Who Shall Be Anointed King? Or More Likely – Queen

The first order of business for Portland's new city government will be to decide who leads it.

As the twelve new (except for Dan Ryan) city commissioners are sworn in today to their elected posts, one question seems to dwell in the background of the celebration:

Who shall lead this rag-tag group almost entirely composed of progressives and socialists?

The first order of business will be a vote of the commissioners to elect the council president, a position highly touted as having de facto mayoral-level power, and perhaps, could eventually run roughshod over the mayor’s office and potentially take over what little power the new government allowed the mayor to have.

According to the Oregonian’s Shane Kavanaugh, a recent straw poll was conducted of the new commissioners, and there appears to be a dead heat among three potential candidates: Candace Avalos, Elana Pirtle-Guiney, and Oliva Clark.

Clark seems to have the most obvious pedigree to run the council, and would probably do a decent job at it, if this is even feasible. Clark was the legislative director for former Gov. Kitzhaber, and she served as the Executive Director for Public Affairs for TriMet for over 20 years. She also served as the Chairwoman of the Board for Providence Health Care – Oregon. Clark has extensive experience in high level negotiations in large government and business entities to her credit. Unfortunately, as far as Portland politics goes, this probably won’t amount to a hill of beans.

Why? You might be so inclined to ask.

Clark has two things working against her: She represents District 4, which is by far the wealthiest district in the city (think Council Crest, Vista Ridge, and downtown). Also, she doesn’t have the correct immutable characteristics. In other words, she’s a white woman.

Nothing is particularly superlative about Pirtle-Guiney. She has a rather boiler-plate, if not impressive, progressive public service background. She’s a Lewis & Clark graduate who worked for Governor Brown and worked at the AFL-CIO and BOLI prior to doing what all these bureaucrats all end up doing: running her own political consulting firm, which she did for a couple of years prior to her running for city council. Also of note, she seems to be the one of the three who is not particularly interested in the position, and only considered the position due to no candidate having a mandate of support among the commissioners.

I think there is little doubt that Avalos will be elected as the council president. Ever since she took a prominent position at the Charter Review Commission (after previously doing the same thing for Police Citizen Review Committee), Avalos has seemingly been able to tailor the new Portland government in such a way that she would be placed at the head of it, and it appears that she has been largely successful at doing so.

I don’t know what kind of stuff Olivia Clark is made of. I’m sure she’s pretty tough, but she is undoubtedly also pretty sharp in being able to read a room. One only has to see the example of Vadim Mozyrsky, who is the only person in Portland politics who has dared challenge Avalos’ political power.

In early 2022, while both Mozyrsky and Avalos were on the Police Citizen Review Committee, Mozyrsky filed a complaint with the City Attorney’s office because both Avalos and a woman named Shaina Pomerantz accused Mozyrsky of racism. Pomerantz, who is Executive Director of the horribly named organization, Race Talks, and who on her LinkedIn page claims she’s a “racial justice warrior” apparently had issues with the way that Mozyrsky addressed them in a series of emails regarding the body cams.

Mozyrsky, a first-generation Ukrainian Jew, wasn’t having it; however, it seems that he ultimately received the short end of the stick. As part of the complaint, Mozyrsky stated that the claims of racism against him were an attempt to damage his political career. It doesn’t matter to people like Avalos or Pomerantz that Mozyrsky is an immigrant and a minority himself, but to them, he simply isn’t the right kind. Plus, those Hamas-loving lefties don’t particularly like the Jews anyway.

Since this occurred, Mozyrsky has run for two offices. In 2022, he ran against Jo Ann Hardesty and Rene Gonzalez for Portland city council, finishing a close third. This last election, he ran for the Multnomah County commission, which he lost by nearly 20 points to Meghan Moyer. His political career could very well be over.

Every person on the new city council is a Democrat, and most of them are progressives or socialists, but this won’t stop in-fighting and tribalism. There will be the Democratic Socialists to contend with. There will be the class struggles between District 1 and 3 on one side and 2 and 4 on the proverbial other side of the tracks. There will be “race talks.”

Clark would be skating on thin ice if she attempts take the position of the presidency over Avalos. It would probably be politically wise to step back and let the True Queen step forward.

And really, I gotta genuinely hand it to Avalos. Machiavelli had nothing on her. She crafted the government in her own image and got rid of opponents who tried to step in her way. Perhaps we should coin a new phrase for this phase of Portland politics:

Avalosian, pictured below:

Olivia Clark, pictured above.