Michael Durrow
  • Michael Durrow

Familiar faces keep popping up to challenge City Commissioner Steve Novick in next May's primary.

The latest? Frequent candidate Michael Durrow now says he intends to run for Novick's seat.

Durrow's been a regular also-ran in Portland—having lost past races for Metro Council (2012) and Portland City Council (2014)—but scored a victory in May, when he ran unopposed for an unpaid seat on the Multnomah Education Service District Board of Directors. His term's up in 2019, but Durrow's plotting a new race.

He says he's filed forms with the state indicating he'll spend less and receive less than $3,500 challenging Novick (the Secretary of State's Office says it hasn't received the filing yet confirms). That's not exactly a sign of a credible effort. Successful city council races often involve six-figure expenditures, and city hall incumbents have proven difficult to unseat. Even with perceived vulnerability, Novick's had no trouble corralling oodles of cash early in the election cycle.

Durrow's a past realtor and sometimes karaoke junkie who last year described himself as a full-time activist.

His website offers a litany of values he says he supports, without going into detail on most. One proposal Durrow does flesh out a bit goes directly to Novick's greatest challenge of his first term: finding new money for city streets. But Durrow's not offering any hard proposals right now. He says he'd maybe support a new tax on miles Portland drivers travel, on top of the current gas tax, but only "if my concerns about privacy and the regressive nature of the tax can be overcome."

If Durrow follows through, he's the second challenger readying a race against Novick. Longtime Portland realtor Fred Stewart acknowledged last week he's also planning to run. Concordia University instructor Nick Caleb had also announced a campaign, but decided to bow out for personal reasons.