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Here’s who wants to be Portland’s next mayor.

by Courtney Vaughn

Under Portland’s revised city charter, the mayor will serve in a largely administrative role, overseeing day-to-day operations alongside a city administrator. The mayor will be voted on by all city voters, while the council will be elected by district.

The charter change is a shift from the current form of government, which sees the mayor and four commissioners acting in legislative and administrative roles, overseeing the city’s bureaus while also enacting policy.

Come 2025, elected city commissioners will no longer oversee city bureaus, and the mayor won’t vote with the City Council, unless needed to break a tie. Portland’s new mayor may still propose legislation for the council to vote on and will be instrumental in bringing forward annual budgets for council’s approval.

Mingus Mapps

Mingus Mapps Taylor griggs

 

Mingus Mapps is a current city commissioner. He oversees Portland’s Bureau of Transportation (PBOT), the Portland Water Bureau and the Bureau of Environmental Services. Mapps studied political science at Reed College, and has a Ph.D. from Cornell University.

In a recent interview with the Mercury, Mapps underscored the need to shore up funding for PBOT and demand more accountability and transparency from Multnomah County—which the city partners with on the Joint Office of Homeless Services.

He’s maintained a largely centrist platform, noting the need to provide shelter to every unhoused Portlander, while also voting to support the city’s prohibition on homeless tents and sleeping bags in public spaces during daytime hours. 

Durell Kinsey Bey

Durell Kinsey Bey, 29, lives in Portland’s Centennial Neighborhood with his wife and children. Kinsey Bey works with the David Douglas School District as a youth essentials coordinator for REAP- a multicultural youth leadership and development program.

He says he became interested in a political run in 2015, when he discovered the American Descendants of Slavery (ADOS) Advocacy Foundation and started watching YouTube videos and learning about the importance of politics.

Kinsey Bey has no prior political experience. He briefly considered a campaign for a Congressional seat in Washington against incumbent Congressman Dan Newhouse, but says he ended his campaign before he filed for election, when he met his future wife in Portland. Since moving to the Rose City, Kinsey Bey said he’s learned about the “good, bad and indifferent waves of its history.” He said Portland’s moral compass has been lost and insists radical change is needed to “take back the dignity of this city!”

“It isn’t about the seat itself, it is about what can be done within the seat,” Kinsey Bey said of his decision to run for mayor, rather than a city commissioner seat. The candidate emphasized the power of the mayor, but under Portland’s new form of government, the mayor will only vote on City Council decisions when needed to break a tie. Instead, the next mayor’s role will largely be administrative, working in tandem with a new city manager.