Today, in our weekly campaign series, we’ve got a few new candidates—and the first question from a reader:

City Hall can be an exhausting, brutal and frustrating place to work, let alone thrive. What makes you “tough enough” to be a successful leader in that kind of environment?

Candidates got the question a week ago, and had until this morning to respond. Got an idea for a future question? Put it in the comments, or email me.

Chris “Citizen” Smith was quick on the draw, responding the same day I sent out the question. His toughness has been demonstrated in dual career in the technology sector and as a 30-hour-a-week activist. Amanda Fritz says that in her day job, “acute care psychiatric nursing, people threaten to hurt or kill me fairly often.” Howard Weiner also draws on his experience in civic volunteering, and Jeff Bissonnette cites his years lobbying in Salem opposite all of the utility companies. Charles Lewis checks in from Africa (!) and John Branam got his toughness from “more of those ‘if it doesn’t kill you it’ll make you stronger. experiences than I can count.” New candidate Mike Fahey didn’t respond.

In the race for Randy Leonard’s seat, the incumbent says surviving city hall isn’t “just about being tough,” but about “holding on to what you really value.” New candidate Martha Perez says “a decade of experience working within government” and single parenthood have toughened her up. Emily Ryan cites her youthful resilience. We also learn that Ed Kill has a very appropriate surname, given his veteran status—he fought in the first Gulf War and says he “know[s] what it is to kill and I know what it is to have someone try to kill you.”

Next week, we’ll add candidates for the newly opened seat that City Commissioner Erik Sten is vacating, and the mayor’s race! We’ll also be breaking it up, posting a different race each day.

Chris Smith
Position sought: Commissioner #1
Website: citizensmith.us
Public financing status: 695 signatures & contributions, as of 1/6 ORESTAR data

I’m “battle-hardened”. My mantra for the last 7 years has been “30 hours a week making a living, 30 hours making a difference.” I’ve blended a technology management career (I managed a high performance team of 5 people while being a part-time telecommuter) with a second career as a citizen activist. Feel free to check out my profiles in the Tribune and Oregonian. There’s a reason the Tribune dubbed me “Citizen Smith”.

I typically have two or three “activist” projects going on at a time, and they are intense. Whether it’s helping get Voter Owned Elections adopted, spending two years trying to sort out parking in Northwest Portland (OK, I didn’t succeed on that one, but it’s not because I got worn down!), or a decade of transportation activism (including running the PortlandTransport.com blog), I already keep up a heavy duty pace. I budget my time efficiently (but am patient enough to sit through public meetings) and use technology extremely well to increase my effectiveness. And I get things done!

By electing me, the voters will get 60 hours a week of persistent, effective leadership AND I’ll thrive.

Amanda Fritz
Position sought: Commissioner #1
Website: amandafritzforcitycouncil.com
Public financing status: Has filed request for certification.

For 26 years, I have worked in hospitals, in life-and-death situations. My desire to help fellow humans in need makes me love my job despite its stress. Tough enough? In acute care psychiatric nursing, people threaten to hurt or kill me fairly often. I have had my glasses smashed into my face. Three of my coworkers have been permanently disabled in attacks by patients. These kinds of experiences are common for nurses .... and we go back into work the next shift, address problems as a team, and care for people we know to be dangerous. Every day, nurses work with people who are very upset, and hurting, and we help find solutions to difficult problems. The willingness to make sacrifices and to do what it takes to help the most vulnerable members of our society is the "toughness" and perspective I want to bring to City Hall. Frankly, I am looking forward to not being assaulted as often when I am a City Commissioner.

Many citizens give up when faced with the brick walls of bureaucracy. It is hard to be productive in City Hall, but it is way more difficult to be an outsider coordinating neighbors to persuade insiders to make the right things happen. I have been advocating for citizens in issues vital to the city of Portland for over 15 years, and I am running despite knowing how challenging being inside City Hall will be. I served on the Portland Planning Commission for seven years and made many improvements in policies and practices. I know the frustrations of bureaucracy as both a community activist and a public employee at OHSU, and I am a proven, tested leader who has achieved results working with people inside Portland City Hall and in our community. Tangible results, in Portland and for Portland .... like four new city parks, open space requirements in subdivisions, and protection of environmental resources. I want to see City Hall working so that more citizens can point to improvements in their neighborhood and say, "I helped get that done".

I invite you to visit my web site and come to one of my house parties, to discuss what we can accomplish when we work together to solve our toughest problems. Helping Portlanders achieve our shared goal of a more equitable, caring, fair community is what fires me up, and continued teamwork with citizens will make me stay strong as your next Commissioner.

Howard Weiner
Position sought: Commissioner #1
Website: howardforportland.com
Public financing status: Not participating in program

First and foremost I have a strong set of principles and a sense of self that defines me in all of the ways I interact with others.

I believe in the uniqueness and importance of every human beings life.

I believe it is within each of us to make this world a little brighter through our actions.

I embrace our differences in background and culture and encourage dialogue.

I have spent the last forty years taking positions on tough issues and standing my ground.

From my days of anti war activism being beaten and sprayed with mace to my role as founder and chair of our neighborhood public safety committee I have stood up for what I believe is right.

My leadership roles in the Old Town Chinatown community reducing crime while advocating for resources for our social service providers has strengthened my resolve for solution based thinking that honors each others interest.

Running your own business is the toughest job of all and you have to be independent of mind and have a determination to get through the bad times as well as the good and I have accomplished that for 32 years.

I co chair the Old Town Chinatown Visions committee dealing with complex issues that are emotionally charged as our community faces potential gentrification and what that means for our future. In this role I have reached out to all of our constituencies trying to find common ground where lines have been drawn in the sand.

My past and present leadership roles show that I have the experience and wisdom to sit on our city council and tackle the toughest of issues that will come before us.

Howard Weiner

Jeff Bissonnette
Position sought: Commissioner #1
Website: portlandersforjeff.com
Public financing status: 523 signatures & contributions according to 1/9 ORESTAR data

What makes me "tough enough" to be a successful leader in an exhausting, brutal and frustrating place? I can answer that question in four words: The. Oregon. State. Legislature.

Since 1999 legislative session, I have been the main lobbyist for the Citizens' Utility Board of Oregon, representing the interests of residential utility ratepayers. I have often observed that the utilities - Portland General Electric, Pacific Power, Idaho Power, NW Natural, Avista, Qwest, Verizon and others - all have at least one lobbyist (and most have 2 or 3) working in the building. In contrast, consumers have had just one person - me - in the capitol working as their direct representative to stop bills that would gouge residential customers and trying to pass legislation that will protect ratepayers and create clean energy policy on consumers' behalf. It has required me to stay on my toes, to be tough yet flexible, and always be ready to forge alliances to blunt the inherent influence and power that the utilities have. But at times, there are opportunities to work with utilities to pass good legislation. The adoption of Oregon's renewable energy standard in the last legislative session is an excellent example where intense negotiation resulted in legislation that had me as a consumer representative working in conjunction with the utilities to pass a very good bill.

Working in the legislative process is both exhilarating and exhausting. The last days and weeks of a session are especially grueling with the pace of breakneck speed with literally dozens of things happening at once and key decisions being made under enormous pressure, often without the benefit of much sleep. It is gratifying and exciting when one of your bills passes through the process and becomes law. It is frustrating beyond belief when your efforts are stymied for no apparent reason.

For the first few sessions, the Oregon legislature was controlled by Republicans. However, I am not partisan in my approach to issues. Consumer protection is not a Democratic or Republican issue and I have always able to work with legislators from across the political spectrum to pass pro-consumer, pro-environment legislation. I am viewed by legislators and other lobbyists alike as fair-minded, tenacious and able to disagree without being disagreeable (although I do have my bad days).

In my view, working in the legislature is excellent preparation for the rigors of serving as a Portland city commissioner. I have been required to work with people from very diverse backgrounds, align interests, build coalitions and overcome resistance in order to make things happen. At the same time, I have been able to recognize that an opponent in one instance could be an ally in another so I always try to build bridges rather than burn them. I expect being in City Hall will be no different. But there will be one main difference: I'll be able to avoid that awful I-5 commute!

Charles Lewis
Position sought: Commissioner #1
Website: charleslewis.com
Public financing status: "Over a 1,000 signatures and counting," according to his campaign.

[Charles responded with a video—from Africa! "As you will
note in the video, the sound is a bit off - however, he did produce it
in Africa and as such had more then a few challenges," his campaign manager says. -Eds.]

John Branam
Position sought: Commissioner #1
Website: john4pdx.org
Public financing status: 880 signatures & contributions as of today, he says

What makes me tough enough to thrive on City Council, despite the exhausting, brutal and frustrating nature of the job, is my almost limitless capacity to work, my ability to simultaneously manage multiples of complex situations, and the experiences I've garnered by putting myself through relatively extreme challenges on a regular basis.

A good example of my "toughness" can be found in the schedule I kept between 2002 and 2005 when I managed a grueling balance act of law school, new professional endeavors and emotional traumas. In 2002, during my second year of law school at the University of Oregon, my partner and I bought our first house in North Portland (yes, in spite of the law school being 110 miles south in Eugene). Over the next two years, from 2002 through graduation in 2004, I commuted to Eugene from Portland, carried a full academic load, and did well! Moreover, while in law school I served as co-chair of a student group and as a small-claims court mediator also while working in exchange for the two fellowships I was awarded. In addition, during those same years, we bought, renovated and managed ten properties in Portland. Yeah, whew!

At the same time, I also served as neighborhood chair and managed to grow our average monthly meeting attendance from 10 to 50. Sadly during that time, I also spent a significant amount of time caring for my father in Corvallis. He was suffering from a terminal illness.

Generally, I believe that I am tough because I've had more of those "if it doesn't kill you it'll make you stronger" experiences than I can count. As a progressive, lower middle-class, bi-racial black kid from Corvallis I chose to attend Washington and Lee University in southern Virginia because of the outstanding undergraduate education it offered. I also choose to go there because I believed if I could make it there, I could make it "anywhere." To make a long story short, let's just say that seeing more confederate flags than union flags and getting stuck, more than once, in KKK rallies, among other things, has built toughness into my character.

So too did serving one of the most rural parts of South Africa in the Peace Corps for two and a half years. Raising more money than was believed had ever been raised by a volunteer and doing so in one of the most impoverished former apartheid homelands (the nearest grocery store and library was, until we built one with the money raised, some 90 miles away) the challenges of living and thriving among significant poverty that is almost unheard of here in Portland, certainly built toughness.

The list could go on: defying expectations and balancing a city-wide campaign and a demanding day job; studying, working and living in Kenya, among extreme poverty (me and my six Kenyan "family" members living in a 300 sq. ft. house with no indoor plumbing,) and thriving; or making ends meet by working three jobs in Washington DC.

So is the job as city counselor tough? Absolutely. But given my challenging life experiences, my tremendous capacity to work and my passion for making Portland a more livable city for all, I am confident that I have the chops to thrive.

Randy Leonard
Position sought: Commissioner #4
Website: randyforportland.com
Public financing status: Not participating in program

Successful leadership isn't just about being tough. I think it has more to do with knowing what you really believe in, and holding on to what you really value, despite the "exhausting, brutal and frustrating" fray inside city hall. A good analogy is to compare city hall to a cyclone. The survivors are those who steadfastly hold onto their ropes (symbolic for their convictions) in the middle of the storm without being whipped hither and fro by the wind.

An example of staying true to my convictions in spite of tremendous opposition is my firm belief that PGE has demonstrated itself to be a monopoly utility that has betrayed its trust to provide electricity to Porlanders. I continue to believe that PGE should be purchased by the city of Portland and turned into a public utility owned and operated by the entire region that PGE currently serves. That position is vigorously opposed by the Oregonian, the Portland Business Alliance and many of the most influential power brokers in Oregon. However, I am convinced PGE continues to charge rates to Portlanders based on dubious activities that have cost ratepayers tens of millions of dollars.

The skill to hold onto your core beliefs despite the tremendous forces that attempt to push you in different directions must also be tempered with the ability to stay nimble and flexible enough to know when it is important to modify or change your position when faced with new arguments or facts that are compelling.

I believe I have learned to survive and even thrive in the very dynamic environment of city politics where all politics is truly local and much more personal than at any other level. I have also worked to develop the ability to change or modify my position when confronted by new arguments and facts I had not been aware of originally. Those qualities--the strength to hold onto my convictions and the flexibility to change when change is called for--help to make me a successful leader in city hall.

Martha Perez
Position sought: Commissioner #4
Website: none (contact: moperez73@aol.com)
Public financing status: Less than 100 signatures & contributions

Well, that's a really good point you've brought up Amy and I would have to say a couple of things.

First, I have a decade of experience working within government at the grassroots, local, county, state and federal levels. Now, that's a lot of opportunities to create change from within. I'm proud to say that I've worked on really cool things like energy efficiency, healthcare coverage, environmental research and taxation. Working in government taught me to be organized, dependable and consistent.

Second, I am a single parent of a wonderful 16 year old daughter (her name is the same as mine, but I call her Martha Jr. I would be Martha Sr, so as not to confuse our readers) and you know, having kids at a young age was a great learning experience. It taught me to be strong, to be accountable and to become the leader that I am today. When I asked Martha Jr. what she thought about my running for City Council, she said that she believes I can get the job done, but she warned me to not be like a typical career politician. I really am trying to show thru my candidacy, that this isn't the case with me. I wish to distinguish myself from the rest of the pack, by being myself and not somebody else. I'm a real person who's not catering to special or corporate interests.

Third, I've gone through some pretty interesting life experiences, that usually don't happen until mid-life strikes. By the time I was 21 years of age, both of my parents were deceased and I was on my own as a single parent. This was during the early 90's. I believe I am the person who re-invented what it means to be "tough".

Lastly, I wanted to tell you that I am the first person in my family to go to college. I graduated from Portland State University with a bachelor's degree in general studies, sociology and spanish (habla espanol). I've overcome some pretty tremendous obstacles in my life to arrive to the place where I'm at right now. I don't complain at all about where I've come from; I'm proud to know where it is that I am going and where I've been. I look forward to the future, no matter what the outcome of this particular race. I've learned so much about running for City Council, that I wouldn't trade it for gold.

Emily S. Ryan
Position sought: Commissioner #4
Website: emilysryan.com
Public financing status: Less than 100 signatures & contributions

There is no excuse of case I can make to make me sound tough enough for City Council. It will be hard and I recognize that. I am ready for this landmark in my life and in the history of Politics in Portland.

If I am elected, I will be the first woman of color. Not only that but I will be the youngest to obtain office. Even younger than Commissioner Sten was when he won.

I am a young resilient person and bounce back from hard times easily. I bring fresh ideas and new perspective. My age, experience, and support from the community will help me stay tough enough to succeed in City Hall.

Ed Kill
Position sought: Commissioner #4
Website: none
Public financing status: Not participating in program

City Hall is indeed exhausting, brutal and frustrating. I went down to City Hall and asked three questions in three different offices and all three answers turned out to be completely wrong. More than a year ago I reported a very dangerous intersection, and still nothing has been done. I was assaulted by the police last year, I then went though the reporting process which resulted in no actions what so ever. I am a cyclist and do not own a car, yet by living this ‘green’ lifestyle I have been declared a criminal. I am constantly stooped by the police and illegally searched and I’m sick and tired of it. When I complained to the police department about this, a Sergeant told me that the police are making a map of cyclists, where they ‘should’ be and ‘should not’ be and that these searches were “only a minor inconvenience”. I don’t consider the violation of citizens rights to be a “minor inconvenience” I consider it a crime.

City Hall is indeed exhausting, brutal and frustrating, and that is in a nutshell, why I am running. When I’m elected I will not tolerate the kind of nonsense that goes on now. City Hall exists to serve the people and you cannot serve the people by putting up a brick wall every time a citizen ties to do something. The worst of all is the police, these are city employees who are assaulting, molesting, and even murdering innocent citizens and their bosses ‘the City Counsel’ aren’t doing a dam thing about it. That’s why I (just a regular guy) feel I’m being forced into running because the people in office can‘t or won‘t get the job done.

As for my personal ‘toughness‘: I fought in the first Gulf War, I know what it is to kill and I know what it is to have someone try to kill you, that tends to make a man very tough.