How many years have you lived in Maine?: 10

What experiences,  motivations, and leadership styles will make you an effective City Councilor?:
EXPERIENCE: In my professional life, I rely on financial analysis, management and city planning skills, all of which are much needed on the Council. Additionally, I have served on several non-profit and public boards. From this service, I have learned how to promote institutional change in organizations from an oversight, rather than direct management, role.

MOTIVATION(S):  I am running to promote strategic long-term thinking by the City. I want to move our City's decision-making away from the current ad hoc, reactive approach that is undermining the Portland that I love.

LEADERSHIP STYLE: I recognize that if I am elected I will only be one councilor out of nine. For the Council to make progress on addressing the city's challenges, I will have to forge issue-by-issue alliances with councilors of diverse and competing points of view. In my professional life, I have able to reconcile the competing and often adversarial interests of investors, non-profit affordable housing organizations and state housing agencies. I do this by seeking and offering clear articulation of motives and interests, acknowledging where differences and competing views lie, and using data, reason and examples from other settings to craft solutions. Perhaps most importantly, I admit when I don't know something (which is often).

If elected, what would your top three priorities be?  How do they affect Portlander's aged 18-35?:
My top three priorities are:

1) Making funding school programs and buildings our highest fiscal priority while seeking efficiency in administrative costs;

2) Increasing the supply of housing affordable to middle- and working-class people. We have the infrastructure to serve a city of 77,000 - our 1950 population - with only 64,000 people living here now;

3) Implementing transportation planning that will give the same weight to pedestrian, bicycle and public transportation as is given to automobiles.

I believe that most Portlanders between 18 and 35 are struggling to earn enough money to meet the cost of living in Portland. My priorities are intended to address both the income and expense side of the economic struggle.  An excellent educational system gives young Portlanders the resources needed to pursue higher education and build a career. Likewise, reducing housing and transportation costs contributes to a lower cost of living for all Portlanders including those between 18 and 35.

Please share one positive change you have seen on City Council AND in Portland over the last year?:
The repeal of the Formula Business Ordinance. Councilors Marshall and Donoghue led a repeal effort that eliminated a poorly conceived and executed ordinance while still maintaining the City's commitment to support local business. By repealing the Formula Business Ordinance, the Council was able to significantly reduce the level of acrimony in the civic discussion on the issue. Particularly gratifying to me was to discover that many people on either side of the debate about the ordinance were actually in agreement about the importance of locally-owned businesses to our economic health. I hope that the repeal of the FBO as well as the forthcoming product of the task force have established a precedent for how the Council will address important policy matters in the future.

Please share one frustrating change you have seen on City Council AND in Portland over the last year?:
The school budget and financial management debacle. The relationship between the "city side" and the "school side" is awkward and not conducive to collaborative problem-solving. It does however provide staff and elected officials ample opportunity to point fingers without offering strategies or solutions.

My fear is that the managerial and personal shortcomings of some of the participants in these discussions will be used to diminish the city's commitment to high-quality public education. We must get past the structural fiction of "schools" vs. "city." It is all one budget serving one citizenry. The City Council must take responsibility for determining the priority of education within the city budget and collaborate with the School Committee to develop a city budget (including schools) in which the public can be confident.

What competing responsibilities do you have: professionally and personally?:
I have a full-time job as the President of the Northern New England Housing Investment Fund. I also have two young children (ages 4 and 2). Frankly, I had difficulty managing my professional, personal and volunteer responsibilities when I was on the planning board (particularly after the birth of my second child). With that in mind, I have arranged for a reduction in my work hours if I am elected to the City Council.

Are you a homeowner or a renter?: Homeowner

Do you support reducing the parking requirements for new construction (Y/N)?: Yes

Do you support increasing housing density to build more units (Y/N)?: Yes

What are you thoughts and ideas about housing in Portland?:
Both rental and owner-occupied housing continue to be extremely expensive in Portland when compared to incomes.

I support the city's Housing Plan which identifies increasing housing supply as the primary strategy for improving housing affordability in the city. While the city has worked hard to promote housing development over the past few years, we still need to do more, specifically:

- Re-write and expand our residential zoning to allow increased density with lower parking requirements, especially on the peninsula;
- Assign a cost to the adverse impact of condo conversions on the supply of apartments. We should increase condo conversion fees and direct that revenue to a housing production fund.
- Collaborate with Efficiency Maine and Maine State Housing Authority to provide grants and low-cost loans to landlords who make energy-efficiency improvements in rentals where tenants pay for their own utilities.

What is your primary mode of transportation?  How can we improve transportation in Portland?:
My primary means of transportation is my family's 2000 Subaru Brighton Legacy wagon. My wife and I both work at full-time jobs and our older daughter goes to a preschool that is not walking distance from our house. We want to remain a one-car family, but it is a significant challenge.

There are many ways we can improve transportation in Portland.

- Reform Metro. Metro routes and scheduling need to become consumer-driven, i.e., designed by bus riders and prospective bus riders rather than administrators.
- Implement the city's 1993 transportation plan. Among other things, this plan directs the city to have transportation planners on staff and to incorporate non-automotive transportation elements into review of all new development proposals.
- improve pedestrian safety - one major asset of Portland in comparison to most surrounding communities is the ability to walk from one's home to work, schools, shops and services. The attractiveness and feasibility of walking is often diminished by unsafe road crossings and poorly maintained or non-existent sidewalks. We must maintain pedestrian infrastructure with the same diligence as automobile infrastructure.

What economic development ideas would you bring to City Council?:
The City needs a long-term economic development strategy. At present, it appears that the City confuses commercial real estate development with economic development. As a City Councilor, I will promote a community-based economic development strategy that will include:

- Directing our scarce economic development dollars into support of those aspects of our community that distinguish Portland from its neighbors. As an example, I think our tax money is better spent in providing an infrastructure for the creative economy rather than subsidizing the move of Intermed's offices from South Portland to Portland.
- Ensuring that the City's buying practices favor locally-owned businesses;
- Reviewing the city's fee structure to shift fees away from small locally owned businesses;
- Reviewing the city's regulatory processes to ensure that applications for land use approvals, business licenses, etc. are treated fairly, consistently and in a timely manner regardless of their size or the political clout of the applicant.

How do you think the current Council has processed the Maine State Pier development?:
Over the last few years, the City has repeatedly failed the people of the Portland with regard to the Maine State Pier.

- The marketing of the pier as a marine industry site following Cianbro's departure was inadequate and insufficient to declare the site obsolescent for marine industry.
- The rushed rezoning of the pier allowing substantial nonmarine uses was unfair to neighboring private pier owners who are not allowed such uses while also being disrespectful to the long-stated importance Portlanders have assigned to a "working waterfront."
- Both the language of and the short response time for the RFP discouraged submittals when what we needed most were bold, creative visions for this enormously valuable public asset.
- The evaluation of the RFP responses has been at best inept. The CDC's failure to ever clarify how proposals would be evaluated only exacerbated the perception of an unfair process. Development is always contentious and selecting a developer in a competitive process for a large project is that much more contentious. That is all the more reason for the City to have employed the utmost caution and clarity in issuing the RFP and evaluating the responses.

The City's actions regarding the Maine State Pier have undermined the willingness of many in our business and professional community to work with the City. More importantly, these actions have undermined the public's confidence that the City is representing the public's interest in the disposition of a critical piece of public infrastructure.

Do you think it is important to increase regional collaboration?  Why or why not?  If so, what would you do to collaborate more?:
Yes. Many of the issues we face in Portland - for example, transportation, housing and public infrastructure - are ultimately issues with regional implications and regional solutions. Because it is a "service center" community, Portland is asked to bear the cost of services and infrastructure that serve the entire region.

Specific areas in which I would seek collaboration are:

- Port of Portland investment, maintenance and operations. Neighboring communities as well as the state which benefit from our deepwater port should share in its upkeep (and upside);
- identifying redundancies between and among the administrative structures of the city, the county, the state and neighboring communities. We need to consolidate administrative functions across units of government whenever feasible.

What do you think of Portland's overall tax structure, and specifically, about current tax rates?:
Like all municipalities in Maine, Portland relies on taxes on property as its primary revenue source. Property taxes are inherently regressive in that they are not based on a property owner's ability to pay. The state has tried to address that issue through the property tax rebate program, which provides a refund to homeowners whose property tax exceeds 4% of their income. The refund is cumbersome to apply for and is underutilized. The city should take a more active role in informing homeowners about the program and assisting them in accessing it.

That said, our property taxes are high relative to working class incomes and as such contribute to our housing affordability crisis. Conversely, they are low when viewed in light of the range of services the City offers. My belief is that most Portlanders will accept our relatively high property taxes as long as they feel that they are a) getting high quality services and b) the city is well-run. I believe that the public's confidence that the city is well-run is eroding.

What do you think Portland should do to encourage the arts and the creative economy?:
As discussed above, I believe the city should focus its economic development resources on promoting those aspects of the City that distinguish us from our neighbors. Certainly the arts and the creative economy fall into that category.

Additionally, the City needs to recognize the particular issues facing artists. Cost of living, in particular the cost of housing and/or studio/rehearsal/performance space, presents a major challenge to artists being able to stay in Portland. Over and above promoting housing affordability, the City also needs to reform its land use ordinance to recognize and "legalize" live/work artist space.

What role do you think neighborhoods, and neighborhood associations, should have in our city?:
Our city's comprehensive plan calls for neighborhood-based planning; yet we have never implemented it. There are many cities we can look to for successful models, but we must first have the political will to do it. I will work to ensure that the city directs its staffing resources to implementing neighborhood-based planning.

What specific steps do you think Portland can make to become a more sustainable city and to safeguard a healthy environment?:
Municipal governments around the country and around the world have already taken the lead on sustainability. The City of Portland can begin by targeting its own operations. Specific initiatives that the City of Cambridge, MA (as an example) has already implemented and that the city of Portland should pursue are:

-   Establishing an Energy Management Task Force to systematically assess City owned facilities and identify energy efficiency upgrade projects;
-  Incorporating alternative fuels and vehicles into the municipal fleet. Fuel city-owned diesel vehicles with B20 biodiesel. Move to GEM neighborhood scale electric vehicles whenever possible.
- Developing a Transportation Demand Management (TDM) plan to encourage employees to travel by means other than driving alone. The TDM plan should offer a variety of employee programs (including parking cashout) to encourage the use of transportation options.