Tom Potter
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Tom Potter (born 1940) is the current mayor and a former police chief of Portland, Oregon. On November 2, 2004, he defeated Portland City Council member Jim Francesconi in the non-partisan Portland mayoral race and was inaugurated on January 3, 2005. He succeeded Mayor Vera Katz, who was not standing for reelection.
Potter was the police chief of Portland during early 1990s, serving less than three years before retiring at age 52 from the police force. In 2003 he decided to run for mayor of Portland, based partly on a desire to help reform the Portland police department. He has built a platform on the issue of community policing, a police strategy that involves active engagement with neighborhoods with such tactics as getting police officers out of their patrol cars.
[edit] Career
Potter began as a police officer in Portland in 1967 as a beat officer in southeast Portland in the Brooklyn and Sellwood neighborhoods. Although the neighborhoods are considered desirable residential locations today, at the time they were largely crime-ridden and threatened by gangs. According to Potter, early in his career a citizen in Sellwood asked him what he, as a citizen, could do to help the police. His sergeant informed him to tell the citizen to "stay inside and let the police do their jobs." The comment helped motivate Potter's early interest in making changes between the relationship of the police and the citizens.
When Potter announced his campaign for mayor in 2003, running in a field of 22 candidates, he was not widely considered as a likely contender. Realizing he could not compete in the money race against more well-funded candidates, Potter limited his individual campaign donations to 25 dollars per person. He won the primary in 2004, having raised only 35,000 dollars in campaign funds, versus other candidates who raised hundreds of thousands of dollars. For the runoff election, he raised the limit on his contributions to 100 dollars per individual, and despite raising only half the funds of Francesconi, he maintained a wide lead in the polls throughout the campaign and won by a landslide.
In addition to continuing advocacy of community policing, Potter expressed interest in other reforms of the Portland police department. He marched against the Iraq War on the first anniversary of American involvement in March 2004 and was dismayed at the black uniforms and the militarized appearance of the Portland police he saw. He made it part of his campaign to rid the police of such a militarized appearance if elected.
Potter lives in the Woodstock neighborhood of southeast Portland with his third wife Karin Hansen.
[edit] Actions as Mayor
When Potter took office, he declared that he was taking centralized control of all city bureaus for a period of six months. In Portland government, the mayor and the four members of the City Council each supervise the various agencies of the city. In his first few months in office, Potter took control of all bureaus. He later redistributed them once the adjustment period was completed.
In January of 2005, Potter caused a controversy by taking part in the monthly Critical Mass ride, an act that participants consider a celebration of cycling in which bicyclists take over the streets to demonstrate alternatives to the use of the automobile in urban areas. Critics accused him of endorsing the group's actions, which include violating traffic laws and intentionally blocking other street traffic. This act was celebrated by the bike community and seen as an effort to mend torn ties between the city and bicycle activists.
Potter has backed Commissioner Erik Sten in an effort to purchase Portland General Electric from Enron. He has also said he is willing to consider using the city's power of condemnation to acquire the utility's assets. The bid has attained the backing of Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski, but is vehemently opposed by Enron and some members of Congress. He is also a supporter of Sten's Voter Owned Elections initiative, which funneled city money to candidiates for city offices in the 2006 Primary elections and was vehemently opposed by the Portland Business Alliance.
On April 22, 2005, Potter withdrew the Portland Police Bureau from the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force. This action came after a dispute of two years over supervision, security clearances for Potter and then-Chief of Police Derrick Foxworth, and the handling of high-profile terrorism cases including that of Brandon Mayfield. In May 2006 Potter accused the FBI of attempting to recruit an informant within the Portland city offices, a claim the FBI denied but which underscored the tensions between that agency and Potter's office.
[edit] External links
| Preceded by: Vera Katz |
Mayor of Portland, Oregon 2005- |
Succeeded by: Incumbent |
