By Tony DeFalco, Cully Neighborhood Resident, NE Portland
I’m voting for Chloe Eudaly because she was the only city commissioner in 2018 to endorse the Portland Clean Energy Fund. She joined a frontline community led effort to hold the world’s largest corporations accountable for their carbon emissions and reinvest those dollars into our communities to combat climate change and poverty. She worked hard to pass, implement and defend the measure. Now, the Fund is putting out millions of dollars to frontline communities at the time we need it most.
In the communities I call home, the Cully neighborhood and the Latinx community, Chloe has gone to bat for us again and again. We asked her to create better protections for the many renters in these communities and she did, passing a renter relocation ordinance to help our community members who faced tripled rents and had to move out of the neighborhood. She stood up for universal representation of the many immigrants who face the prospect of having few resources to assist them in navigating complex administrative systems. And she stood shoulder to shoulder with communities of color as we advocated for more representation in the city’s antiquated neighborhood system of governance.
For communities of color, we face existential crises on multiple fronts. We are infected with and dying from COVID-19 at disproportionate rates. We are hit the hardest by the worst recession in our country’s history. Our businesses are closing the fastest and least likely to reopen without strong supports. White supremacists are galvanized by a federal administration that eggs them on.
Chloe is right there with us. She has listened and prioritized the needs of our communities in COVID-19 relief and recovery efforts. She has supported strong action to disproportionately invest in our communities now to survive this pandemic. And she stands tall against white supremacy and the Trump Administration.
We have so much work to do and we need a proven leader like Chloe who has stood with us and will continue to stand with us as we fight for our communities. I know that Chloe is not merely committed to doing the hard work of fundamentally repairing deeply flawed systems that were formed on pillars of colonialism, racism, and misogyny. She is in the vanguard with us because the evidence is so clear, these systems are no longer viable. Please join me in voting for Chloe Eudaly.