Our top three picks for the District 4 City Council race—ranked for your convenience. by The Mercury Election Strike Force [Hello! You know, putting these endorsements together takes LOTS of hard work—and that's on top of our regular excellent reporting. Show your appreciation for the Mercury with a small contribution, please, and thank you!—eds] District 4 covers Southwest Portland, downtown, and pockets of Southeast Portland like Sellwood. It’s economically diverse, stretching from the densely forested west hills, to the skyscrapers downtown, and the antique shops that dot Sellwood. Homelessness, downtown revitalization, and public safety top the issues impacting District 4. Councilors elected in District 4 will serve two-year terms. 1) MITCH GREEN Scholar. Economist. Army veteran. It’s not often you get someone running for local office who checks all those boxes, but Green does just that. He has a PhD in economics and currently works as an economist for Bonneville Power Administration. He’s also been known to teach college level economics courses. But at the core of his policy priorities you’ll find more than budgets.  Green’s plan for Portland is built on affordable housing, eviction prevention, environmental stewardship, and livable wages. He’s principled and envisions a city that “leaves no one behind.” Like every other candidate the Mercury is endorsing, Green wants to expand Portland Street Response, a program that has struggled under current city leadership. He’s a self proclaimed “progressive with unabashed pro-labor, pro-climate, pro-renter and pro-young people politics.” Amen to all of that.  Progressive values aside, what’s refreshing about Green is his unwavering love for the Rose City and his optimistic vision for its future. Those who love this city don’t take kindly to others trash-talking it. Green is no exception. Where others see only urban blight and visible homelessness, he sees a city bound by natural beauty and plenty of potential that owes its residents—housed or not—dignity and compassion. “People don’t form opinions of civic life in a vacuum, but do so in a milieu of cultural construction,” Green told the Mercury recently. Green has the guts to challenge the harmful narratives rooted in half-truths and won’t bend to the will of those who’ve historically been given outsized voice and credibility in city politics. Make no mistake, the best way to combat the cynicism and misperceptions is with good governance. We agree with Green when he says “the best version of Portland is still waiting to be built, and we will build it together.” Chad Lykins courtesy lykins campaign 2) CHAD LYKINS Lykins was among the first to enter the District 4 race last year and he’s been running with full steam ever since.  His background and accomplishments are wide-ranging. He has a graduate degree in philosophy and a PhD in leadership and policy studies. Lykins previously taught at the University of Hong Kong as an assistant professor for five years.  Arguably his most impactful endeavor is the after-school program he founded and leads, Rose City Chess. The program reaches hundreds of kids, including those without the ability to pay. It’s the kind of activity he says he never had access to growing up. Lykins is candid about his upbringing. The child of young parents, including a mother who struggled with substance abuse and mental health disorders, Lykins recalls getting by on free school lunches and often being fed by his friends’ parents. His lived experience and research background have shaped his push for evidence-based solutions to everything from addiction and public drug use, to crime prevention, housing stability, and public safety. Lykins isn’t perfect (again, politicians are people), but he’s proven himself to be transparent and accountable. He says he immediately returned donations he received from other candidates when several candidates were making small donations to each other’s campaigns to help them reach the threshold for funding from the Small Donor Elections program. He gave the candidates’ money back after learning the donations might be against election codes and Small Donor program rules, because the program pays out based on the number of donations received. Lykins and the other candidates who took part in the “donation swapping” contend it was meant as a harmless gesture and a mutual show of support. The donation swapping may have been a goof, but on all other fronts, Lykins’ judgment appears sharp. He’s one of the few candidates acknowledging that downtown Portland needs more than just office buildings if it’s going to rebound from the pandemic. “Downtown is the victim of shortsighted property developers who sought to maximize short-term profits by planting a virtual monocrop of office buildings,” Lykins told the Mercury. “We bring downtown back to life by introducing diverse land uses.” We’re with Lykins on this one. In fact, we’ve been banging this drum around the office for so long, we now have an echo chamber of wannabe city planners.   Bottom line: we trust Lykins to make smart, informed decisions and to show up for the residents in District 4. Sarah Silkie courtesy silkie campaign 3) SARAH SILKIE Like the other District 4 candidates ranked here, Sarah Silkie has an impressive academic background (by coincidence, not because we only like people with doctorate degrees). Silkie has a PhD in environmental engineering and currently works for the city of Portland’s permitting and development department. She’s also a union steward for PROTEC17. Silkie grew up in Portland and says the city shaped her and her values. When she first launched her campaign, she told the Mercury she’s eager to use her technical background and collaborative approach to help find solutions and shape sensible policy for Portland. She’s committed to addressing the city’s environmental issues like the long-overlooked Ross Island, and helping bolster our climate resiliency. She’s also aware of how the city’s codes and permitting process needs to be retooled to facilitate more affordable housing development. Having worked for the city for over a decade, she knows how things work, and where they don’t. “I’ve seen first-hand how it’s really impossible to deliver good services when you have dysfunctional management,” Silkie told the Mercury. The same goes for the city’s lack of fiscal stewardship when it comes to its nonprofit partnerships. “The problem is, with so many different entities involved there is no accountability and there is excess overhead because every subcontractor takes a management cut,” Silkie pointed out.  With her institutional knowledge and proclivity for identifying issues and finding practical solutions, we trust Silkie can help weed out the bugs in the system and set us on the right track. Another Impressive Candidate of Note: Lisa Freeman - Lisa Freeman, who has a robust background in government transition at home and abroad, is beyond qualified for a seat on City Council. Her sensible, forward-thinking approach to Portland’s biggest issues is noteworthy. When she’s not campaigning, you can often find her volunteering with her local homeless outreach group, Southwest Outreach. The primary reason we didn’t rank Freeman in our top three is because there are lingering questions about her time working for the city’s Community Safety Division. We recently learned that she was named in a labor complaint filed with the state by a former assistant who alleges Freeman treated her unfairly because of her race. The complaint has yet to be investigated or substantiated, and Freeman fervently denies that allegation, noting she raised her own concerns about racism in the workplace that affected her colleagues. The Mercury Election Strike Force is news editor Courtney Vaughn, reporter Taylor Griggs, arts & culture editor Suzette Smith, and editor-in-chief Wm. Steven Humphrey.