<a href="https://www.streetroots.org/news/2020/08/21/candidates-color-are-shaking-small-town-politics-across-oregon" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Candidates of color are shaking up small-town politics across Oregon</a> <font color="#6f6f6f">Street Roots News</font>
Several communities will have a chance in November to diversify their city councils for the first time
Residents in several Oregon cities — from Ashland to Springfield to Bend — have an opportunity this November to elect the first person of color to ever serve on their city council. It’s part of a national trend in which more people of color are running for office and making history in national, state and local elections.
Across Oregon, local political bodies have historically been unrepresentative of their populations. In places like Sheridan, for example, 20% of the population is Latino or Black, but the City Council is entirely white.
Cities do not collect demographic information from their councilors, though a recent Equity & Inclusion Survey Report from the League of Oregon Cities found that out of 102 elected officials who responded, 89 identified as white. Only about 10% of elected city officials in Oregon responded to the survey, however, and many mid-size Oregon communities have never had a non-white city councilor. Additionally, only two respondents identified as Latino while Latinos make up more than 13% of Oregon’s population.
Although city leadership is still overwhelmingly white, people of color in Oregon have walked uncharted territory in recent years. Greg Evans, Eugene’s second city councilor of color, is optimistic about city councils becoming increasingly representative of their populations.
“(Elected officials of color) are starting to gain traction,” Evans said. “We’re starting to be able to be a part of the culture and the fabric of the cities.”
In the 2019, Jo Ann Hardesty became the first Black woman elected to Portland’s City Council. Shortly after, Gladys Rivera and Jules Martinez Plancarte were appointed as the first Latinas of color on their councils in Hood River and Newberg, respectively.
Evans said that city councils are diversifying in surprising places. In Hermiston, Eastern Oregon’s largest city, two of nine elected officials identify as Latino — although the council is not fully representative of the city’s population, which is 44% Latino.
And Central Oregon has a Filipino-American mother-daughter city council duo — one serving in Madras, the other in Metolius.
Last year, the League of Oregon Cities launched its first equity and inclusion committee under Evans’ leadership. While the committee won’t explicitly solicit people to run for local elections, they plan to highlight communities that have been traditionally excluded and underrepresented in local politics.
The recently formed Oregon People of Color Caucus will also act as a support system for elected officials of color, allowing them to form statewide legislation that addresses issues affecting people of color across Oregon.
“We’re trying to listen to our communities, understand where they’re coming from, understand what the changing demographics are, and have a way of accepting and embracing new communities in new cultures that are coming into our cities,” Evans said.
With the upcoming elections this fall, people of color are campaigning for city council seats across the state. Street Roots spoke to several of these candidates about their campaigns to diversify their local councils.
Bend: Rita Schenkelberg
In Central Oregon, Rita Schenkelberg, a 29-year-old mental health counselor, hopes to pave a path for more diversity on the Bend City Council as a queer person of color. Bend’s city leadership — the council, committees and advisory boards — is overwhelmingly white.
Rita Schenkelberg, 29, is running for Bend City Council.
Photo courtesy of Rita Schenkelberg
Schenkelberg, a first-generation American whose mother migrated from the Philippines, said if that elected, she would be the first person of color to sit on the Bend City Council.
She decided to run after seeing the Bend City Council’s response to the police killing of George Floyd and the protests that ensued. While the statement highlighted the city’s work to prioritize diversity, equity and inclusion, and its plans for community involvement in the upcoming selection of its new police chief, she found it underwhelming.
“(I was) just having a lot of really intense emotions, and then looking at the Bend City Council to see what they would say in their statement … and I just felt as though it was kind of lackluster,” Schenkelberg told Street Roots. “They highlighted some action steps that they were going to take, and the action steps seem to really fall short in the way that people of color and especially Black people experience violence in the day to day.”
Schenkelberg realized that many inequities are rooted in people’s access to necessities, like housing, electricity and clean water. She decided to run when she saw that the City Council is in charge of providing these necessities in Bend.
As a mental health counselor for youths on probation or parole, Schenkelberg has experience making hard decisions in high-pressure situations. She sees the inequities that result from a lack of resources.
“What I know is that (youth in the criminal justice system’s) voices aren’t heard, and what I know is that Black, Indigenous people and persons of color are disproportionately in the system, and usually because of lack of resources,” she said. “When I am elected to Bend City Council, that will be a conversation we will be having. Where are the resources? How can we get resources to the entire community?”
Schenkelberg’s priorities are community, transportation and housing, and she has lived experience with the challenges that come with each of these in Bend. She said she experiences the dangerous conditions of the roads every day and has struggled to find affordable housing throughout the years.
“I’m an established professional here in Bend,” Schenkelberg said. “I have a master’s degree, and then I’m still unable to find a place that I would be able to pay for.”
Along with affordable-housing barriers, Schenkelberg hopes to address the barriers to being on City Council: Councilors are awarded a small stipend for what is often a large time commitment, making the council inaccessible for many working individuals.
With the campaign slogan “representation matters,” Schenkelberg hopes to help build a bridge for other people of color, LGBTQ+ and working individuals to run for local government. Even though Bend is about 85.6% white, she hopes to counter the narrative that Bend is a “white utopia.”
“There are LGBTQ+ people here, and there are Black, Indigenous persons and people of color here,” Shenkelberg said. “They deserve to have a voice at the table. It is so incredibly important, because they experience so many things that the white people are not experiencing. And then, how would anyone be able to protect them if they don’t know what’s happening in their lives?”
“(People of color) trust that I can have conversations and make decisions and make sure that their voices are heard,” she said.
Ashland: Gina DuQuenne
In the Southern Oregon town of Ashland, Gina DuQuenne is running so people like her can see themselves better reflected in the government. If elected, DuQuenne — who identifies as Black and queer — would be the first person of color and queer person to ever serve on the council, she said.
Gina DuQuenne is running for Ashland City Council.
Photo courtesy of Gina DuQuenne
Although she said Ashland, which is 86.2% white, is a relatively welcoming environment for people of color, she can’t say the same for its city council.
“With the local government, it’s like ‘them’ and ‘us,’” DuQuenne told Street Roots. “But I’m going to kick the door open and tell everyone to come on in.”
Last year, DuQuenne graduated from Emerge Oregon, a crash course that teaches women how to run for office, and started planning her run for council. She had not been happy with policies from the local government.
For example, the “stop and identify” ordinance, which passed last summer, allows Ashland police to charge people who do not identify themselves, and DuQuenne said it unjustly targets unhoused people and people of color. If elected, she hopes to introduce policies to redirect money from law enforcement to community social services and provide better oversight of the police.
Although her run for City Council has been a long time coming, her campaign morphed when the pandemic hit and protests against police brutality erupted around the country.
“We live in a pandemic world, with a physical pandemic and a racial pandemic,” DuQuenne said. “For me, my drive and my motivation comes from the people of Ashland, because we are resilient people, and it’s time for us to reimagine Ashland.”
With the pandemic, campaigning looks much different than DuQuenne expected. Though, as an active community member, the founder and president of Southern Oregon Pride and a senior sales manager for Neuman Hotel Group, DuQuenne has been able to pull on her community for support.
“Being immersed in the tapestry that is Ashland, so many people know my value; they know who I am; they know where I’m coming from; they know where my heart is,” DuQuenne said. “They know from a professional standpoint, Gina (DuQuenne) works in tourism and travel and so they know that from a hard standpoint, I am for the people of Ashland.”
DuQuenne worries that Ashland has reached a “stifled point” and believes it needs different people in leadership to reimagine a sustainable model for growth. She thinks the city has depended too much on the Oregon Shakespeare Festival to bring in tourism. The festival has suffered in recent years due to summer wildfire smoke and now the pandemic. She hopes to introduce a more robust tourism strategy in the spring.
DuQuenne also plans to bring more direction and transparency to City Hall, and she sees her campaign as part of a broader political movement.
“When I think about the struggles of the women before me, I get my strength,” she said. “When I look at my children, I get my strength.”
“I have two amazing children and three beautiful grandchildren, and I want to show them that ‘yes we can,’” DuQuenne said. “I don’t know where the City Council will take me, and I don’t know if I’ll do this for four years or eight years or move to another political position. However, one thing that I do know is that this is bigger than me, and I am opening the door.”
Springfield: Johanis Tadeo
In Springfield, the smaller town adjacent to Eugene, nearly 12% of the population is Latino, but no one from that community has ever served on the City Council. Johanis Tadeo, 28, said that if he’s elected, he will be the first Latinx and youngest member ever elected to Springfield’s City Council.
Johanis Tadeo, 28, is running for Springfield City Council.
Photo courtesy of Johanis Tadeo
Tadeo had been waiting for somebody who looks like him to run for office, but when six Springfield police officers beat a 17-year-old Latino boy in August of last year, Tadeo decided to throw his hat into the race. Tadeo has experience inspiring local change as the director of the Springfield Alliance for Equity and Respect (SAfER), and he wanted to see what changes he could make as a councilor.
“I was tired of these injustices that continue to happen in our city,” Tadeo said. “I wanted the community to feel like they have a voice.”
Tadeo said that during his campaign, certain communities have “come out of the shadows.” Communities of color and Latino businesses have come together to support his campaign, and in the May City Council primaries, Tadeo’s campaign inspired many Latinos to register to vote for the first time.
As a longtime Springfield resident, Tadeo’s campaign priorities have been heavily influenced by his lived experience.
“The reason why I invest so much in Springfield in my projects and as a community organizer, is because a lot of these services I didn’t have when I was younger,” Tadeo said. “And I know I wasn’t the only one.”
While attending community college, Tadeo was houseless for a year, giving him perspective on how to develop affordable housing and shelters for unhoused people. Tadeo has also watched his community, and his family, live in fear of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Through his work as a community organizer, Tadeo reassures families that they are safe to go out, and he buys supplies for those who do not feel safe.
As a city councilor, Tadeo plans to continue to address his community’s fear of ICE, as well as of the police, advocating for a civilian board to review complaints lodged against police and more transparency with the use of body cams.
“I want to be able to bring accountability to the table because that way we can actually trust that our systems are there,” Tadeo said. “I want families to be able to feel safe calling the police.”
Running for City Council, Tadeo hopes to be the role model for his community that he wishes he had. If elected, he plans to not only act as a voice for underrepresented communities, but to teach them how to advocate for themselves and use their own voices.
“I’m able to talk to my constituents, to my community and really hear what the things are that are currently affecting them in different places in Springfield, and also am able to show them how to navigate it,” Tadeo said. “My whole campaign is about teaching, not just learning it myself, but also teaching residents and especially underrepresented communities like the community I come from.”
Tadeo has already seen more people of color gain interest in running for local office. He is optimistic that, in the next few years, more people of color will run for leadership positions and help shift local politics.
“As a person of color living in Springfield, it feels like a great time right now — it feels like we’re pushing things forward,” Tadeo said. “It feels like finally I’m not being seen as the angry brown man … whether I win or lose, I’m still happy with the way that this campaign has gone, the reaction it’s caused and where our community is right now.”
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