Julia Brim-Edwards led by a wide margin in early results Tuesday night in the race for a seat on the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners.
Partial results as of 8 p.m. showed Brim-Edwards, a member of the Portland school board and a former Nike executive, leading Ana del Rocío, a community organizer and former county commission policy staffer, 60% to 31%. A third candidate, Albert Kaufman, a board member for his neighborhood association in Southeast Portland, received 8% of the vote.
Assuming Brim-Edwards holds the lead and maintains more than 50% of the vote, she will be sworn in immediately at a time when the county is grappling with a whirlwind of challenges, including rampant homelessness, a massive unmet need for mental health and addiction treatment and understaffing in the district attorney’s office.
She will fill the District 3 seat vacated by Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson, who won the top county seat in November. The seat, one of five on the board, covers most of Southeast Portland east of about 33rd Avenue.
Brim-Edwards and del Rocío outlined different approaches to addressing homelessness during their campaigns. Brim-Edwards said she supports the creation of the mass shelter sites proposed by Mayor Ted Wheeler, while del Rocío instead supports devoting more money to rent assistance.
Brim-Edwards, 61, was a senior director at Nike, where she used her position to help push through Oregon’s largest tax increase to support public schools, a deal known as the Student Success Act. Now she runs her own company and is serving her third elected term on the Portland school board. While on the school board, she co-wrote Portland Public Schools’ climate crisis policy with its goal of generating zero carbon by 2040.
She said on the campaign trail that she is committed to making neighborhoods feel safer and taking steps to end street camping while also providing more mental health and drug treatment services during sweeps of homeless camps.
To address homelessness, Brim-Edwards said she also believes the county needs to capitalize on available apartments, leasing them in bulk and quickly renting them out to individuals with unstable housing. She also proposed working with homeowners who have extra space to rent, investing in workforce housing co-ops and creating intergenerational living spaces that allow seniors to age in place.
Brim-Edwards, like many local politicians, has called for better collaboration between the county and city governments on addressing homelessness and said the Joint Office of Homeless Services should adopt a new operating agreement that contains a plan to end street camping.
As of Tuesday, Brim-Edwards reported raising nearly $142,000, $43,000 of which she lent or gave to her campaign. Her donors included business leaders who are members of the Portland Business Alliance, several current and former school board members, four Nike executives and former Gov. Kate Brown.
Nicole Hayden can be reached at nhayden@oregonian.com.
