Nick Fish isn’t wasting any time—after pulling in around 62 percent of the vote on Tuesday night, he’s got his eye on June 10th, the earliest day he might be sworn in as the newest city commissioner.

“I went into this race because i wanted to be the next housing commissioner. I spent 4 1/2 months focused, focused on the election, and I never once allowed myself to get ahead and think what if. I had a very strong set of opponents and this was a tough cycle. I also was sleep deprived toward the end. I’m going to take a couple of days off this weekend,” Fish says. “I’ll catch up on my sleep, then I have a couple of weeks to get the transition going. I’m incredibly excited to be on the council and be an independent voice.”

“I met with Tom Potter yesterday, and asked him some basic questions about transition and protocol, bureau assignments and things like that,” says Fish. He has “about two and a half weeks to do some outreach” in hiring his new staff. “We’re going to cast a big net, I want to bring some new energy into city hall, and I also want a diverse staff. I invite anyone that wants to apply for a job, including people from Commissioner Sten’s office, to apply for positions.”

He’s having lunch with the head of the housing bureau tomorrow. “Technically I have some discretion over bureau leadership, but I have no intention of making changes now,” says Fish. “I’ve got six months to manage the assignments I get from this mayor and then Mayor Adams gets to assign bureaus as he chooses.” He’d like to retain the housing bureau under Adams.

Speaking of Adams and Potter—who haven’t exactly been best buds on the council lately—does Fish see himself aligning with anyone in particular on the council? Traditionally, Potter and Dan Saltzman have been quite aligned, but since Commissioner Erik Sten resigned, the Adams and Commissioner Randy Leonard team have been courting Saltzman’s support.

“My job is to find common ground and fight for the benefit of the city,” says Fish—who’s also campaigned against Adams and Leonard in the past, but now counts Leonard as a good friend. As for Adams, “he and I agreed on more things than we disagreed about… [and] where we agree, I’ll be a strong ally,” says Fish.

He thinks that with the mayor’s race decided, much of the recent council animosity will evaporate. And he thinks he can help with a smooth transition. “The mayor elect is going to begin to take the reigns. Tom is my mayor, but Sam is going to be my future mayor, and I think it will work out,” Fish says.

“My single favorite description of me, was the short version of—pardon the expression—what Willamette Week wrote. ‘He’s honest, hard working, and he’s his own man,’” he adds. He points to the work he put in on his campaign, and says “I will tell people what I think, and I will not back stab them. I’m my own man in the sense that while I had a big coalition supporting me, there was no one group that had any particular hold on me. I intend to be indpendent, make up my own mind as we go along.”

Fish takes office just days after the council is slated to adopt a budget, but he has “been invited to weigh in on any issue I care about. If there are some specific budget requests about housing, I will not be shy,” about advocating for them. “I have a mandate and an independent spot. If the chemistry works out the way I think it will, this will be a very productive council.”

Fish’s thoughts on the campaign are after the cut!

How did Fish eke out 62 percent of the vote, when he'd previously topped out at 48 percent? He says he was prepared for a runoff, but also tried to reach a wide audience.

"We went on TV and talked to a broader audience. We targeted mail in areas where Erik [Sten] had done very well against Senator Burdick to remain competitive. Then we did radio and some other things. Being on TV was a plus, this is an election—because we were a down ballot race—swamped by the attention that went to Obama and others."

He also says "I had constituencies in this election that I could go compete for, that four years ago I couldn't because my opponent was named Sam Adams. The proudest moment of the campaign was when I got the Just Out endorsement."

"Four years ago when I lost to Sam in the runoff, it was both personally very deflating, and lots of people were disappointed in the outcome and were critical of the campaign I ran. And frankly, four years later I was happy doing my TV show and practicing law and raising two children," Fish says. "I would say that had a couple of people not vigorously and enthusiastically encouraged me to do it"—specifically Randy Leonard and former Governor Barbara Roberts—he may not have run. .

"When [Roberts] encouraged me and some other people encouraged me, my wife was so enthusiastic, I said, let's do it," he says.