see what he can do as a rookie legislator.

On the menu for Bowman’s last meal: Thanksgiving dinner.

Courtney Neron Democrat

Having shifted east in redistricting, this subur ban Washington County district now extends from Hillsboro to Wilsonville, where Neron lives. She was a high school French and Spanish teacher until 2018, when she rode a blue wave into the House. In our last anonymous ranking of lawmakers “The Good, Bad and Awful,” re spondents described Neron, 43, as goodhearted but a little lost. That was back in 2019, but she hasn’t distinguished herself much since. She’s vulnerable this year.

Neron faces vigorous opposition from Re publican Jason Fields, 52, who is campaign ing on his opposition to highway tolls. That’s a winning pitch in Washington County, but we are hard pressed to remember a candidate who loves cars so much. He’s built them, for one thing—manufacturing Volkswagen Bugs—and has sold tow trucks to boot. His platform is the open road. In our endorsement interview, Fields even suggested Yamhill County should eliminate all public buses and replace them with Ubers. “I sometimes think we should re consider this whole bus idea,” he mused. We aren’t on board. Stick with Neron.

On the menu for Neron’s last meal: Arti chokes, straight from the garden.

’N Reckless sherbet.

But like Tillamook vanilla, Helm is good.

A land use lawyer by trade, Helm is a soft-spo ken, polite legislator who is focused on an is sue that tops the list for many Oregonians: the environment. Since being elected in 2014 with the backing of the Oregon League of Conserva tion Voters, he has been a thoughtful champion of the environment, passing bills to promote solar, increase energy efficiency in buildings, transition Oregon to 100% clean electricity, and prevent the poaching of wildlife.

Helm says he’s an introvert who prefers pol icymaking to door knocking. Nonetheless, he’s been out meeting voters in the new parts of his district, which includes much of Beaverton, Ce dar Hills, West Slope and West Haven-Sylvan, and tiny pieces of Portland. Top of mind for them: homelessness. “They perceive Portland to be out of control,” he says.

As for solutions, Helm says he’s impressed by the outreach workers deployed by Beaverton and Washington County who hit the streets to help houseless people get services they need. He also likes a program that provides safe park ing for people living in cars.

Helm’s opponent, a retired reading tutor named Sandra Nelson, says she’s running be cause Joe Biden and other Democrats stole elections in 2020, including some in Oregon. Climate change, she says, is cyclical and has nothing to do with the burning of fossil fuels. “I believe there is always climate change,” Nelson, 73, says.

Given that, we see no reason to exchange Helm for Nelson.

On the menu for Helm’s last meal: Tillamook vanilla ice cream, as discussed.

systems in classrooms: “We had a year to im prove ventilation in schools, and we didn’t get it done.” We like that she can break with pandemic pieties and admit mistakes. She also delivered a valuable warning against proposing new taxes amid skyrocketing inflation.

Grayber’s Republican opponent, Patrick Cas tles, 72, would seek to eliminate many existing taxes he says unfairly burden him and fellow se niors, including the corporate activities tax that funds schools. He raises a concern shared by many people on a fixed income—but his doubts about climate change would undermine the state’s need to craft aggressive legislation to arrest the catastrophic fires Grayber must fight. We urge you to vote for her.

On the menu for Grayber’s last meal: Giant ice cream sundae with peanut butter-choc olate ice cream, caramel and whipped cream.

Susan McLain

OREGON HOUSE DISTRICT 27 (Beaverton, Cedar Hills)

Ken Helm Democrat

When we asked Helm, 57, for his last food on earth, our fun question, he said vanilla ice cream, Tillamook to be specific. It’s hard not to chuckle. Helm isn’t fancy, like Salt & Straw’s Arbequina Olive Oil flavor. He’s not decadent, like Ben & Jerry’s Cookie Dough Chunks. And he’s certainly nothing like Baskin-Robbins Wild

Dacia Grayber

Grayber, 47, has represented a district that spanned Tigard and Southwest Portland. Dis trict 28 shifted east in redistricting and now covers parts of the South Waterfront, extends west to Raleigh Hills, and dips down to cover portions of Tigard. That’s where Grayber lives, so she gets to run again.

Good thing, too. Grayber, a firefighter and paramedic for more than 20 years, has been a strong rookie legislator. She successfully cham pioned a wildfire preparedness bill, along with a bill to expand cancer insurance coverage for firefighters—despite strong pushback from insurance companies.

She says her greatest failure so far as a legis lator was not fighting harder to reopen schools earlier than fall 2021. She says the state needed to act with more urgency to improve HVAC

McLain, 73, a longtime schoolteacher and debate coach, was inducted this year into the National High School Hall of Fame. During her eight-year tenure in Salem, she’s wrangled irascible state legislators as easily as her former students, although she can seem a bit over whelmed as co-chair of the Joint Committee on Transportation. We’ve not always agreed with her positions—her deference to the needs of farmers has come at the cost of wetlands—but we appreciate the tenacity with which she’s secured school funding for her district, which extends west past Hillsboro to the edge of the Coastal Range. (In our last “Good, Bad and Aw ful” rankings, she rated “Bad.”)

This term, McLain says her biggest priority is infrastructure. Oregon’s roads and bridges are crumbling. We hope her steadfast focus on completing the state’s new $5 billion bridge across the Columbia River won’t distract her from Oregon’s myriad other needs.

Still, we’re glad McLain is a capable politician: There’s no viable alternative in this race. Her opponent, Gina Munster-Moore, has called pandemic mandates “medical tyranny” and says Oregon has “slipped into authoritarian ism.” We back McLain.

On the menu for McLain’s last meal: Blue berries.

OREGON HOUSE DISTRICT 25 (Beaverton, Southwest Portland)

OREGON HOUSE DISTRICT 26 (Hillsboro, Sherwood, King City, Tigard, Wil sonville)

OREGON HOUSE DISTRICT 28 (South Portland, Tigard)

Democrat

OREGON HOUSE DISTRICT 29 (Hillsboro, Cornelius, Forest Grove)

Democrat

OREGON HOUSE DISTRICT 30 (Hillsboro)

Nathan Sosa Democrat

Sosa was appointed earlier this year when Janeen Sollman moved up to the Senate. His district shrank this year. He still represents Hillsboro, just a smaller part of it. A lawyer who’s served on the Oregon Government Ethics Commission, Sosa, 39, is notably soft-spoken. So is his Republican opponent, Intel software engineer Joe Everton, 45. Our endorsement interview felt like a whisper campaign in the most literal sense.

They ’re both bright guys, if philosophical op posites. Sosa wants more public school funding; Everton wants less. We liked Sosa’s big idea for the next session: expanding college work-study programs so students can pay their tuition by working at nonprofits. Everton, who narrowly lost a school board race last year, is preoccupied by parents reviewing school curriculum. Sosa’s thinking is more productive for his constitu ents. Keep him.

On the menu for Sosa’s last meal: Double fudge chocolate cake.

that year, she won election to the district, which includes downtown, the West Hills, Linnton, and almost all of Forest Park.

Many experts considered Greenlick—an iras cible scold who didn’t suffer fools—the Legis lature’s top mind on public health. Dexter, 39, a physician at Kaiser Permanente, has carried his work forward with a softer touch, using her medical training to tackle the health care crisis and the opioid epidemic.

Dexter says the achievement she’s most proud of so far is pushing the state to appoint an ombudsperson for the prison system, a po sition that had been empty for 20 years. During the pandemic, when fires also threatened Or egon prisons, inmates and their relatives had no advocate, Dexter says. During future crises, they will.

In the next session, Dexter plans more work on health care, opioids, housing and climate change. She calls herself “a pragmatic iterist,” a term we dig—it means tweaking policy a little bit at a time.

Case in point is the opioid harm-reduction package of bills she plans to introduce. It doesn’t contain provisions for safe injection sites. Dexter supports such sites, but knows they are controversial. The package does in clude legislation that would let school officials administer naloxone to treat drug overdoses and allow first responders to distribute it.

Dexter is similarly pragmatic on housing. She thinks the state should loosen building codes to allow single-room-occupancy apartments that don’t have individual kitchens and bathrooms, a move that would lower development costs and make housing more affordable.

It’s a good thing we like Dexter so much, because her opponent, Stan Baumhofer, isn’t putting up much of a fight. He was an adviser to late-’70s Portland Mayor Connie McCready, but his platform—school choice and more cops—feels a little thin. He got only 878 votes in the Republican primary, which was enough to win in the heavily Democratic 33rd District. Dexter is the right choice.

On the menu for Dexter’s last meal: A fresh peach, right off the tree.

House District 34, where Democrats outnum ber Republicans 2 to 1. As maps were redrawn, this district did a somersault from the south side of Highway 26 to its north—it now covers the parts of Washington County west of the West Hills.

Reynolds, 58, is a freshman lawmaker, but she’s already left a mark. Last year, she co-spon sored successful gun control legislation that requires weapons be stored safely at home. We appreciate Reynolds’ ambitious agenda, which includes building more homeless shelters and diverting money to child poverty.

Her top concern: Oregon’s mental health care system is in shambles. The state hospi tal where people go for court-ordered mental health treatment is full—and because the state didn’t build enough community treatment beds, there’s nowhere for patients to go except jail and the street.

Perhaps no one in the statehouse under stands this issue as well as Reynolds, a pedia trician whose brother suffers from schizophre nia. The Legislature has begun to heap money on the problem in recent years, but Reynolds understands the job is still far from done. “It’s a parched desert and we’re starting to pour water on it,” she says.

Her opponent, John Woods, is well meaning but does not appear to be running a serious campaign. He has raised less than $3,000 and says he decided to run only hours before the deadline—after his wife turned down a request from the Washington County GOP that she run. Reynolds is the pick here.

On the menu for Reynolds’ last meal: Her grandmother’s spaghetti and meatballs.

to rest”—that is, it would sanction camping by unhoused people, an idea that can’t sit well with many Washington County voters who view Portland tents with dread. The pivot left from the area’s longtime lawmaker, former police union president Jeff Barker, is startling.

And there’s little Republicans can do to ar rest it while they’re nominating candidates like Daniel Martin, 67, the owner of a Beaverton courier car company. Martin could not name a single person endorsing him. We won’t either.

Vote for Chaichi.

On the menu for Chaichi’s last meal: Pota toes.

Hai Pham Democrat

Few candidates have as compelling a reason for running as Hai Pham. When Pham was 27 years old, he was diagnosed with leukemia. It was a “death sentence,” he recalls. The son of immi grants who fled Vietnam to Corvallis, he knew his parents couldn’t afford the medical bills.

“That turned my world upside down,” says Pham, now 43. “I realized how broken our sys tem is.”

Fortunately, Pham had just finished dental school and was entering residency at Oregon Health & Science University. Doctors there gave him the medication that would save his life. Now, he’s a pediatric dentist who owns a chain of dental clinics and serves as an adviser to Gov. Kate Brown on her Children’s Cabinet. He’s also running to represent Hillsboro in the state Legislature.

Farrah Chaichi Democrat

OREGON HOUSE DISTRICT 33 (Northwest Portland)

Maxine Dexter Democrat

Dr. Maxine Dexter has represented the 33rd House District since 2020, when she was ap pointed to replace the legendary Rep. Mitch Greenlick, who died that May at age 85. Later

Lisa Reynolds Democrat

After redistricting put her in the same district as another freshman legislator, fellow doctor Maxine Dexter, Reynolds moved to the Oak Hills neighborhood to compete for the redrawn

You may recall from our endorsement of Wlns vey Campos an observation that the Democrat ic Party is seizing its advantage in the suburbs to nominate candidates well to the left of their constituents. Nowhere is this more evident than in House District 35, where Chaichi seeks to represent many of the people Campos did. (The geographical shift of this district is too complex to explain here; suffice it to say Chaichi would inherent most of Campos’ voters in the farmland around Aloha.)

Chaichi, 36, handles client intake at the Portland law firm Stoel Rives. She’s person able and progressive. The first bill she would introduce would establish a statewide “right

Oregon is fighting to fix a health care sys tem battered by a pandemic and sputtering economy. Pham understands the stakes. He says his dental office is struggling to keep its staff, and as a consequence, kids are waiting longer for the dental clearances required for organ transplants. He wants to streamline the credentialing process for dental assistants and create new vocational programs.

We believe his experience with the state’s health care system as both a patient and busi nessman (his dental chain employs 20 people) will provide a jolt of fresh perspective in Salem.

Pham’s opponent, a tech founder named Greer Trice, joined the race in August. He calls himself an “agrarian intellectual” in the Voters’ Pam phlet, and his policy positions (“Greer stands for the rights of every Oregonian to be free from government overreach at every level”) are abstract enough to make us uneasy. Vote for Pham.

On the menu for Pham’s last meal: Mom’s pho.

OREGON HOUSE DISTRICT 34 (Bethany, Oak Hills)

OREGON HOUSE DISTRICT 35 (Aloha)

OREGON HOUSE DISTRICT 36 (Hillsboro)

OREGON HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Health & Science University in Southwest Port land.

Firmin says he’s an old-school “Rockefeller Republican”—his words—who is liberal on so cial issues and fiscally conservative. He grew up in a union household and went to public schools (so do his four kids). He’s pro-choice and supports gun regulation. He believes Joe Biden won the 2020 election.

restaurants (and trained as an electrical en gineer and business administrator), Bynum has brought an interesting counterpoise to the Legislature: She’s more moderate than many of her fellow Portland-area Democrats, while also being more closely attuned to racial injustice.

OREGON HOUSE DISTRICT 37 (West Linn, Tualatin)

Jules Walters Democrat

Two terms after defeating one of the metro area’s most visible Republicans, state Rep. Julie Parrish of West Linn, state Rep. Rachel Prusak (D-West Linn) decided she couldn’t afford to serve any longer. The easy choice to succeed her, in a district that used to be a swing seat but now has a 13-point Democratic registration advantage, is West Linn Mayor Jules Walters.

Walters, 51, boasts a long track record of civic engagement, volunteering for youth and com munity organizations. She won election to the West Linn City Council in 2018 and won the mayor’s post in 2020. (She was not in power when West Linn police infamously targeted Michael Fesser, a Black Portlander whose boss at a towing company persuaded officers to false ly arrest him.) As mayor, Walters teamed up with Lake Oswego to hire a police officer highly trained in behavioral health so both cities could defuse volatile situations.

Walters’ level of engagement in the commu nity and her municipal governance experience give her the edge over Republican Aeric Estep, 36, who works in sales for an HVAC company. Estep’s a pleasant, thoughtful candidate who’s more friendly to immigration than many in the GOP. He and Walters both identified diversion of traffic off Interstate 205 if tolling is imposed as an enormous issue in the district. We think Walters is more equipped to go to Salem to deal with it.

On the menu for Walters’ last meal: Apizza Amore (capicola and basil) at Apizza Scholls.

Firmin, 54, says he filed to run for House District 38 on the day of the deadline, with 30 minutes to spare, because he read an op-ed in The Oregonian by state Rep. Marty Wilde (Eugene), who said he was leaving the Demo cratic Caucus because it had “stopped acting democratically.”

The piece was a clarion call for Firmin, who believes a one-party state has reduced account ability for what’s done with the big tax packages Democrats pass.

Like many of his fellow Republican chal lengers, Firmin is a political novice. (He has his MBA and he’s worked at General Electric, Johnson & Johnson, NTT Data and The Stan dard.) But unlike other challengers on the right, Firmin has civic experience. He was chairman of the board at OMSI for two years, and he put in another three as its treasurer before that.

We liked Firmin’s opponent in this race, Democrat Daniel Nguyen, a Lake Oswego city councilor who was born in Camas, Wash., to Vietnamese refugees.

Nguyen, 43, started the excellent Bambu za Vietnam Kitchen in the South Waterfront, and we were impressed with his command of the issues, but we were more impressed with Firmin’s energy and his promise to seek a mid dle ground in a polarized state.

The Independent Party of Oregon endorsed only five Republicans this cycle, and Firmin was one of them. It may be wishful thinking, but we hope he will show other moderate Republicans a path into the Legislature and that his common sense will rub off on the ones already there.

In the wake of George Floyd’s murder, that placed Bynum in an ideal position to advance police reforms. She did so, crafting and pass ing a bipartisan slate of reform bills in 2021 to discipline violent cops and weed out biases of prospective officers during the hiring process. She also passed the CROWN Act, which pro hibits discrimination against the natural hair of Black people.

At other times, Bynum has operated in an uncomfortable relationship with her own party—which remains predominantly white and in lockstep with organized labor. Bynum alleged last year that retiring House Speaker Tina Kotek had promised Bynum her job, only to renege on the succession plan. (Kotek denies she cut a deal.) When Democrats chose new leadership this spring, they snubbed Bynum again. We think that says more about the party than Bynum.

At any rate, Bynum’s opponent, Republican Kori Haynes, an insurance claims adjuster, is anti-abortion, wants parents to be allowed to opt out of what she calls “controversial” lessons, and calls the lockdowns during the pandemic “illegal.” Vote for Bynum.

On the menu for Bynum’s last meal: Skil let-fried fish and grits.

Annessa Hartman Democrat

This seat is open as incumbent state Rep. Mark Meek (D-Gladstone) seeks to move up to the Senate. Democrat Annessa Hartman is our choice to succeed him.

Right before the pandemic hit, Hartman made a career move: She got out of catering (the culinary school grad had worked a lot of jobs over the previous decade, including man aging catering for Intel) and went into the ho tel business, taking a job in sales at Marriott. COVID-19 brutalized the hospitality industry.

Mark Gamba

Democrat

Gamba reminds us of Jerry Brown, the former governor of California—in a good way.

After Brown served as governor, he took the thankless job of being mayor of Oakland be cause he was still eager to serve. Gamba hasn’t traded down like that, but he has served two terms as mayor of Milwaukie, a job that pays him an insulting $300 a month.

And Gamba, 63, deferred to Jamie Mc Leod-Skinner rather than make a second run at Congress: He felt she had a better shot because the redrawn district included her stronghold of Bend.

Instead, Gamba is seeking the Oregon House seat that, after redistricting, includes his home base of Milwaukie as well as Oak Grove, Sell wood, and parts of Portland.

Gamba knows the issues, and he’s not afraid to take unpopular positions. Case in point: He stands by his support for Measure 110, the 2020 initiative that reduced penalties for many hard drugs and made Oregon the first state to de criminalize possession.

Many politicians, including Gamba’s GOP opponent, Rob Reynolds, say Measure 110 has made the opioid and meth scourges worse by at tracting people to a legal drug paradise. Gamba admits the rollout of Measure 110 was flawed, with millions of dollars for addiction treatment stalled for months as the committee in charge of making grants struggled to pick winners.

But the alternative, harsh penalties for pos session, is worse, Gamba says.

“ We’ve had a war on drugs since Reagan,” Gamba says. “How well has that worked? Mea sure 110 money is just now hitting the streets. To turn around and scrap it now? That’s not even trying.”

Alistair Firmin Republican

One of the biggest complaints we hear from Re publicans during this election is that one-par ty rule by Democrats is ruining the state, the county and the city. Unfortunately, too many of the right-leaning candidates moaning about that phenomenon are walking advertisements for their Democratic opponents.

Alistair Firmin is different. He’s running for the House district that includes Lake Oswego and the neighboring enclave of Dunthorpe. It has a panhandle that reaches up to Oregon

Janelle Bynum Democrat

For three terms, Bynum, 47, has represented a House district covering East Portland, Canby and Viola. After redistricting, House District 39 will now cover most of Happy Valley, Damascus and Oregon City, and falls solely in Clackamas County, no longer extending into Multnomah County. That means, if elected, Bynum will represent a more racially diverse voter base than before—she says it includes 14% Asian families and 8% Latino families.

As the Black owner of four McDonald’s

Hartman, 34, a member of the Cayuga Na tion, says she took the pandemic as a sign. She ran for the Gladstone City Council in 2020 and took a new job with Unite Oregon, which helps immigrants, refugees and low-income Oregonians. The stepdaughter of a soldier, she bounced around from state to state growing up and wants to focus as an elected official on the power of community. One big issue for her in Gladstone, and in Salem, should she get elect ed: traffic diversion from tolling the Oregon Department of Transportation plans to impose on Interstate 205.

We like her experience working in the lower echelons of the private sector. That’s not a voice that gets heard often in Salem. Her Republican opponent, Gresham Police Officer Adam Baker, made a good impression in the primary, but his conservative platform is out of step with a district that has shaded increasingly blue and now has a 10-point Democratic advantage.

On the menu for Hartman’s last meal: Ra men, with an old fashioned to wash it down.

Gamba can point to legitimate progress in his 10 years on the Milwaukie City Council, seven of those as mayor. There are 2,000 housing units in the planning phase or under construc tion in Milwaukie right now, more than in the past 40 years combined, Gamba says.

He could do a lot worse and still win our en dorsement. Reynolds says he’s running to stop tolls that are proposed to fund seismic improve ments and add a lane to bridges on Interstate 205 where it runs through the district.

Reynolds says the tolls are illegal because Title 23 of the U.S. Code governing highways prohibits tolls on federal roads. But, as Gamba pointed out in their endorsement interview, Title 23 has exceptions that allow tolling for construction and congestion management.

Reynolds, who sells commercial security sys tems and is on the road a lot, is a nice guy. But not having the facts straight on your signature issue is a disqualifier for us. Go with Gamba.

On the menu for Gamba’s last meal: A ripe guava freshly picked off the tree.

OREGON HOUSE DISTRICT 41 (Milwaukie)

OREGON HOUSE DISTRICT 38 (Lake Oswego, Dunthorpe)

OREGON HOUSE DISTRICT 40 (Gladstone, parts of Oregon City)

OREGON HOUSE DISTRICT 39 (Happy Valley, Damascus, Oregon City)

On the menu for Firmin’s last meal: Cioppi no, an Italian seafood stew.

OREGON HOUSE OF

this district, which stretches from Interstate 84 north ward to Highway 30 and covers the Lloyd District, Albina, Irvington and Alberta. (She used to represent the Cully neighborhood, but she lost it in the 2020 redistricting.)

OREGON HOUSE DISTRICT 42 (Southeast Portland)

Rob Nosse Democrat

Some people call Nosse’s district in Southeast Portland the “Portlandia District” or “the Kremlin.” It includes the hyperlefty Hawthorne District and Ladd’s Addi tion, and a narrow band of Northeast Portland between Interstate 84 and East Burnside Street.

In redistricting, he lost bolshevik Woodstock and picked up bougie Laurelhurst.

Even so, Nosse, who’s represented the old district for four terms starting in 2014, is unlikely to be defeated any time soon. His opponent this year, Republican Scott Trahan, is running on a boilerplate platform of charter schools and crime crackdowns.

It would be tough for anyone to make a case against Nosse, 54. He started his career in Oregon as a union representative, first for Service Employees Interna tional Union and then at the Oregon Nurses Associ ation. Among his recent accomplishments is getting better pay and benefits for mental health workers, who are in critically short supply.

He’s a gifted communicator who gave us detailed answers on the toughest issues facing Portland right now, and he did it succinctly.

“Politicians who talk too much are annoying,” Nosse says.

On Measure 110, the third rail of this campaign sea son, Nosse takes ownership for its struggles—that was rare among incumbents this cycle—and he had the best idea we’ve heard for how the whole mess could have been avoided. He says he would have set up and funded the drug treatment programs that were supposed to supplant incarceration and then eased penalties six months later. Instead, the opposite happened. Few new treatment centers were up and running when posses sion laws were eased, and a Kafkaesque bureaucracy kept treatment funds from flowing.

We admire Nosse’s candor and taking responsibility for where Salem has gone awry. Voters should send him back for another term.

On the menu for Nosse’s last meal: A whole bag of Kettle Brand Krinkle Cut Salt & Fresh Ground Pepper potato chips.

Sanchez, whose other job is managing the domestic violence program at the Native American Youth and Family Center, is the only Indigenous member of the House. That gives her a nuanced understanding of Portland’s competing needs. For example, Sanchez says Portland needs more police, even though she’s experienced bias at their hands.

“I have been stopped many, many times, and every time but once,” she says, “the very first question that gets asked of me as a Native American with feathers hanging from my rearview mirror is, ‘Have you been drinking today?’”

Sanchez thinks Measure 110, the initiative that replaced incarceration with treatment for drug pos session, needs more teeth. So far, she says, cops aren’t handing out many $100 tickets for possession, which creates little incentive to seek treatment. “There is not enough enforcement,” Sanchez says.

That’s a brave thing to say in hyperliberal pockets of Sanchez’s district, and she goes further, expressing her disdain for rioters who trashed the city during the 2020 protests.

“This is my city,” she says. “I was raised here, and I’m pissed off about the fact that people came from lots of different places and made a mess of my city.”

Sanchez serves as co-chair of the powerful Joint Ways and Means Committee, but she says her proudest moment in recent sessions was embedding the pro tections of the Indian Child Welfare Act in Oregon statute. Congress passed the ICWA in 1978 to stop the removal of Native children from their families and tribes in foster care cases. Enshrining the federal protections in Oregon law was important because the U.S. Supreme Court is slated to review ICWA this term and may repeal it, Sanchez says.

Sanchez is likely to win reelection, regardless of what we think. Her Republican challenger, Tim LeMaster, 49, is a retired Marine frustrated by tents and trash. He was recruited to run against Sanchez by a GOP opera tive from Clackamas County. We thank LeMaster for his military service and appreciate his concern about Portland, where he’s lived for nine years, but Sanchez is the obvious choice for the 43rd.

On the menu for Sanchez’s last meal: Cheesecake.

Tawna Sanchez

has effectively represented

Travis Nelson Democrat

For 15 years, Kenton was Tina Kotek Country. Nelson, a nurse and union organizer, was appointed to Kotek’s seat in January, when she resigned to run for governor. He now seeks a full term. We predict he’ll soon be well known in his own right.

OREGON HOUSE DISTRICT 44 (North Portland)

OREGON HOUSE DISTRICT 43 (North and

Portland)

That’s because Nelson, 43, is one of the most impressive candidates we met this cycle. Born Black and queer in rural Louisiana, he worked as a janitor and landscaper before moving into critical care nursing. Nelson can speak with authority and insight on the crisis of meth amphetamine psychosis in emergency rooms and the staffing shortage that has left hospitals incapable of dealing with the distressed people they’re seeing.

And he took a difficult vote in his sole ses sion, voting against his caucus and some fellow nurses by saying no to a bill that increased the criminal penalties for assaulting a nurse. He persuasively argues that special treatment under the law for nurses shows a lack of com passion for people having the worst day of their lives—and lets hospitals off the hook for unsafe working conditions.

His Republican challenger, Rolf Schuler, is campaigning on a platform of “no more lock downs,” which strikes us as fighting the last war. We see a bright future for Nelson, and he gets our nod.

On the menu for Nelson’s last meal: Peach es.

Hoa Nguyen Democrat

Since 2013, the neighborhoods of deep South east Portland have been represented by Rep. Jeff Reardon, an attentive if plodding law maker. He’s retiring—and at any rate the new maps have bent the district eastward, follow ing Powell Boulevard past Portland’s edge into Clackamas County.

The Democratic nominee is a clear front-run ner in a district where Democrats enjoy a 5,000-voter registration advantage. That’s Hoa Nguyen, 38, a second-generation Viet namese American who for more than a decade has worked for Portland Public Schools as an attendance coach. In her efforts to keep kids in school, she has studied the factors contributing to chronic absenteeism: housing insecurity, mental health and school climate. She’s served on the David Douglas School District Board since 2021 and now seeks to represent House District 48, which includes portions of East Portland and Damascus.

We were disappointed by Nguyen’s inability to tell us one way in which she is independent from the Democratic Party. That’s a concern as we look for legislators who can reach across the aisle for solutions.

Minnis (R-Wood Village), the last Republican House speaker before Democrats took control in 2006.

Today, Democrats hold about a 13-point ad vantage in a district spanning much of East County, which means incumbent Zach Hudson, 43, is likely to win his second term easily. A longtime public schoolteacher who’s now sub bing so he can spend more time on legislative duties, Hudson passed a bill in his first term that brought tax relief to owners of floating homes. He’s a cerebral policy wonk who serves as vice chair of the House Energy and Environment Committee. He crossed the aisle in 2021 to vote with Republicans on a wildfire preparedness bill.

His GOP opponent, Randy Lauer, 42, a mu nicipal utility worker, gym owner and mayor of Troutdale, is Hudson’s former colleague on the Troutdale City Council. He’s a pro-choice Republican and thoughtful candidate who’d get our endorsement in many other races. Hud son’s a solid incumbent, however, and there’s no reason to make a change.

On the menu for Hudson’s last meal: The waffle grilled-cheese sandwich at Sug arpine Drive-In in Troutdale.

Walt Trandum Democrat

We’re endorsing Trandum for one reason: He’s not state Rep. James Hieb (R-Canby), the in cumbent in this race.

Hieb, 37, a Marine Corps veteran who works for a day care provider his family owns, got appointed to this seat when his predecessor, Christine Drazan, resigned to run for gover nor. In August, Hieb got arrested by Clackamas County sheriff’s deputies after he refused to put out a cigarette at the county fairgrounds. Deputies said he was “extremely intoxicated” and handcuffed him after he told them he was carrying a licensed concealed handgun.

Although everybody is entitled to make mis takes, and we don’t pretend to know the ex tent of Hieb’s issues, public drunkenness while campaigning in a polo shirt emblazoned with one’s name front and back, and carrying a gun, is remarkable—as is the 23-minute bodycam video showing Hieb, who’s running on a lawand-order platform, insulting and disobeying deputies, calling one of them “motherfucker.” Nope.

Trandum, 70, is a semi-retired direct care worker who’s running on a single issue: getting money out of politics. He’s doing a good job, having raised less than $4,000 so far. That’s sufficient to get our endorsement over an in cumbent who has disgraced the office.

On the menu for Trandum’s last meal: He declined to be interviewed.

Thuy Tran Democrat

Every so often, we encounter a candidate who has no chance of winning but makes a pretty great point. That’s George Donnerberg, 77, who has mostly retired from real estate appraisal but recently noticed a piece of property: Big Four Corners Natural Area along Northeast Airport Way. He was troubled the wetland had turned into a vast homeless encampment and chop shop—a lawless place in the woods. Unlike some of his fellow Republicans running on cleaning up the streets, Donnerberg struck us as genu inely perplexed and saddened that such a thing could happen. His lament that no one cared enough to do anything, until more than 100 stolen cars had piled up, struck a chord with us.

We hope it also resonates with Dr. Thuy Tran, 45, an optometrist who owns her own shop in Hollywood. Her story of immigrating from Vietnam and opening a small business is impressive. Just as laudable is her service in the National Guard, where she trains as a first responder to the Cascadian megaquake. In nearly every respect, she’s more qualified for this office than Donnerberg. We just ask that she takes his calls.

On the menu for Tran’s last meal: Lasagna. “As a vegan, it is harder to make lasagna. But vegan cheeses are amazing.”

Nguyen’s opponent, John Masterman, is a 52-year-old Republican car mechanic who’s running on a platform of eliminating taxes. He couldn’t tell us one state program he would work to eliminate if elected. That, coupled with his pro-life beliefs, doubts about the integrity of the 2020 presidential election, and lack of any civic involvement, leads us to endorse Nguyen.

We hope her passion for equity in schools— and her experience in understanding that a child’s absenteeism is a mirror of a city’s fail ures—will add a strong advocate’s voice to the Legislature. Vote for Nguyen.

On the menu for Nguyen’s last meal: Pho.

Ricki Ruiz Democrat

If you’re feeling jaded about Oregon politicians, consider the story of 28-year-old Ricki Ruiz. He was born in Gresham to immigrant parents. In 2012, he became the first member of his family to graduate high school. Five years later, he was elected to the school board. Now, he’s a state legislator representing his hometown.

Ruiz, it turns out, also has legislative chops. Last session, he sponsored the most contro versial bill successfully passed into law. It will compensate farm laborers for overtime work, a proposal that has frustrated small farmers and infuriated the Republican Party. It is also fundamental fair play—the same overtime pay expected by firefighters and Burger King workers alike—and it’s a remarkably substantial achievement for a rookie lawmaker.

Darcy Long Democrat

It’s another Columbia River Gorge district that has ping-ponged between Republicans and Democrats. Former Rep. Jeff Helfrich, a Republican and onetime Portland cop, held the seat briefly and has been on a quest since the 2018 blue wave to get it back. Conditions are favorable for him this cycle.

Zach Hudson Democrat

We didn’t get a chance to speak with his op ponent, Amelia Salvador, this cycle. But she sat down for an interview in 2020. We didn’t endorse her then—she said her motivation to run was the state’s ban on plastic straws—and she’s given us no reason to change our minds now. Pick Ruiz.

On the menu for Ruiz’s last meal: Pupusas.

Yet we were slightly more impressed by his Democratic foil. Darcy Long, 51, is a well-re garded city councilor in The Dalles whose pro fessional achievements include building and managing a 24-hour cold-weather homeless shelter. On the pivotal issue of the election— the sluggish start of Measure 110—Long held a firmer grasp on the details. We wouldn’t be troubled by Helfrich’s return to Salem, but we recommend Long.

On the menu for Long’s last meal: Bing cherries.

OREGON HOUSE DISTRICT 48 (Outer Southeast Portland, Damascus)

OREGON HOUSE DISTRICT 49 (Troutdale, Fairview, parts of Gresham)

Old-timers will remember this East County district was the home base of state Rep. Karen

OREGON HOUSE DISTRICT 50 (Gresham)

OREGON HOUSE DISTRICT 51 (Canby, Estacada, Sandy)

OREGON HOUSE DISTRICT 52 (Corbett, Hood River, The Dalles)

OREGON HOUSE DISTRICT 45 (Northeast Portland)

TIM SAPUTO

COURTESY

RICKI

RUIZ

YOU ARE HERE

These are Oregon’s new congressional and legislative districts.

After the 2020 census, the Oregon Legislature engaged in a bruising fight over new boundaries for congressional and legislative districts. The result is, you might be voting whether to reelect a different incumbent than in past years. As you read our endorse ments for Congress and the Oregon House and Senate, refer to these maps to see which districts we’re discussing.

BONAMICI

BLUMENAUER

MCLEOD-SKINNER

ANDREA SALINAS

Oregon House of Representatives

BOWMAN (D)

NERON (D)

HELM (D)

DACIA GRAYBER (D)

SUSAN MCLAIN (D)

NATHAN SOSA (D)

MAXINE DEXTER (D)

LISA REYNOLDS (D)

FARRAH CHAICHI (D)

HAI PHAM (D)

JULES WALTERS (D)

ALISTAIR FIRMIN (R)

JANELLE BYNUM (D)

ANNESSA HARTMAN (D)

GAMBA (D)

NOSSE (D)

TAWNA SANCHEZ (D)

TRAVIS NELSON (D)

THUY TRAN (D)

NGUYEN (D)

ZACH HUDSON (D)

RICKI RUIZ (D)

WALT TRANDUM (D)

DARCY LONG (D)

Oregon Senate

JANEEN SOLLMAN (D)

ELIZABETH STEINER HAYWARD (D)

WLNSVEY CAMPOS (D)

WAGNER (D)

MEEK (D)

KAYSE JAMA (D)

DANIEL BONHAM (R)

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Rene Gonzalez

Even Rene Gonzalez, our pick for city commissioner, would concede this contest is largely a referendum on the four years Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty has spent on the Portland City Council.

Voters must ask themselves: After four years of Hardesty being the loudest voice on the council, are they better off?

Hardesty’s tenure covers four years freighted with history: a pandemic, civil unrest, and a rapid decline in the city’s quality of life.

It is easy—and unfair—to blame Hardesty, 65, for the city’s ills. Yet she is responsible for how she’s responded to them.

That response has left many Portlanders alienated.

For decades as a police-accountability activist, state lawmaker and nonprofit leader, Hardesty has lobbed criticism at the city, largely from the outside. She re lentlessly chipped away at systems that had failed many Portlanders.

When voters elected her in 2018 as the first Black woman on the City Council, the consummate outsider moved inside.

We endorsed Hardesty then, but have come to see a mismatch between her strengths and the requirement to be a leader for all Portlanders.

At times, she’s been a voice for the voiceless, but she’s also dismissed those who’ve questioned her, alienat ed colleagues and inflamed tensions when Portland needed a unifying presence.

She’s also scored notable accomplishments.

Over our concerns, she led the 2018 passage of the Portland Clean Energy Fund (which has collected hun dreds of millions of dollars but is off to a worrying start). When the pandemic hit, the Portland Bureau of Transportation, which Hardesty oversees, established a program for restaurants to spill out onto the streets for outdoor dining—keeping many eateries alive.

She created Portland Street Response to better re spond to citizens experiencing mental health crises with trained social workers rather than police. It’s promising but too new and undersized to judge fully. She leveraged the passion of the George Floyd protests to rally voter support for a new police oversight office (although that too has yet to be realized).

Hardesty was rightly critical of the Portland Police Bureau and briefly won cuts to its budget. But her criticism became a personal feud. The police union deserves its share of blame: We won’t soon forget its effort to smear Hardesty with a false report that she was at the wheel of a hit-and-run car crash. But Hard esty contributed to the bad blood. In 2020, she falsely accused police of starting fires at protests. Her dislike of cops has resulted in a refusal to consider public safety

solutions that involve them.

Hardesty championed the cutting of the Gun Vio lence Reduction Team in 2020 to lower racial dispar ities in arrests. As gun violence soared to record-high levels, especially in communities of color, Hardesty has been largely AWOL.

This fall, WW wrote about the open-air drug dealing and gun violence in and around Dawson Park in inner North Portland. Neighbors have asked Hardesty and PBOT to help them address it using traffic diversion. She claims to have been unaware of their request.

Hardesty would rather repurpose downtown than bring city office employees back. She seems oblivious to the connection between an orderly, welcoming cen tral city and the services she rightly wants to provide vulnerable Portlanders.

Perhaps most importantly, Hardesty has proven unwilling or unable to make a compromise with those who disagree with her, and that’s why we’re withdraw ing our May endorsement. Portland is at risk of losing the fresh energy of newcomers who’ve elevated the city from a backwater.

Better than Hardesty, Gonzalez understands the urgency of the challenges Portland faces, although we endorse him with some trepidation.

A lawyer and small-business owner, Gonzalez, 48, will focus all his energy on reversing Portland’s slide.

He’s shown an ability to mobilize a large, potent group without much representation on the City Coun cil: parents. He built Portland’s largest youth soccer club and founded a political action committee to re

open public school classrooms.

Gonzalez is unpolished and his platform is simplistic: Bring back downtown. Make parks enjoyable again. Get people off the streets. Stanch gun violence.

We agree with those goals but also understand they’ll be difficult to achieve. He stumbled in his cam paign, allegedly improperly accept ing deeply discounted campaign office space from Jordan Schnitzer.

Gonzalez also admitted no second thoughts about his PAC’s endorse ment of Portland School board candidates who opposed LGBTQ rights—what mattered to him was getting schools open. That’s careless.

But this city needs change. Port land has lost its way, allowing a note of despair to seep into our politics—as if our government is at its most com passionate when it accepts misery and violence as collateral damage in the march of social progress. Gonza lez will help restore balance.

This city needs change. Portland has lost its way.

Simply put, we are endorsing him because we think Hardesty can no longer be part of the solution. We hope someone else will do better.

On the menu for Gonzalez’s last meal: Migas, a traditional Mexican breakfast dish.

PORTLAND CITY COUNCIL POSITION

MULTNOMAH COUNTY CHAIR Sharon Meieran Nonpartisan

We don’t often switch an endorsement from the prima ry (in which we endorsed Commissioner Jessica Vega Pederson for county chair) to the general election (in which we now endorse Commissioner Sharon Meier an). But these are unusual times. As with the Portland City Council race, the circumstances of this region have caused us to reconsider the decision we made in May.

Because of the authority vested in the position, the Multnomah County chair is by far the most powerful elected official in Portland. Unlike the city’s mayor, who has only a little bit more authority than the four city commissioners, the chair alone controls the county budget, the board’s agenda, and all county departments, including Health, Human Services and, most visibly, the Joint Office of Homeless Services.

It is this last office that swung our decision. In the six months since we endorsed Vega Pederson, there’s been no indication the county is any more interested in data or accountability for getting people off the streets. That’s led us to rethink our earlier pick, even though Vega Pederson whomped Meieran in the primary, 42% to 18%.

Originally from Indiana, Vega Pederson, 47, is a savvy politician who served two terms in the Or egon House (becoming the first Latina elected to the chamber) be fore winning her seat representing Multnomah County’s District 3 (Portland’s eastside from 34th to 148th avenues) in 2016 and getting reelected in 2020.

Vega Pederson’s largest accom plishment at the county, a Preschool for All measure in 2020, arose from a compromise with the Democrat ic Socialists of America. The group gathered enough signatures to put a preschool measure on the ballot, but Vega Pederson convinced the DSA to back off so her measure could go forward instead.

Like Mom and apple pie, universal preschool is a concept few oppose, but Vega Pederson rushed her measure through without ever really explaining why the county, which struggles to perform its existing duties, should create an entirely new department to compete with Portland Public Schools, the state of Oregon, and private players already in the preschool business.

This year, the Preschool for All budget is $59 million to serve 675 kids—more than $87,000 a head.

Vega Pederson says the program is on track and will bring in more money than it needs until new facilities ramp up (it will end the year with $132 million in re serves). But its launch does not inspire confidence in her fiscal responsibility as she seeks to control a larger budget.

This year, the Joint Office of Homeless Services budget will be $262 million, which means the county chair controls perhaps the largest pot of discretionary funding in the state.

But after six years of increasing budgets, which will continue to balloon because of the 10-year, $2.5 billion Metro homeless services measure, this year’s point-intime count of homeless residents found 5,228 people unsheltered. That’s a jump of 30% since the last count.

Amid such disappointing results, the Joint Office and its overseer, County Chair Deborah Kafoury, have refused to hear criticism.

The office has denied County Auditor Jennifer Mc Guirk access to data; acknowledged inflating its own success by, for example, overstating the number of permanent housing placements it’s made by as much as 20%; and recently had to claw back a half-million dollars it was overbilled by a homeless village operator that the county helped establish.

Throughout, Vega Pederson has remained Kafoury’s loyal lieutenant. Indeed, the pair joined forces to op pose an effort by the auditor to enshrine an ombud sperson in the county charter. It’s hard to view such opposition as anything but resistance to having their work scrutinized.

By contrast, Meieran has been a thorn in Kafoury’s side, constantly pushing for more data and greater transparency from the Joint Office.

A 58-year-old emergency room physician, Meieran also has a law degree. Her 20 years in the ER lend her expertise relevant to core county functions—public and mental health, addiction treatment, and homeless services. She has regularly pleaded with her colleagues at the county to treat conditions on Portland’s streets as a humanitarian crisis, not a situation that can be tolerated while the city awaits more housing.

To be sure, aspects of Meieran’s temperament give us pause. Since winning election in 2016, she’s experi enced constant staff turnover. She struggles at times to keep her emotions in check and does not boast a tangi ble accomplishment of the magnitude of Preschool for All. The recent allegation by a labor union supporting Vega Pederson that Meieran threatened retaliation for not getting the union’s endorsement feels like a cynical political attack—but it also demonstrates the

kind of poor judgment that, if it becomes a pattern, could sabotage Meieran’s chances to make change.

Yet we are persuaded she is the candidate most de termined to bring change about. She has been crystal clear about the lack of rigor and urgency at the Joint Office. Early in her county tenure, she was a moving force behind the creation of the Unity Center for Be havioral Health, a psychiatric emergency clinic in inner Northeast Portland. Along with Multnomah County Mental Health Court Presiding Judge Nan Waller and others, Meieran has helped advance a successor to the Central City Concern sobering center that closed in 2019, leaving people suffering acute meth or alcohol intoxication with nowhere to go. Her contention: A relatively small number of frequent flyers are chewing up vast resources from the city’s police and fire bureaus and hospital emergency rooms.

At the intersection of mental health, substance abuse treatment, and law enforcement, Meieran has established a high level of credibility. She is a decisive, data-driven leader uncomfortable with the cozy rela tionship between county officials and their nonprofit service providers.

On her website, Meieran has concisely laid out the choice voters face: “My opponent has supported the current Chair on all issues,” she writes. “If you want to continue on the current path, hear the same talking points for the next four years, and see the same results, then you should vote for her.”

We don’t want that. Vote for Meieran.

On the menu for Meieran’s last meal: An “every thing” pizza.

She has been crystal clear about the lack of rigor and urgency at the Joint Office.

Measure 111

Enshrines health care as a right in the Oregon Constitution

YesWe went round and round on this measure, which was a referendum from the Legislature on party lines. On the one hand, nearly all Or egonians have some form of health insurance, and most who don’t are eligible for Medicaid through the Oregon Health Plan. If this mea sure passes, it would not provide health care to anybody who lacks it now. Nor, backers insist, is it a stealth tool for moving the state toward what many progressives want: single-payer health care like the Brits and Canadians have. No, they insist, Measure 111 is primarily a state ment of principle, one that Democrats led by late state Rep. Mitch Greenlick (D-Portland) pushed for 15 years.

We’re leery of governance by bumper sticker. In 2001, after four years of study and delibera tion, the Legislature passed into law a concept called the Quality Education Model. The QEM produces a calculation every two years of what it would cost to fully fund K-12 schools. Law makers have never come close to allocating that number.

So why do we support amending the consti tution to add what amounts to an empty prom ise? We believe the state constitution is exactly where principles that underlie everything in our society should be stated—in bright lines, even if they are aspirational. When the framers of the Declaration of Independence wrote “all men are created equal,” they knew it wasn’t true in practice but they hoped it someday would be. Those words acted as a guidepost through centuries of progress toward making them true.

Let’s hope it doesn’t take that long to get ev eryone insured. Vote yes.

Measure 112

Removes language allowing slavery from the Oregon Constitution

Measure 113

Amends the Oregon Constitution to prevent lawmakers with 10 unexcused absences from being reelected.

No

YesIn Oregon, to paraphrase ol’ Bill Faulkner, the racist past isn’t dead—it’s not even past. Exhibit

A: The state constitution still sanctions slavery or indentured servitude, if it’s used to punish a crime. It’s obnoxious that such language still stands in our foundational document. Worse, it’s dangerous: State prison inmates report sto ries of guards justifying poor treatment because the constitution says incarcerated people can be slaves.

If there’s a silver lining to this sorry saga, it’s that people who’ve spent time behind bars led the campaign to remove this language, with an assist from Willamette University students. The sole opposition comes from Oregon sheriffs who fear it will eliminate inmate work crews. The courts will have to decide that—but the measure still allows community service as part of a prison sentence. The change is absurdly overdue. Vote yes.

Oregon Republicans in both chambers have repeatedly blocked legislation in recent ses sions by walking off the job. Such walkouts deprive Democrats of the two-thirds atten dance required for a quorum and have killed important climate and gun control bills, among many others.

We don’t like walkouts (which, it’s worth not ing, Democrats employed in Oregon in 2001 and, more recently, in Texas), but this measure offers the wrong solution. It would prohibit any lawmaker deemed to have 10 unexcused absences in a single session from winning re election.

One minor quibble: The definition of “ex cused absence” is subjective and open to abuse.

Democrats promoting this bill assure us that neither party would twist it for political gain. For the sake of argument, let’s assume that’s true.

The more substantive problems are three: First, the measure arbitrarily disenfranchises voters in districts where members choose to walk out. It should be up to those voters, rather

than leadership of the rival political party, to decide who represents any given district.

Second, the sanction may be years removed from the offense. For example, a state senator elected this year could simply refuse to show up for work for the next four years. The mea sure prohibits such a senator from winning reelection—but not until 2026.

Our most significant objection: The vast ma jority of states don’t face walkout disruptions because, in 45 states, the quorum requirement is one-half of all members. That means if one party holds a majority, which is almost always the case, its members, simply by showing up, guarantee a quorum.

The simple, elegant solution to Oregon walk outs would have been to propose amending the constitution to lower the quorum threshold to one-half. In our interview, proponents ac knowledged as much but said it didn’t poll as well.

The Oregon Constitution is meant to be a statement of principles and fundamental laws, not a chalkboard subject to erasure and tinkering when one party’s agenda fails. The frontier justice proposed by this measure is nearly guaranteed to further alienate the party out of power. We dare any Democrat to walk into a public meeting in any county east of the Cascades and explain why their suffrage should be taken away because the representatives they elected won’t play ball with Portland liberals. Democrats are correct that walkouts are a real problem. This is a fake solution. Vote no.

Measure 114

Requires gun permits and bans high-capacity magazines

Yes

Rising gun violence has communities across Portland on edge. Over the past three years, shootings have tripled. Cops are finding record numbers of guns on the street.

A state of emergency declared by Mayor Ted Wheeler this summer is only beginning to slow the gunfire. As of September, shootings in 2022 were on track to outpace last year’s.

Oregon already has fairly progressive gun laws, but an interfaith group wants the state to go further. Lift Every Voice Oregon launched a campaign last year to get gun control on the ballot. It succeeded—a rarity for an all-volun teer signature drive.

The result is Measure 114. If passed, it would ban the sale of large-capacity magazines, like the one used by the shooter who killed two peo ple, then himself, at a Bend Safeway in August. It would also require a permit to purchase a gun. The process would be administered by the Oregon State Police, and applicants would be required to be fingerprinted, complete a safety training course, and pay a fee.

It isn’t radical to think that guns ought to be regulated like cars. Oregon would join 14 other states that have already implemented a licensing system. These are common-sense improvements—if not solutions—to a broken system.

The limit on large-capacity magazines is long overdue and similarly common across the country. Studies have shown that a similar federal ban, in place for a decade until it was repealed in 2004, was effective in reducing gun violence.

That said, the decision to endorse this mea sure wasn’t a given. For the law to work, it needs buy-in from local governments and the state. The permitting process would continue to rely on the Oregon State Police to conduct background checks, a process that is already backlogged.

It’s also going to require the creation of new gun safety courses across the state, which would not be cheap. Processing permits alone would cost local governments around $30 million annually, according to the Oregon secretary of state.

Still, the law is worth it. “If you’re saying it’s not good enough, you’re saying the amount of carnage in Portland is acceptable,” says Deschutes County District Attorney John Hummel. He’s right. The inaction of leaders to address Portland homicides is shameful.

The parishioners who gathered signatures for this measure did something. Now it’s your turn. Vote yes.

BALLOT MEASURES

Measure 26-224

Portland Community College bond

Yes

Community colleges offer a solution for Or egon’s labor shortage: workforce training for people looking to advance their careers—or enter a new one. Perhaps that’s why Portland Community College, with around 50,000 stu dents, is the largest higher education institution in the state. And it serves the people who most need a leg up. According to one recent survey, 63% of the college’s students were experiencing food insecurity.

To do this, PCC relies on taxpayers who have periodically approved bond measures to fund the school’s capital costs.

This year, the college is making its biggest request from county taxpayers yet: a $450 mil lion bond measure that would fund new hybrid learning technology, deferred maintenance like roof repairs, and the reconstruction of several buildings at the Rock Creek and Syl vania campuses. The measure is designed to come at no additional cost to taxpayers. Rates would remain the same, around $95 a year for a property assessed at $250,000.

To make that math work, planners had to make some difficult choices. They had to cut renovations to Mt. Tabor Hall and a new public services building at Cascade. The school’s lead construction planner, Rebecca Ocken, says it has a billion dollars in unmet need. Still, we’re confident the college made the right choices. It has been creative with its capital expenditures in the past, such as when it renovated a vacant supermarket to create its Southeast campus at Division Street and 82nd Avenue.

Opponents note that PCC’s enrollment has been down in recent years. But this is because community college attendance tends to drop when the economy is good. “It’s cyclical,” ex plains PCC board chair Tiffani Penson. It’s in times like these, with a recession looming and help-wanted signs on every storefront, that community colleges are most needed. Vote yes.

Measure 26-225

Metro parks levy

Yes

Metro, the regional government that includes Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington coun ties, owns 18,000 acres of parks and greenspac es. It bought most of that property with a series of capital bond measures. Those bonds allow only the purchase of land—the money cannot be used for upkeep.

Beginning in 2013, Metro asked voters for five-year levies to provide operating funds to manage and improve the agency’s portfolio of greenspaces, which includes large parcels, such as Oxbow and Blue Lake parks and Chehalem Ridge, and dozens of smaller oases amid the tri-county sprawl. More than 2.5 million people visit Metro’s lands every year, to hike, bike, fish, camp and relax. In a region whose population has grown steadily over time and is projected to continue growing, access to nature is a vital amenity and one that voters have consistently shown they want to pay for with their property taxes.

This measure would replace a five-year levy that is expiring and raise about $99 million over the next five years. Metro would use the money for park personnel, trail maintenance, better access for park users with disabilities, and other projects required to make greenspaces wel coming, accessible and safe for the public. It would cost a home assessed at $250,000 about $24 a year (the average assessed home value in Multnomah County last year was $257,000). Since the measure is a renewal of an existing levy, property taxes would not go up if it passes. It might be tempting as the economy teeters on the brink of recession to reject such a tax, but the massive backlog of unfunded maintenance in Portland city parks—and on city streets, for that matter—shows the folly of failing to take care of valuable assets. Give Metro the money.

Measure 26-228

Expands Portland City Council; creates mul timember districts; changes form of voting

No

Almost everyone agrees it’s time for Portland to scrap its unique form of government.

Portlanders have lost confidence in City Hall. The streets are chaotic. Housing is in short sup ply, in part because the permitting process is slow and marred by bureaus that act like inde pendent fiefdoms.

Rarely has the appetite for change been stron ger. But a volunteer committee tasked with the once-a-decade job of reviewing the city charter did its surgery with a sledgehammer instead of a scalpel.

Rather than focusing on the most effective way to streamline and professionalize city services, the 20-member Charter Commis sion proposed a novel government structure untested in any other city in America.

Portland would lurch from one form of gov ernment that no other large city uses—the com mission form, with elected officials overseeing the management of bureaus—to another that no other large city uses.

Wheels already exist. We don’t need to rein vent them.

This measure reaches far beyond addressing city government’s most glaring shortcomings and fails to achieve its stated goals. As a result, we recommend Portlanders vote no and de mand better results from the leaders they’ve elected—including charter reform worth sup porting.

The changes now put before voters would place bureau oversight in the hands of a single city administrator, hired by the mayor and ap proved by the City Council. Rather than four commissioners elected at large, the measure creates four geographic districts, each with three council members. Those members would work on policy rather than oversee bureaus. The mayor would no longer be a member of the council and would vote only in the case of ties. Finally, the measure replaces the current firstpast-the-post system of electing candidates with an unusual form of ranked-choice voting called “single transferrable vote.”

We favor bureaus run by professional man agers. And adding more members to the coun cil and electing them by geographic district mirrors the practice of peer cities and would

undoubtedly lead to more inclusivity.

But the proposal inexplicably calls for three members per district—which dilutes respon sibility—and couples that misguided idea with a form of voting that we worry would reduce voter confidence.

No one can predict how multimember dis tricts paired with ranked-choice voting would turn out. Under the measure, candidates would need only 25% of the vote to get elected—and could reach that threshold even if they receive fewer than one-quarter of first-choice votes because of how votes are redistributed in the counting process.

We fear we could end up with City Council members who are unqualified and have little genuine support. Worse, we believe this system would make it impossible to dislodge a poor ly performing officeholder because the 25% threshold is so low.

It is telling that the measure’s supporters continue to struggle to get their story straight on how many votes a candidate would actually need to obtain a council seat (they’ve said any where from 25% to about one-third). If they have such a hard time with the math, imagine how voters would feel.

We also note with alarm that, under this proposal, the mayor would have little more authority than is now the case under the city’s weak mayor system. The mayor would have limited authority over the city administrator except to hire and fire. In other words, the most powerful figure in Portland City Hall would not be directly elected by voters and would have few checks on their actions from elected officials.

One of the principal criticisms of Portland’s current government is that no one is clearly in charge. This proposal would offer no greater clarity. In fact, it’s likely to increase the con fusion.

We also wonder how much of our civic dys function stems from the lack of effectiveness among our current city commissioners. While our form of government is certainly flawed, our mayor and City Council fail to do what their predecessors have done: count to three and pass sound policies.

And while it’s tempting to view any change as an improvement when current conditions are so miserable, that’s the same logic that leads people into bad relationships and to sign contracts without reading the fine print. We don’t believe introducing a system whose consequences we have no way of predicting is a smarter choice than sticking with the familiar, if undesirable, status quo.

Vote no.

BALLOT

Measure 26-234

Establishes county ombudsperson

Multnomah County Charter Amendments

The Multnomah County Charter Review Committee meets every six years to tweak the county’s governing document, its charter. This year, the committee pro posed seven changes. Unlike the city of Portland Charter Commission, county vol unteers decided to present each concept to voters separately.

Measure 26-230

Makes county charter language gender neutral

YesWe think this is an easy, reasonable change that would help make constituents feel more included.

Measure 26-231

Extends voting rights to undocumented residents

No

If approved, undocumented residents might be allowed to vote in future county elections—but attorneys for the county aren’t sure it would be legal. The best argument for this idea: Undocu mented Oregonians pay taxes and are affected by county government actions.

But extending voting rights to undocument ed residents would also create a public record of undocumented residents. That would have been a disastrous public document under the Trump administration. And the benefit simply wouldn’t outweigh the risk: Such new voters wouldn’t be allowed to vote in statewide or fed eral races—they’d only get to vote for county candidates and measures, which isn’t much of a prize. (It would also require county elections officials to devise a separate category of ballots.)

At a time when election integrity is a matter of such contention, we don’t think adding a new category of voters whose identity and legal res idency might be disputed is a good idea. It feels less like a fully formed proposal and more like a provocation. Leading Democrats, including U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden and former House Speaker Tina Kotek, agree: Both told WW they were skeptical of the idea.

Measure 26-232

Switches to instant runoff ranked-choice voting for county offices in 2026

Measure 26-233

YesWe believe this form of ranked-choice vot ing—where voters rank their preferences on a list and second-choice votes are tallied if one’s first choice doesn’t make the cut—gives voters more breadth of choice in whom they elect. This voting method, which would eliminate run off elections in county races, is gaining steam across the United States and is now used in more than 50 cities. And unlike the more con voluted version of ranked-choice voting the city Charter Commission recommended, only one candidate would be elected per ballot rather than multiple candidates. It’s still a winnertake-all system, but one that values consensus a little more than the current method. That’s a modest improvement. We’ll take it.

Mandates two jail visits a year by county commissioners

YesOmbudspeople investigate constituents’ ques tions and grievances. They help keep govern ment honest and accountable—and we think the move is long overdue. County Auditor Jennifer McGuirk made a strong case for this addition: She says citizen complaints flood her office that go uninvestigated because there’s no ombudsperson. “We don’t look at individual cases in audits, we’re looking at systems,” Mc Guirk says. An ombudsperson “would be an im partial advocate for fair and just government.” Evidence that it makes elected officials nervous: Right before the Charter Review Committee voted to send this measure to the ballot, Mult nomah County Chair Deborah Kafoury and County Commissioner Jessica Vega Pederson wrote letters opposing it. We think a stronger watchdog would do them good.

Measure 26-235

Guarantees county auditor access to internal county documents

Yes

An auditor’s job is to hold government pro grams, departments and elected leaders ac countable. But to do so, auditors need unfet tered access to documents. That hasn’t always happened. County Auditor Jennifer McGuirk says, for example, that officials in the troubled Joint Office of Homeless Services stonewalled her team, as did the even longer troubled De partment of Animal Services. This measure shouldn’t be necessary but it is. Vote yes.

Measure 26-236

Amends Charter Review Committee qual ifications

NoWe’re unconvinced of the tangible benefit of this amendment, and it strikes us as performa tive rather than substantive. While transpar ency and inspections of carceral facilities are critical, adding one visit per year on top of the one state law currently requires of commission ers would add little value. The county auditor has proposed the formation of an independent review panel to monitor jail operations—that would be a much better idea.

NoThis proposal would extend the length of time the committee meets, from 11 to 18 months. And rather than state lawmakers selecting committee members from their districts, the Multnomah County chair would choose all members (subject to confirmation by the board of commissioners). That unnecessarily gives more authority to a position that already wields enormous power. The measure would also strike a requirement to include minority party voices. Diverse representation is critical to a democratic process. Vote no.

DROP DEAD GORGEOUS

Photos by Allison Barr On Instagram: @ alliisonder

Halloween is no longer a single day (thank goodness!). Instead, it’s become a monthlong celebration of all things scary and sexy—a combo that was on display last weekend at Rainbow City. The Old Town Chinatown event space hosted Assid Queens on Oct. 12, a punk-drag mashup that’s tailor-made for a sea son devoted to slasher flicks and costumes. Appropriately, the show’s theme was “Whorror Icons,” which means there was plen ty of leather, fake blood and torn fishnets on display.

GET BUSY

19-25

Wednesday, Oct. 19

WATCH: To Kill a Mockingbird

Revisit a high school English class staple, which has now become the highestgrossing American play. Broadway in Portland opens its 2022-23 season with Harper Lee’s enduring story of racial injustice and childhood innocence, set in 1934 Alabama. Aaron Sorkin’s stage adaptation of that novel centers on righteous lawyer Atticus Finch—played in New York first by Jeff Daniels and then Greg Kinnear—has consistently played to full houses since it opened. That will likely be the case with its local run, since Emmy Award winner Richard Thomas now stars in the touring production. Get your tickets now before they sell out. Keller Auditorium, 222 SW Clay St., 503248-4335, portland.broadway.com. 7:30 pm Wednesday-Friday, 2 and 7:30 pm Saturday, 1 and 6:30 pm Sunday, through Oct. 23. $34.75-$134.75.

Thursday, Oct. 20

LISTEN: Bobby Torres Quartet

Happy hour at Lovely Rita just got a little more jazzy thanks to the gentle, percus sion-driven sounds of the Bobby Torres Quartet. A 40-year veteran of the Portland jazz scene, bandleader Torres has an im pressive résumé that includes performing at Woodstock with Joe Cocker, 10 years of touring with Tom Jones, and induc tion into the Oregon Music Hall of Fame. While you listen to the Latin-influenced

soundtrack, don’t sleep on the martini and half-dozen oyster special, which is only five bucks. Lovely Rita, 15 NW 4th Ave., 503-770-0500, thehoxton.com. 5-7 pm Thursday, Oct. 20. $15.

Friday, Oct. 21

 LAUGH: Talk of the Town

Part current events debrief, part improv show, Talk of the Town is one way to catch up on the local headlines, but funnier than your typical local news broadcast. Special guests with a variety of interests—from food to art to leadership—provide updates about their latest projects, then Curious Comedy’s team of pros use those stories to create sketches on the spot. The Annex at Curious Comedy Theater, 5225 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 503-477-9477, curiouscomedy.org/shows. 7:30-9 pm Friday, Oct. 21. $15.

LISTEN: Marco Benevento With William Tyler

Mark Benevento is said to have done “bru tal things to a baby grand.” Find out what that may look and sound like when the ac claimed keyboardist comes to Doug Fir for two nights of performances. His genre-de fying tunes have received rave reviews over the course of his seven-studio-album career, celebrated for their sense of joy, grace and weirdness. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 503-231-9663, dougfir lounge.com. 9 pm Friday-Saturday, Oct. 21-22. $17. 21+.

 WATCH: Wendell & Wild Sorry, Laika! You’re not the only game in town when it comes to Portland-area ani

mation. Netflix built a brand-new studio in Milwaukie to make this film by acclaimed stop-motion animation director Henry Selick (Coraline and Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, which, title notwithstanding, was directed by Selick, not Burton). It’s a tale of scheming de mons (is there any other kind?) featuring the voices of Keegan-Michael Key, Jordan Peele and Angela Bassett. Hollywood The atre, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd., 503- 493-1128, hollywoodtheatre.org. Multiple showtimes Friday-Thursday, Oct. 21-27. $7-$10.

WATCH: 101 Extraordinarily Awful & Truly Terrible Ways to Die (in one night)

Experience Theatre Project is known to bring fast-paced humor to its produc tions, and 101 Extraordinarily Awful & Truly Terrible Ways to Die (in one night) promises to be no different. The Monty Python-esque collection of dark com edy skits promises 101 reenactments of some of the most cringeworthy ways to kick the bucket. Self-described “overly educated idiots” will lead the show, which also features audience participation bits, deadly game shows, and the Grim Reaper himself. Beaverton Masonic Lodge, 4690 SW Watson Ave., Beaverton, 503-5681765, experiencetheatreproject.org. 6 pm Friday-Saturday, Oct. 21-22 and 28-29. $35-$92.50. 21+.

Saturday, Oct. 22

 GO: Portland Oddities & Curiosities Expo

The organizers behind the Oddities & Curi osities Expo characterize it as a gathering

of all things weird (that are legal to own) from around the country. Expect taxider my, preserved specimens, antiques, quack medical devices, creepy clothing, odd jewelry, animal skulls, funeral collectibles— the list goes on and on. There’s really something for everyone, whether you’re one of those guys who drives around in a hearse and is generally strange, or you’re simply looking for a unique experience. For an extra fee, you can take the Two Headed Duckling Taxidermy Class or tour the Museum of Marvelous Mutations (allegedly “The World’s Largest Traveling Freak Show”). Oregon Convention Center, 777 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., odd itiesandcuriositiesexpo.com. 10 am-6 pm Saturday, Oct. 22. $10-$15.

Sunday, Oct. 23

 WATCH: Home Is Somewhere Else

As anyone who has seen modern clas sics like Ari Folman’s Waltz With Bashir and Brett Morgan’s Chicago 10 knows, animation can be a powerful tool for a documentary. The latest testament to that underappreciated truth is Home Is Somewhere Else, in which directors Jorge Villalobos and Carlos Hagerman invite audiences into the souls of undocument ed families. Best of all, the film is voiced by actual children and their families, with spoken word poet José Eduardo Aguilar (also known as Lalo “El Deportee”) serving as host and MC. Screens as part of the Portland Latin American Film Festival. Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd., 503-493-1128, hollywoodtheatre.org. 3 pm Sunday, Oct. 23. $8-$10.

HOLDING COURT: A scene from the trial in To Kill a Mockingbird, Broadway in Portland’s 2022-23 season opener.

New Acquaintance

Top 5

Hot Plates

WHERE TO EAT THIS WEEK.

1. THE SEA BREEZE FARM TRUCK Pops up at Northwest 23rd Place and Thurman Street, seabreeze. farm. 5-7 pm Monday.

Buzz

WHERE TO DRINK THIS WEEK.

BY THOM HILTON

Old Pal, the new vegetable-focused bistro at Southeast Morrison Street and 34th Avenue, is a solid cocktail and snack bar.

Opened by Ken’s Artisan Pizza and DOC alum Jeremy Larter and Emily Bix ler, owner of jewelry and sculpture line Boet, the interior design is spacious and welcoming. Much of the food, however, is only fine, which will perhaps disappoint those hoping for a new neighborhood spot that really takes advantage of Oregon’s ex ceptional bounty of produce. Fortunately, with its evolving seasonal menu, things can always change for the better.

Let’s start with the positives: The clari fied milk punch, with rum, pineapple and citrus ($14), tastes like tropical fruit ice cream, and is one of the best and smooth est new cocktails I’ve sampled this year.

The Hockney ($13), the house gin and ton ic, comes garnished with fresh herbs and

flowers from the chef’s own garden—it’s lovely, mood-boosting elderflower re minds one of a day at the spa.

Market radishes with lemon butter ($7) usually make a fresh and tasty cru dité plate, but the roots were unsalted and clumsily presented, placed on top of the butter, causing them to slip off the plate. Another challenge to eat were the salt-and-vinegar fingerling potatoes ($15) served with a bowl of smoked yogurt, an anonymous green herb oil (theoretically basil), and trout roe. The roe contributes most of the flavor to this dish, which really makes no sense since the potatoes—lit tle hunks that aren’t crispy but are oddly sweet and dusty—are not cut or served in a way that encourages dipping or topping.

Old Pal’s burrata appetizer ($15) is part of a larger burrata appetizer issue—this one, like many others in the city, is not served with bread to help you attack that massive cheese ball. Served with nice end-

WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS

Judging of the Oregon Beer Awards fresh hop category took place this week. Here are the results.

BY ANDI PREWITT aprewitt@wweek.com

The results of the Oregon Beer Awards were released Oct. 17, and what we’ve learned is that a number of breweries continue to dom inate this competition, which has also become one of the largest and most competitive of its type in the world.

The Willamette Week-sponsored event announced the winners in three categories of beers made with cones harvested just in the past few weeks—most from farms less than an hour away in the Willamette Valley. Even though the full competition is six months away, judging took place this weekend while the beverages are still at their peak.

Fresh hop submissions are divided into three classes: Pale Ales and India Pale Ales, Hazy Pale Ales and India Pale Ales, and Other, which includes less aggressively dosed styles like lagers, saisons or sours. Sixteen adjudicators evaluated 135 beers, and every entry was reviewed by at least two panels of judges, while winners went through as many as six panels.

A number of familiar brands that placed in previous years once again made it to the podium, including Breakside, Deschutes, Migra tion and Ruse. Baerlic is celebrating its third consecutive win in the

of-summer peaches and dressed with chile, lemon zest, and a lot of fennel, it’s dessertlike and pleasant when polished off with a side order of Little T Baker bread ($7). But you might still be distracted by more of that green oil as well as pickled blueberries that don’t contribute addi tional acidity and have a mushy texture, like fruit that’s been frozen and thawed.

The pole bean salad ($15) is a mess of many elements: barely blanched, squeaky green beans and halved cherry tomatoes in a creamy dill dressing give off big potato salad vibes. The dish is then topped with a flavor-bomb sprinkle of turmeric, cumin and sesame seeds, plus shavings of Belper Knolle cheese so thin they get lost in the jumble. The ricotta gnocchi ($28) was perhaps the biggest letdown. Expecting little pillowy puffs of dough that melt in your mouth, these were instead large and glutenous. The sauce, made of sungold tomatoes, summer squash, basil, grana, and pickled ramp butter, was criminally lacking in salt or acidity.

Luckily, the food menu did include some high points, like the gougères ($8)—herby cheese puffs with a punchy green garlic aioli—and herbed fries ($8), which are thin and crispy, like a gussied-up McDonald’s fry, sprinkled with dill and served with preserved mayo lemon. And the house made ice creams ($10) soar. During a recent visit, offerings included popcorn, which tasted just like Corn Pops cereal and milk, and chocolate malt—essentially a concentrated version of a classic dessert from the Archie-style soda shop of your dreams.

Old Pal is a solid spot for a nice cocktail and some choice snacks and dessert, but may need a moment to find its footing before I attempt another full dinner.

DRINK: Old Pal, 3350 SE Morrison St., 503-477-9663, oldpalpdx.com. 4-10 pm Wednesday-Sunday.

Other Fresh Hop category, and earned back-to-back golds. And Ruse has also distinguished itself, extending its winning streak to three years. The Southeast Portland brewery is also the first to win gold for both its fresh hop West Coast and hazy IPAs.

Overall, the OBA’s fresh hop competition continues to grow in popularity. Now in its seventh year, 54 breweries entered 135 beers in the contest. That’s 64% more than the fresh hop category at the Great American Beer Festival, one of the country’s most prestigious competitions.

Be sure to mark your calendars for the state’s Oscars of beer in April 2023. Tickets go fast and always sell out.

HERE IS THE COMPLETE LIST OF WINNERS:

Fresh Hop Pale Ales and India Pale Ales (71 entries)

GOLD: Ruse Brewing, Songspire

SILVER: Migration Brewing Company, Summer Chinook

BRONZE: Sunriver Brewing Company, Doug Said So

Fresh Hop Hazy Pale Ales and India Pale Ales (30 entries)

GOLD: StormBreaker Brewing, Set Freshies to Haze

SILVER: Breakside Brewery, Breakside What Fresh Beast

BRONZE: Ruse Brewing, Clever Weather

Other Fresh Hop Beers (34 entries)

GOLD: Baerlic Brewing Company, East Side Pilsner

SILVER: Deschutes Brewery, Fresh Hop King Crispy

BRONZE: Steeplejack Brewing Company, Fresh Hop Luminosa

Single Farm Table Beer

The Sea Breeze Farm mobile butcher block is like a portal to a French street market that started appearing in Northwest Portland in late summer. Chockfull of fresh and cured meats, the customized truck sells everything from duck rillettes to pork cheek and belly to whole chickens raised by George Page and Rose Allred, partners in business and life. Their passion for their trade is evident in the quality of the products themselves as well as their enthusiasm for farm life. When you see the white Magic Meat Truck on 23rd and Thurman, do not pass it up.

2. JOJO 902 NW 13th Ave., 971-331-4284, jojopdx.com. 11 am-10 pm daily.

A stationary version of the much-loved Jojo food cart has arrived in Northwest Portland.

As with the truck, the highlights are smash burgers and multiple permutations of fried chicken, plus the eponymous deep-fried potato wedges, served with a side of sauce of which there are 10. A small order of jojos is ample for two. But go ahead, gild the lily and get one of the loaded ver sions, with different combinations of cheeses, sauces and alliums.

3. HOLLER 7119 SE Milwaukie Ave., 971-2001391, hollerpdx.com. Noon-9 pm Monday-Thursday, 11 am-9 pm Friday, 10 am-9 pm Saturday-Sun day.

Doug Adams may no longer be in the kitchen at this Sellwood neighborhood chicken joint, but his popular poultry-focused offerings—a spinoff of his friedbird Sundays at Bullard—are still on the menu. Holler also just added a football season menu, which includes pulled pork sliders smothered in barbecue sauce, chili cheese fries, housemade onion rings and portobello wraps. With seven flat-screens and a buck off draft beer, it just got a little more tempting to abandon your couch on game day.

4. NOTHING BUNDT CAKES 11629 SW Beaverton Hillsdale Highway, 503-718-7070, noth ingbundtcakes.com. 10 am-6 pm daily.

If you’re the type of person who leans into fall hard—we’re talking boots and leggings daily, deco rative wreaths, and trips to go “leaf-peeping” (a semi-perverted term that, really, no one should ever use)—then you’ll want to pair your Starbucks’ PSL with Nothing Bundt Cakes’ pump kin spice dessert. The seasonal favorite will be on the menu for only a limited time, and it comes in 10- and 8-inch cakes as well as mini Bundtlets and bite-sized Bundtinis.

5. CANARD OREGON CITY

1500 Washington St., Oregon City, 503-344-4247, canard restaurant.com. 11 am-2 pm and 4-9 pm daily.

Would you travel 20 miles for a Salisbury steak? We’re not talking about the Swanson TV dinner of your youth, but a deliciously beefy slab of seared-and-sea soned, dry-aged ground brisket and chuck. The dish is now being served at Canard’s new Oregon City location, and it’s meant to be a “more comforting version” of the restaurant’s original duck frites. You’ll find more riffs on classics and novel offerings at the spinoff, as well as a heck of a lot more seating thanks to its spacious home in the former Grano Bakery.

1. SMITH TEAMAKER 500 NW 23rd Ave., 503-2067451; 110 SE Washington St., 503-719-8752; smithtea.com. 10 am-6 pm daily. As we get closer to the holiday season—prime tea-drinking time—Portland’s renowned fullleaf tea company has partnered with Farina Bakery to create a pairing menu for both of its tasting rooms. You can now get a trio of colorful macarons (pistachio, rainbow sprinkle and lemon) to go with Smith’s Mo roccan mint, black lavender and red nectar teas served on a char cuterie-style board that’s perfect for those days you long for Paris but are stuck in Portland.

2. ROCKABILLY CAFE 8537 N Lombard St., 503-3842076, rockabillycafe.com. 8 am-8 pm Wednesday-Thursday and Sun day, 8 am-9 pm Friday-Saturday. About a month after opening last winter, Rockabilly added alcohol-soaked shakes to its menu, as if it knew we’d need another painkiller as the year wore on. Right now, you should be drinking the White Ukrainian, and not just because it’s trendy to protest the Russian invasion by boycotting the country’s exports along with its name. The shake’s soothing rum-and-coffee flavor is like slipping into that first light sweater of the season as we transition into fall.

3. BAD HABIT ROOM 5433 N Michigan Ave., 503-3038550, saraveza.com/the-badhabit-room. 4-10 pm Wednes day-Friday, 9 am-2 pm and 4-10 pm Saturday-Sunday.

Bad Habit Room has technically been around for about a decade, but previously opened only for weekend brunch and special events. After staying complete ly shuttered for two years due to the pandemic, it’s back and caters to a different crowd in the evenings. Cocktails take their inspiration from the pre-Pro hibition era, and our current favorite is Moon Shoes, made with marshmallow-infused vod ka, lemon, orgeat and a splash of Son of Man harvest vermouth that acts as a grounding agent.

4. OYATSUPAN BAKERS 16025 SW Regatta Lane, Bea verton, 503-941-5251, oyatsupan. com. 8 am-3:30 pm daily. Though best known for its milk bread and sweet rolls, Oyatsupan also serves a variety of warm beverages to go with those baked goods. The newest menu item is a hojicha latte, a Japa nese green tea typically steamed to stop the oxidation process and then roasted, resulting in little to no bitterness as well as a low caffeine content. Oyatsupan promises it is the perfect drink to transition from summer to fall thanks to the nutty notes from the tea and the creaminess of the oat milk.

5. HETTY ALICE BREW ING AT BELMONT STA

TION

4500 SE Stark St., 503-232-8538, belmont-station.com. Noon-11 pm daily.

After launching Living Häus Beer Company with two other Portland brewers at the former Modern Times location this sum mer, pFriem vet Gavin Lord has spun off his own project inside that same space. The brewery is named after his grandmother, who had a rough upbringing yet became known for her hospital ity, a legacy he hopes to carry on with this business. Beer nerds know Lord best for his time as head brewer at Hood River’s pFriem and, after his year off from the industry, are undoubt edly pumped by his return.

COURTESY OF OLD PAL

A selection of cocktails and small plates are off to a strong start at Old Pal, but a number of larger dishes need some refinement.

Backing Native-Owned Brands

You can continue to honor Indigenous Peoples Day the entire month of October by supporting these cannabis and cannabis-adjacent businesses.

BY BRIANNA WHEELER

On Monday, Oct. 10, we recognized Indigenous Peoples Day, which we can all agree is a far more appropriate celebration than honoring the colonizer whose arrival in America ushered in the oppression of Native people—especially in Oregon, where more than 60 tribes lived for millennia.

It might sound a bit stoner superficial to suggest commemo rating Indigenous Peoples Day with cannabis, but hear me out.

Cannabis is a medicine that’s been used on this continent for generations, and even though Spanish colonizers are credited with introducing hemp to the Americas, oral histories describe cannabis first arriving via the Bering Strait, and discoveries of hemp cloth-wrapped clay pipes still encrusted with cannabis residue from approximately 400 B.C. support the assertion that cannabis was a form of Indigenous medicine long before this land was, ahem, homogenized.

For any equity-minded potheads wondering how best they can support the Indigenous cannabis industry, consider pa tronizing these Native-owned cannabis or cannabis-adjacent companies when restocking your therapeutic stash box, ex panding your hand-blown glass collection, or adding plantbased medication to your skin care routine.

Pipes by Fiona

Fiona Anuweh is an Ashland glassblower specializing in cere monial pipes created with a technique that mimics traditional glass-bead patterns. For cannaglass collectors, Indigenous art aficionados, or any pothead in need of a special occasion pipe, Pipes by Fiona might have the piece of your dreams in stock now, but if not, Anuweh also takes custom orders.

BUY: etsy.com/shop/GlassPipesByFiona

Natural Wonders

Natural Wonders is Oregon’s first Native-owned dispensary, which, considering our neighbor to the north has a database listing an abundance of shops founded by Indigenous people, is long overdue and warmly welcomed. Natural Wonders was established with the assistance of an equity grant from NuProj ect, which also supported the launch of Green Muse, the city’s first Black-owned dispensary, so expect trademark Oregon boutique warmth, curated craft cannabis selections, and a strong connection to this area’s long-standing Native culture.

BUY: Natural Wonders, 3831 SE Main St., 503-928-1228, nat uralwonderspdx.com.

Nice Hemp Co.

Founded by Rashell Crume, Nice Hemp Co. produces organic, full-spectrum, strain-specific, handcrafted fruit candies, such as lollipops, taffylike chews and sugar-dusted medicated gummies. The company uses a solventless rosin extract in its edibles, so users can expect a clean, therapeutic treat consistently manufactured without genetically modified organisms, corn, soy, wheat, artificial flavors, colors, preservatives or animal products. Bonus: These sweets make adorable gifts for the CBD gummy lovers in your life.

BUY: nicehempco.com

Make & Mary

Yvonne Perez Emerson’s flagship boutique carries all manner of cannabis therapeutics, including skin care and lifestyle items, all stylishly designed by Perez Emerson herself. Each of Make & Mary’s formulations was developed with complementary botanicals to enhance their unique efficacy. The resulting

products are a love letter to both hemp cannabis and heritage plant medicine. Pro tip: Get the cannabis and Himalayan sea salt aromatherapy inhalers for quick, calming hits.

BUY: Make & Mary, 2506 NE Sandy Blvd., 503-444-7608, makeandmary.com.

High Society Collection

For the femme stoners out there, consider displaying your en thusiasm for getting high by purchasing a cannabis leaf crown or roach clip pendant from Indigenous artist and metalsmith extraordinaire Erin Colvin. Based in Portland, High Society sells wearable, cannaleaf motif art pieces that often double as cannabis utility novelties. From hairpins to hoops to the aforementioned crown, High Society creates pieces whose style is timeless and would be a welcome addition to any stylish cannasseur’s jewelry collection.

BUY: High Society Collection, 911 N Monroe St., 503-847-9966, highsocietycollection.com.

Karmic Bath

Want to re-create the luxury spa experience in your home? Karmic Bath can help. The online retailer offers CBD soaps, oils and salves as well as a menu dedicated to essential oils.

Founded by Cynthia Maldonado, this line of straightforward self-care products features CBD as part of a botanical formu lation rather than a spotlight ingredient. For skin care fanat ics, this should be your go-to outlet, and for those wannabe skin care fanatics, Karmic Bath is a perfect place to start your product explorations.

BUY: karmicbath.com

MUSIC

The Hell (and Heaven) of Other People

Brooke Totman and Darius Pierce confront an existential crisis in Laughing Wild.

BY MAX TAPOGNA

We all have bad days. Some people more than others, as the characters in Christopher Durang’s 1987 play Laughing Wild can attest.

On the surface, this two-hander—playing at 21ten Theatre through Oct. 29—is about a shopping trip involving a woman, a man, and a can of tuna gone awry. But Durang turns this incident into the big bang for an entire universe of thought-provoking comedy. Featuring Brooke Totman and Darius Pierce (as name less characters) and directed by Ted Rooney, Laughing Wild is a sleek vehicle for the actors to demonstrate their formidable talents.

Act 1 is divided into two long monologues. We first meet Tot man, whose shocked eyes and disheveled hair speak volumes before she even says a word. Once she starts talking, she doesn’t stop. We learn her character is not just having a bad day, she’s having perhaps her worst day ever.

“I want to talk to you about life. It’s just too difficult to be alive, isn’t it?” begins her retelling of a grocery store encounter, in which she whacks Pierce on the head for taking too long to pick out a can of tuna. Her story quickly reveals itself to be a polemic against one of life’s greatest inconveniences—other people.

Existential much? References to Camus and Beckett abound; in fact, the play’s title comes from a line in Becket’s play Happy Days about “laughing wild amidst severest woe,” which Totman’s character is fond of quoting. And laugh she does, with the bona fides of a Bond villain. You can’t help but guffaw with her (and at her), even though you know her rant to be the personal con fessions of a woman deeply troubled.

Totman commands the stage for nearly 45 minutes before ceding it to Pierce. Addressing the audience from a lectern, he admits he is unhappy in his job as a TV writer and says he wishes he had been a professor since he likes to talk. I, too, enjoy Pierce’s talking (his mellifluous voice is made for radio).

When Pierce begins a story about a recent trip to the grocery store, we realize he is the “asshole” Totman’s character told us about. But despite their connection, her grievances are mostly existential, whereas his are explicitly political.

A repressed gay man, Pierce’s character is initially shy about discussing his sexuality, then goes on to lambast a 1986 Supreme Court ruling which upheld a Georgia law criminalizing sodomy. He even delivers a satirical impersonation of God deciding to inflict AIDS upon the world. “I don’t know why I invented sex to begin with,” he muses as our Heavenly Father. “It’s a revolting idea.”

Totman and Pierce are finally united in the second act for a Groundhog Day-like revisit of that fateful shopping incident. With each iteration, the outcome becomes more surreal. Totman becomes a talk show host and Pierce, her guest, is ceremoniously garbed as the Infant Jesus of Prague.

21ten’s intimate black box almost feels insufficient for the cast’s maximalist performances. Totman’s portrayal of a woman on the edge of a nervous breakdown is impeccable, while Pierce offers a slightly more restrained foil to her unhinged diatribes (although both characters are deeply neurotic, he is at least attempting to maintain a positive attitude amidst his severe woe).

Many of the play’s 1980s existential obstacles—climate change, gun violence, Republicans—remain relevant. Durang’s efferves cent writing is akin to the work of astute social observers like Nora Ephron and Noah Baumbach, mixed with a dash of Larry David.

In less capable hands, this unwieldy play would run the risk of coming off as too clever for its own good. But the production’s ingenuity ensures everyone is laughing wildly, actors and audi ence alike.

SEE IT: Laughing Wild plays at 21ten Theatre, 2110 SE 10th Ave., 503-208-5143, 21ten.org. 7:30 pm Friday-Sunday, 2 pm Sunday, through Oct. 29. $25.

WHAT TO SEE AND WHAT TO HEAR BY DANIEL BROMFIELD @bromf3

THURSDAY, OCT. 20:

Alvvays ’ main songwriters, Molly Rankin and Alec O’Hanley, speak the universal language of pop music so fluently it’s funny they’d name their third album something as specifically Canadian as Blue Rev. As their 2014 debut single, “Archie, Marry Me,” has taken on the stature of a modern classic over the years, the band’s name has become synony mous with quality songwriting in indie rock, and Blue Rev continues the tradition with some of their strongest and smartest tunes yet. Crystal Ball room, 1332 W Burnside St., 503-225-0047, crystal ballroompdx.com. 8:30 pm. $26.50-$30. All ages.

MONDAY, OCT. 24:

Carly Rae Jepsen isn’t the world’s biggest pop star, but she’s one of the best. Just about every one knows “Call Me Maybe,” still a highlight of the 2010s charts, but later songs like “Run Away With Me” and “All That” form the core of a cult more like those that form around indie-rock artists than the vicious stan armies that surround most pop singers. Though her first date at the Roseland sold out, a second has been added by popular demand. Roseland Theater, 8 NW 6th Ave., 971-230-0033, roselandpdx.com. 8 pm. $47.50. All ages.

MONDAY, OCT. 24:

If you’ve heard L7 ’s Bricks Are Heavy, you al ready know how good it is. If you haven’t, just ask yourself this question: “Do I like slow, grungy, molasses-y feminist sludge punk?” If the answer is a resounding yes, you deserve to hear the Los Angeles band’s third album for the first time from the band itself. L7 plays it in full at Revolution Hall for their 30th anniversary, and incredibly, they’re still touring with the exact same lineup that record ed it. Revolution Hall, 1300 SE Stark St., 971-8085094, revolutionhall.com. 8 pm. $33. 21+.

WILD AT HEART: Darius Pierce and Brooke Totman.

TED ROONIE

MOVIES

Editor: Bennett Campbell Ferguson Contact: bennett@wweek.com

An American in Nicaragua

Margaret Qualley stars as an embattled expatriate in Claire Denis’ Stars at Noon.

BY CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER @chance_s_p

Deep into Claire Denis’ new drama Stars at Noon, an elemental question haunts the film’s aimless young American protagonist, who roams Nicaragua’s capital city amid a military coup: Why on earth is she here?

Trish (Margaret Qualley, daughter of Andie MacDowell) doesn’t offer direct answers, but she has one hell of a line locked and loaded: “I wanted to know the exact dimensions of hell.”

That steel-reinforced quip is typical of the sick, sharp, deflective wit of Denis’ second film of 2022, following this summer’s Both Sides of the Blade Stars at Noon is based on a 1986 Denis Johnson novel, but in cinematic form, it plays like a guilty, libidinal echo of Casablanca mixed with the understated deathtrap politics of a John le Carré story.

As is her way, Denis—the French auteur of Beau Travail (1999), Trouble Every Day (2001) and 35 Shots of Rum (2008) fame—fo cuses on women, as well as the utility and sway of sex. Slowly and uncertainly, Trish’s character profile develops. She’s a journal ist…or she was…sort of…now trotting barefoot about Managua, drinking rum like it’s water, barely eating, performing sex work for a few influential junta figures to remain afloat.

Despite Trish’s aforementioned wisecrack, this isn’t actually hell, but it is a real-life purgatory where her only solace is to en tertain herself through banter (“any calls?” she sarcastically asks each time she returns to her dingy motel). Even down to word

pronunciations, Qualley performs most interactions as either inside jokes or crackling rebukes. “Bebé,” she coos half-ironically when trying to make a john feel briefly desired. A minute later, she’s screaming at a military guard; he’s toting an assault rifle but is outgunned by her attitude.

Trish’s daily wanderings eventually lead her to the tony In terContinental Hotel bar, where she meets an oil speculator named Daniel (Joe Alwyn). He too likes to play with language and take airs on and off. “You have the kind of good manners that eventually get you killed,” she tells him only a few moments after they’ve met. They have chemistry in bed too—of an all-consum ing, doomed variety in which Denis’ films specialize.

As Trish, Qualley (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Maid) deliv ers a career-best performance, but saying that is like comparing a musician who’s released only promising singles to one who suddenly drops a boundless concept album. At once strikingly determined, knowingly coquettish and ragingly desperate, Trish is unlike any character Qualley has played. Her performance recalls Nicole Kidman at her most resolute, Maggie Gyllenhaal at her most playful, and a personality altogether contemporary: a young American idealist who, seeing the state of the world, cannot bear to give a shit anymore.

As for Daniel, we’re left to imagine how seamlessly Robert Pat tinson (who starred in Denis’ High Life in 2018 and was originally cast here) would’ve slid into this aloof and handsome character. But his loss is Alwyn’s good fortune, as the 31-year-old actor

Alwyn channels a Pierce Brosnan-esque emptiness with a trenchant thematic purpose: He’s less a Bond than someone 007 would blow off a meeting with. Daniel is an agent of mannered, chic capitalism in a country where those qualities have cachet at his hotel, but nowhere else. His suave exterior (white suit, expense account) immediately becomes disheveled when he and Trish venture into the city streets and beyond.

While it may seem regressive for Denis to center white pro tagonists in a Nicaragua-set film, Stars at Noon is not a savior narrative, assimilation fantasy, or exoticized horror story. Rather, her 15th feature expands her career-long commentary commen tary—from Chocolat (1988) to White Material (2009)—on the compromises, delusions and road-to-hell-paving intentions of post-colonial Europeans.

While Johnson’s novel is set during the 1984 revolution, his story, sadly, has aged quite well. With revolutionary-turned-au thoritarian leader Daniel Ortega back in power, the production was shot in Panama due in part to the Nicaraguan government’s violent crackdown on journalists and protesters. There may be smartphones in Denis’ version, but Stars at Noon still portrays the country as a devil’s playground for soldiers of fortune and proximal superpowers, as embodied by an incredible Benny Safdie bit part.

In Denis’ oeuvre, Stars at Noon is a top-shelf work, easily outshining Both Sides of the Blade. As in that film, handheld close-ups dominate the visuals, but they don’t feel like a COVID safety measure. Rather, the style emphasizes how myopic Trish and Daniel’s experiences, beauty, lust and even survival are in a country that benefits not one iota from their presence. Amid all the sterling dialogue, political innuendo, tycoon suits and sexy sundresses, Denis’ transcendent strength lies not in her surface-level directing abilities but a subversive boldness.

In turn, the film’s best moment is one simple, unpredictable sight gag. With Trish’s moral compass tied in knots, an aged Nicaraguan barkeep wanders up silently behind her, extends his arms and turns slowly in a circle, like a grandpa miming an airplane to a toddler. Trish might recognize her own brand of sarcastic mockery in the gesture, but its meaning is eminently more to the point: “Fly away, foolish child.”

SEE IT: Stars at Noon plays at Cinema 21, 616 NW 21st Ave., 503-223-4515, cinema21.com. 7 pm Wednesday, 3:45 pm Thursday, Oct. 19-20. $8-$11.

QUALLEY-FIED: Margaret Qualley.

(Harriet, The Favourite) best known as Taylor Swift’s long-term boyfriend gives his first truly memorable performance.

STREAMING HORRORS

YOUR SPOOKY FILM QUEUE BY ALEX BARR

The Music of Agnès

The Agnès Varda Forever movement continues with the live-scoring of her directorial debut, La Pointe Courte, at Holocene.

BY CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER @chance_s_p

Agnès Varda’s legend began with a $14,000 budget and a burst of spontaneity.

“She didn’t follow any rules,” says Jennifer Jones, one half of the Portland-based Varda awareness project Agnés Varda Forever. “She said, ‘I’ve seen maybe 10 movies in my whole life, and I think I can do it better.’ She didn’t take a class, didn’t read a book; she just did it.”

Varda was a 26-year-old photographer when she toted a camera to La Pointe Courte (a neighborhood in Sète, a port city in the South of France). There, she wrangled mostly nonactors, fearlessly juxtaposed formalism and docurealism, and voilá—say many film historians—the French New Wave was born.

According to this (slightly simplified) narrative, Var da’s La Pointe Courte (1955) arrived suddenly, much like the mother-to-child slap that marks the film’s halfway point. That’ll be the intermission and changeover point when Portland rock stalwarts Erika M. Anderson and Kathy Foster live-score La Pointe Courte on Oct. 23 at Holocene. Anderson will perform the film’s first half, while Foster (longtime bassist for the Thermals and the current bandleader of Roseblood) will tackle the mar ginally more bombastic second half with Decemberists drummer Rachel Blumberg.

The musicians have had to reckon with the sparse 80-minute film’s complexity. Throughout the story, Varda juxtaposes the labors and traditions of La Pointe Courte with a snaking co-plot focused on two lovers deciding whether to part ways.

“It’s a singular vision,” Anderson says, “almost like look ing at something from above. If you get in there and add melodramatic stuff, it’s not going to work.”

“ You could go anywhere with it,” Foster adds. “As I’m watching it, there are very nuanced changes in mood.”

Foster and Anderson’s efforts will be the latest install ment of Fin de Cinema, a live-scoring film series curated by Holocene’s Gina Altamura since 2009, which has en listed Portland artists to set their compositions to the works of Tarkovsky, Jodorowsky and others.

La Pointe Courte is a joint production with Holocene, POW Film Festival and Agnès Varda Forever, which began as a much-noticed poster campaign in spring 2021. But as of their Varda film festival last August at the Clinton Street Theater, Portland artists Jones and Laura Glazer’s collaboration has graduated from Portland’s telephone

poles to its movie screens.

Unlike the silent-film staples often selected for live scoring, Fin de Cinema tends to curate more daring in ternational films from the sound era. The original score and dialogue are silenced while the audience soaks in the musicians’ reinterpretations, which are set to subtitles (also, with its four projection screens, Holocene will show La Pointe Courte at all angles throughout the venue).

“It’s always Nosferatu or The Red Balloon,” says Alta mura of films typically scored live. “And those are cool, don’t get me wrong! But I thought, how cool would it be to do something a little more rock ’n’ roll, adventurous and technicolor?”

While the slice-of-life narrative of the black-and-white La Pointe Courte doesn’t automatically suggest rock ’n’ roll, Foster and Anderson are keeping all options open. Foster says she’s been rewatching the film while jamming on guitar, trying to follow the tenor of the two lovers’ verbose dialogues. Meanwhile, Anderson says she’s con sidering some flute or woodwind sounds on her synth, inspired by the film’s original Pierre Barbaud score—al though there’s no guarantee that is what audiences will hear Oct. 23.

Far more certain is a glimpse into Varda’s early bril liance. In a career that spanned 65 years—from Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962) to The Gleaners and I (2000) to an Oscar nomination for Faces Places (2017)—Varda demonstrated formal agnosticism and a distinct voice from the begin ning. One moment, La Pointe Courte focuses on the floridly conversant lovers draping themselves in poetic ennui. Then, just over their shoulders, a local cat takes a deep, conspicuous stretch, as if to say our personal dramas may feel all-consuming to us, but the wider world may yawn comically.

“Agnès was so good at giving everyday people an op portunity to narrate the world,” Glazer says. “I think our poster project is part of that, honoring and celebrating someone who would pay attention to strangers.”

Foster puts the pioneering early achievement of the French director and the half-dozen Portland women hosting this show more simply: “It’s all very radical and punk.”

SEE IT: La Pointe Courte plays at Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., 503-239-7639, holocene.org. 9 pm Sunday, Oct. 23. $13. 21+.

If you’re planning a spelunking expedition, Neil Marshall’s The Descent (2005) could make you reconsider. A group of outdoorsy friends unknowingly enter a previously unexplored cave system, led by their hubristic pal Juno (Natalie Mendoza). While descending farther under ground, they discover that others have tried and failed to escape the massive cave, likely due to the presence of killer “crawler” creatures. Notably, The Descent passes the Bechdel test for the vast majority of its runtime (#Girl Power)—and its formidable female explorers fight like hell. Amazon Prime, Paramount +, Tubi.

SPOOKY PICK 2:

Another movie about the unknowable underground, John Erick Dowdle’s As Above, So Below (2014) offers major claustrophobic horror as a group of ragtag explor ers search the Parisian catacombs. The film is shot like a grungy found-footage reel with a plotline straight out of National Treasure (2004). Young and reckless anthropolo gist Scarlett Marlowe (Perdita Weeks) will stop at nothing to complete her father’s lifelong search for the philos opher’s stone. The journey she undergoes is shocking, disturbing and mysterious, so prepare to watch from the edge of your seat. Hulu.

SPOOKY PICK 3:

The only scary part of What We Do in the Shadows is how much you’ll laugh. A documentary crew follows vam pires living in modern New Zealand in this film created by two of the minds behind Flight of the Conchords, Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi. If you enjoy surrealist deadpan comedy (i.e., a group of immortal predators arguing about household chores) and delightfully idiotic humor (“we’re werewolves, not swearwolves”), What We Do in the Shad ows will become one of your horror-comedy favorites. Rent on Amazon Prime, Google Play, YouTube and Vudu.

SPOOKY PICK 4:

Christophe Gans’ Silent Hill (2006) is the kind of mov ie your older sister’s best friend would make you watch during a sleepover. Radha Mitchell plays Rose Da Silva, a mother whose daughter, Sharon (Jodelle Ferland), experi ences disturbing night terrors. All signs point to Silent Hill, an abandoned town in West Virginia, as the source of her fears. After blacking out in a mysterious car accident as they enter town, Rose must search for her missing daugh ter while evading fantastical monsters hidden around every corner. Her harrowing experience will keep you up at night, replaying each gory scene in your mind and questioning the film’s enigmatic storyline. AMC+, Roku.

DAVIS FILMS

SPOOKY PICK 1:

:

Society (1989)

In the high society milieu of Beverly Hills, an ordinary teenager (Billy Warlock) comes to suspect that his wealthy parents are part of a grotesque cult. Directed by Brian Yuzna (producer of Re-Animator), the film is one of the yuckiest, gooiest, raunchiest body-horror com edies in the subgenre’s history. Come for the cathartic class satire, stay for the literally flesh-squelching climax. Hollywood, Oct. 19.

Eyes Without a Face (1960)

The inspiration behind Billy Idol’s 1984 hit song of the same name, this atmospheric black-and-white French horror film (favored by acclaimed directors like Pedro Almodóvar to John Carpenter) follows a mad plastic surgeon coping with guilt after disfiguring his daugh ter in a car accident (and attempting to give her a face transplant). 5th Avenue, Oct. 21-23.

Deep Red (1975)

A musician witnesses a killing by a mysterious blackgloved figure and teams up with a journalist to solve the case in the original cut of Deep Red, which offers 22 extra minutes of murder and mayhem left out when it was first released in the U.S. Check out the rest of Cinemagic’s Dario Argento film series below, just in time for the release of the giallo maestro’s latest movie, Dark Glasses Cinemagic, Oct. 22, 25.

The Babadook (2014)

Jennifer Kent’s acclaimed psychological horror film tells the tale of a widowed mother, her troubled young son, and a creepy pop-up book. In celebration of Johanna Isaacson’s new book, Stepford Daughters: Weapons for Feminists in Contemporary Horror, Isaacson herself will open this screening with a multimedia lecture on the film’s themes and feminist theories of women’s labor. Hollywood, Oct. 23.

Berberian Sound Studio (2012)

An insight into the strange world of Foley art, this sur realist psychological horror picture from British auteur Peter Strickland centers on a sound engineer (Toby Jones) who travels to a remote studio in Italy to work on a hyperviolent giallo film. Naturally, the lines between re ality and fiction begin to blur, and what appeared to be an innocuous job becomes a fight for his sanity. Clinton, Oct. 24.

ALSO PLAYING:

Academy: Casper (1995), Oct. 19-20. Torso (1973), Oct. 19-20. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), Oct. 21-28. The Conjuring (2013), Oct. 21-28. Cinemagic: The Cat o’ Nine Tails (1971), Oct. 21, 26. Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), Oct. 23. The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970), Oct. 23-24. Cinema 21: In a Lonely Place (1950), Oct. 22. Clinton: Vampire’s Kiss (1988), Oct. 22. Mandy (2018), Oct. 22. Hollywood: Scooby-Doo (2002), Oct. 20. The Witches of Eastwick (1987), Oct. 21. The Road (2009), Oct. 24. The Blob (1988), Oct. 25.

DECISION TO LEAVE

Director Park Chan-wook loves a curse. From revenge (Oldboy) to vampirism (Thirst) to abuse (The Handmaiden), the Korean master often treats character motivations as binding cove nants of passion and perversion. So it is with Decision to Leave, for which he won Best Director at Cannes. When a Busan immigration officer falls to his death, his widow (Tang Wei of Lust, Cau tion fame) and an investigating detective (Park Hae-il) enter a classic noir two-step of suspicion and attraction (a trope deployed by everyone from Hitchcock to Eszterhas). But Park has plenty to add, always emphasizing character over casework: This investigation’s intensity fatalistically marks the participants. Certain elements recall Bong Joon-ho’s Memories of Murder, especially the casting of Park Hae-il, whose boyish beauty is pulverized by his character’s job here. But the film is mostly interested in the detective as an idea—an assembly of attractive, manipulatable quali ties, from his dignified-cop mannerisms to extra storage pockets in his slacks. Rest assured, there are jaw-dropping foot chases and skirmishes, but Decision to Leave is mostly Park Chan-wook at deconstructive play. In the long lineage of cops and suspects improperly entwined, here’s a new cosmic joke about relationships: At last, a man who pays attention. NR. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Cinema 21, Hollywood.

AMSTERDAM

OF THE

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:

:

OF THE YEAR.

In 1933, Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler testified to Con gress about an attempted coup orchestrated by fascism-ador ing industrialists who sought to overthrow President Franklin D. Roosevelt. While Butler’s account was dismissed by many, a special House committee confirmed parts of his story, which has been skillfully stitched into Amsterdam a poignant and witty historical remix from director David O. Russell (American Hustle). Rather than start at the corrosive heart of what is now known as the Business Plot, Russell shows the conspiracy taking shape through the eyes of Burt (Christian Bale) and Harold (John David Washing ton), two World War I veterans falsely accused of murder. Valerie (Margot Robbie), a former nurse who saved their lives during the war, helps them enlist Maj. Gen. Dillenbeck (Robert De Niro, playing a Smedley Butler analog) to catch the culprit, but Russell is in no rush to solve a mystery. Leisurely and lovingly, he wraps us in the fabric of Burt, Harold and Valerie’s lives, dwelling on details that are both unnerving and beautiful, like the tea set that Valerie fashions from shrapnel. If Amsterdam believes anything, it’s that democracy is defined by the seemingly small things that make a human being an individu al, absurd as they may be. That’s why the climax offers a rousing tribute to radical niceness and the gloriously silly spectacle of Burt singing, getting high, and teaming up with a British secret agent played by Austin Powers himself, Mike Myers. “You gotta fight to protect kindness,” Burt declares. He’s right, but he and Amsterdam are also fighting to protect something else: the liberating, life-giving power of ridiculousness. R. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Bagdad, Cinemagic, City Center, Clacka

mas, Eastport Plaza, Evergreen Parkway, Fox Tower, Laurelhurst, Living Room, Lloyd Center, Oak Grove, Regal Tigard, St. Johns Twin, Studio One.

SMILE

For horror-movie lovers, it’s rare to find a flick that can really get under your skin, but Smile will leave you looking over your shoulder to make sure no strangers are grinning in your direction. Written and directed by first-time feature filmmaker Parker Finn, the movie invites you to descend into madness along side psychiatrist Dr. Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon) as she attempts to outrun the evil smiling presence that wants her dead. It’s the kind of film best watched behind squinting or fully shut eyes with an audience that unleashes a symphony of screams as each new terror is revealed (in the silence before a scare, I heard an adult woman whisper to a friend beside her, “I’m going to pee my pants”). Seamlessly intertwining indie motifs into a studio produc tion, Finn explores the horrors of mental illness, but unlike certain filmmakers, he doesn’t vilify those who suffer from it (I’m looking at you, M. Night Shya malan). Eventually, the madness thickens and pulls you under, leaving you to question your own sanity by the time the credits roll. Smile is uniquely haunting and downright disturbing—and I can’t wait to watch it again. R. ALEX BARR. Bridgeport, City Cen ter, Clackamas, Eastport Plaza, Evergreen Parkway, Fox Tower, Laurelhurst, Lloyd Center, Mill Plain 8, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, Progress Ridge, Studio One, Tigard, Vancouver Plaza.

THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN

Colm (Brendan Gleeson) has decided he doesn’t want to be friends with Pádraic (Colin

Farrell). “I just don’t like you anymore,” Colm announces, even though it’s more complicated than that. Colm, a gruff fiddler who wants to spend less time chatting and more time “think ing and composing,” thinks that Pádraic is “dull” and “limited.” Still, there is something mysteri ous about his sudden rejection of his longtime friend—and like a dogged detective, Pádraic is determined to crack the case. Set in a village off the coast of Ireland in 1923 and directed by Martin McDonagh, The Banshees of Inisherin reaches for symbolic grandeur—the rift between Colm and Pádraic says as much about Ireland’s history of sectarian violence as it does about them. Emotionally and intellectually, it’s a far richer film than Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Mis souri (McDonagh’s last attempt to mine a small town for mythic ideas), but there’s something profoundly irritating about its high-minded pessimism. When Pádraic delivers a drunken yet rousing defense of kindness, Colm insists that “niceness doesn’t last”—a far cry from David O. Russell’s recent master work Amsterdam, which declared that niceness was worth fighting for whether it lasted or not. The Banshees of Inisherin is grimly funny and genuinely tragic, but it doesn’t fight for anything—it just wallows in Pádraic’s misery, which is compounded by cameos by severed human fingers and the gratuitous death of an ador able donkey. For all his ambition, McDonagh fails to understand one of cinema’s defining truths: that bleakness doesn’t automat ically equal greatness. R. BEN NETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Cinema 21, Hollywood.

TOP PICK OF THE WEEK

by Jack Kent

BY MATT JONES

ASTROLOGY

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Of all the rich philan thropists in the world, Aries author MacKenzie Scott is the most generous. During a recent 12-month period, she gave away $8.5 billion. Her focus is on crucial issues: racial equality, LG BTQ+ rights, pandemic relief, upholding and pro moting democracy, and addressing the climate emergency. She disburses her donations quickly and without strings attached, and prefers to avoid hoopla and ego aggrandizement. I suggest we make her your inspirational role model in the coming weeks. May she motivate you to gleefully share your unique gifts and blessings. I think you will reap selfish benefits by exploring the perks of generosity. Halloween costume suggestion: philanthropist, Santa Claus, compassion freak.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): What animal best represents your soul? Which species do you love the most? Now would be a good time to try this imaginative exercise. You're in a phase when you'll thrive by nurturing your inner wild thing. You will give yourself blessings by stoking your creature intelligence. All of us are part-beast, and this is your special time to foster the beauty of your beast. Halloween costume suggestion: your favorite animal or the animal that symbol izes your soul.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): During the tyrannical reign of Spain's fascist government in the 1930s, Gemini poet Federico García Lorca creatively resisted and revolted with great courage. One critic said Lorca "was all freedom inside, aban don and wildness. A tulip, growing at the foot of a concrete bulwark." I invite you to be inspired by Lorca's untamed, heartfelt beauty in the coming weeks, Gemini. It's a favorable time to rebel with exuberance against the thing that bothers you most, whether that's bigotry, injustice, misogyny, creeping authoritarianism, or anything else. Halloween costume suggestion: a high-spirited protestor.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): If the trickster god Mer cury gave you permission to do one mischievous thing today and a naughty thing tomorrow and a rascally thing two days from now, what would you choose? Now is the perfect time for you Cancerians to engage in roguish, playful, puckish actions. You are especially likely to get away with them, karma-free—and probably even benefit from them—especially if they are motivated by love. Are you interested in taking advantage of this weird grace period? Halloween costume sug gestion: prankster, joker, fairy, elf.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Everyone's mind constantly chatters with agitated fervor—what I call the ever-flickering flux. We might as well accept this as a fundamental element of being human. It's a main feature, not a bug. Yet there are ways to tone down the inner commotion. Meditation can help. Communing with nature often works. Doing housework sometimes quells the clamor for me. The good news for you, Leo, is that you're in a phase when it should be easier than usual to cultivate mental calm. Halloween costume suggestion: meditation champion; tranquil ity superstar; gold medalist in the relaxation tournament.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): "Education is an admira ble thing," said author Oscar Wilde. "But it is well to remember that nothing worth knowing can be taught.” What?! That's an exasperating theory. I don't like it. In fact, I protest it. I reject it. I am es pecially opposed to it right now as I contemplate your enhanced power to learn amazing lessons and useful knowledge and life-changing wisdom. So here's my message for you, Virgo: What Oscar Wilde said DOES NOT APPLY to you these days. Now get out there and soak up all the inspiring teachings that are available to you. Halloween costume suggestion: top student.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): To celebrate Halloween, I suggest you costume yourself as a character you were in a past life. A jeweler in first-century Rome? A midwife in 11th-century China? A salt trader in 14th-century Timbuktu? If you don't have any intuitions about your past lives, be

playful and invent one. Who knows? You might make an accurate guess. Why am I inviting you to try this fun exercise? Because now is an excel lent time to re-access resources and powers and potentials you possessed long ago—even as far back as your previous incarnations.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): I guess it would be difficult to create a practical snake costume for Halloween. How would you move around? You'd have to slither across the floor and the ground ev erywhere you go. So maybe instead you could be a snake priest or snake priestess—a magic conjurer wearing snake-themed jewelry and clothes and crown. Maybe your wand could be a caduceus. I'm nudging you in this direction is because I think you will benefit from embodying the myth ic attributes of a snake. As you know, the creature sheds its old skin to let new skin emerge. That's a perfect symbol for rebirth, fertility, transforma tion, and healing. I'd love those themes to be your specialties in the coming weeks.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): "I need my sleep," proclaimed Sagittarian comedian Bill Hicks. "I need about eight hours a day and about ten at night." I don't think you will need as much slum ber as Hicks in the coming nights, Sagittarius. On the other hand, I hope you won't scrimp on your travels in the land of dreams. Your decisions in the waking world will improve as you give your self maximum rest. The teachings you will be given while dreaming will make you extra smart and responsive to the transformations unfolding in your waking life. Halloween costume sugges tion: dancing sleepwalker; snoozing genius; angel banishing a nightmare; fantastic dream creature.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Recently, my mom told me my dad only spoke the Slovakian lan guage, never English, until he started first grade in a school near Detroit, Michigan. Both of his parents had grown up in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but immigrated to the United States in their youth. When I related this story to my Slovakian cousin Robert Brežny, he assured me it's not true. He met my dad's mother several times, and he says she could not speak Slova kian. He thinks she was Hungarian, in fact. So it's unlikely my dad spoke Slovakian as a child. I guess all families have odd secrets and mysteries and illusions, and this is one of mine. How about you, Capricorn? I'm happy to say that the coming months will be a favorable time to dig down to the roots of your family's secrets and mysteries and illusions. Get started! Halloween costume suggestion: your most fascinating ancestor.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): My Aquarian friend Allie told me, "If a demon turned me into a mon ster who had to devour human beings to get my necessary protein, I would only eat evil billion aires like Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg." What about you, Aquarius? If you woke up one morning and found you had transformed into a giant wolfdragon that ate people, who would you put on your menu? I think it's a good time to meditate on this hypothetical question. You're primed to activate more ferocity as you decide how you want to fight the world's evil in the months and years to come. Halloween costume suggestion: a giant wolf-dragon that eats bad people.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Do you value the feeling of wildness? Is that an experience you seek and cultivate? If so, what conditions rouse it? How does it feel? When it visits you, does it have a healthy impact? Are you motivated by your plea surable brushes with wildness to reconfigure the unsatisfying and unwild parts of your life? These are questions I hope you will contemplate in the coming weeks. The astrological omens suggest you have more power than usual to access wild ness. Halloween costume suggestion: whatever makes you feel wild.

Homework: Here’s another Halloween costume suggestion: Be the opposite of yourself. Newsletter.FreeWillAstrology.com

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