Other Policy

New Campaign Finance Law - Current campaign finance law will eliminated, including the small donors election program, limits on donations, and other requirements. New laws will be enacted that require candidates to create a bank account directly with the city's election office if they are receiving donations, or hiring. This will increase efficiency in the disclosure process, as candidates  won't have to transfer information from a private bank account to the government, instead the government can directly oversee the process. Possible limits on donations and expenditures will be implemented, exact details will be hashed out later.

New City Council Structure - The new charter reforms passed by the city recently are more expensive and more complicated.  The new city council structure I will work to install will consist of four commissioners. The four districts will remain from the new charter, with one commissioner from each district. The mayor will have ultimate veto power, able to veto any bill. To pass a bill, a 3-2 majority will be required. This system will be transitioned into in four years. The twelve current commissioners after this election will remain in office. But in four years the extra eight will be eliminated. Other details will be hashed out.

Fire Sprinklers - I will examine requiring fire sprinklers to be built into homes, and making this part of the building code. Settings of fire sprinklers will be able to be controlled by owner. I will investigate the costs of this. This could potentially save lives, as well as money as less fire fighters would be needed and less insurance claims would be paid out. Currently fires cost the United States around $13 billion a year1 much of this is wildfires rather than city fires. The current budget of Portland Fire and Rescue is $188 million.2

Trimet Reforms -  I have several reforms to help increase the efficiency of trimet, as well as new buslines. The 2024 trimet budget was around $1.9 billion. Not including beginning and ending fund balance the budget was around $1 billion. About $700 million of this goes to operation costs, personel, and supplies, about $230 went to capital investments, while about $70 million went to debt servicing.3 There is currently around 1.2 million trips made a week and 58 million a year.4 This equates to a real cost of $17.5 a trip. Currently Trimet is primarily funded by taxes with only about $50 million coming from ticket sales, and $15 million more from other sales.5  General Reforms are as follows...

1. Decrease Route Frequency - Ensuring supply and demand meet properly will decrease cost of trimet. Decreasing frequency to around 20 minutes can decrease costs and ensure busses are full.

2. Larger buses - During busier hours, larger buses can be used. This is a more efficient way of transporting more customers, versus having more frequent arrivals with smaller buses. The main cost of operating a bus is the driver, and the oil. The costs are about half and half for a normal trimet bus I estimate. If you decrease frequency costs are going to be cut by that amount. If you increase the size of a bus the savings from using less gas may be eliminated, as they have lower gas mileage, but the savings from using less drivers are still there, creating an overall decrease in costs. During less busy hours if routes have very few riders but it is not very reasonable to decrease frequency, small buses could potentially be used as well, which will increase efficiency due to using less gas.

3. Less Bus Stops - Eliminating bus stops can increase the efficiency of a bus route. Every time a bus stops it takes 30-60 seconds to slow down, stop, and then get back up to speed. Extra stops means a longer traveling time for riders, extra oil being used, and more bus drivers to pay as routes are longer. Currently stops are around every 2 blocks, if we decrease this to every 4 blocks we can increase bus route efficiency while still serving customers effectively. 

4. Bus Stops After Intersections - Currently many bus stops are before intersections. This decreases efficiency of a route as buses often have to stop more. If a light is green they have to stop to pick up riders, then when the bus is full the light may be red and they have to wait to start moving again. If bus stops are after intersections, a bus will only have to unnecessarily stop if lights are red when they get to the intersection. Since new bus stops would have to be built it would be best to just test this on a single route first, and measure the costs of construction and increase in efficiency. This will also make it easier for cars to turn right, as they wont be as likely to be stuck behind a bus. 

5. Integrating Traffic Lights With Bus Routes - I believe they have started to do this on Division. But essentially if bus drivers, or a computer can signal a traffic light to change when a bus is approaching a light, buses will never have to stop at a red light. Having bus stops after the intersection will help make this easier.

6. Buses With Greater Acceleration - Buses with greater acceleration could increase efficiency of trips. Tesla has buses and trucks that have great acceleration capabilities, possibly these buses could be tested.

7. Autonomous Buses - Potentially all buses could be driverless and run by robots. This would greatly decrease operations costs as we wouldn't have to pay for drivers.

8. Free Trimet - Currently ticket sales only fund 5% of Trimet's budget of $1 billion. A free Trimet system would not be very expensive, and could cost nothing if we increase efficiency in other areas. Free Trimet may have various benefits including increased ridership, which would increase overall cost efficiency.  Less traffic if people use the bus more. With autonomous buses it would be difficult to police who has paid, making Trimet free might be necessary if we make this investment. Free Trimet may also increase boarding efficiency, as paying for tickets can take time, and boarders have to strictly use the front door.

9.  Security -  Security currently is estimated to cost $50 million,6  most security on trimet is just for show and doesn't really have any effect, I plan on trimming this up. Police will begin to have a presence on the light rail as they do drug raids, and will help keep things orderly.

10. New BusLines - Maps of new bus lines can be found HERE and directions HERE

Rose Festival - Will push start of rose festival carnival to the first weekend after school is out. This way the kids will be able to attend more, and it won't be as likely to rain.

Office for the Employment of Qualified Immigrants – Many immigrants have qualifications in their own countries for various types of employment, but their qualifications do not apply in the United States. This office will help immigrants get proper qualifications, mainly by having them take qualifying exams and having them skip unnecessary training.

Summer Olympics - Will work to create an all comers summer olympics. Will create a small fund of $50,000-100,000 so there will be rewards for winners.

New Amtrak Trains - A new highspeed rail line could be quite expensive due to needing to destroy buildings to create space. However new fasters trains could be invested in that can use the current Amtrak line. On the eastcoast the Ascela train reaches speeds of 150 mph compared to the current Amtrak on the west coast that barely reaches 80. Possibly adding track in certain sections to make it easier for passenger trains to pass freight trains could help as well. I will look into the cost of investing in freight trains and passenger trains that can reach higher speeds, as well as a new train system all together.

Renewable Diesel Production Facilities - Renewable diesel is a new form of diesel that is better for the environment and close to cost efficient relative to other forms of diesel, the main issue is there is a limited supply of it. I will analyze the costs to build renewable diesel production facilities in Portland and ways to bring prices down. Local production facilities may eliminate transportation costs making it competitively priced.

Make Non Dissolving Gum Illegal - Non dissolving gum makes are sidewalks look ugly and can get on your shoes especially when its a hot day. Will look into the different options for gum and possibly make restrictions as far as what can be sold.

Gum Marks On Sidewalk

References

1 USA Facts. Cost of direct fire damage. Retrieved from https://usafacts.org/data/topics/security-safety/fire-and-disaster/fires-and-firefighters/direct-property-damage/

2 Adopted Budget City of Portland, Oregon Fiscal Year 2023-24 Volume One Citywide Summaries and Bureau Budgets. (Page 179) Retrieved from https://www.portland.gov/cbo/2023-2024-budget/documents/fy-2023-24-adopted-budget-volume-1-citywide-summaries-and-bureau/download

3 Fiscal Year 2025 Adopted Budget - TriMet. (Page 7,40) Retrieved from https://trimet.org/budget/pdf/2025-adopted-budget.pdf

4 Riding and Performance Statistics. Retrieved from https://trimet.org/about/performance.html

5 Fiscal Year 2025 Adopted Budget - TriMet. (Page 41) Retrieved from https://trimet.org/budget/pdf/2025-adopted-budget.pdf

6 Fiscal Year 2025 Adopted Budget - TriMet. (Page 132) Retrieved from https://trimet.org/budget/pdf/2025-adopted-budget.pdf