Frank Ivancie

Francis J. "Frank" Ivancie (born July 19, 1924) is a retired Portland, Oregon, businessman and politician who served as mayor of that city from 1981 to 1985. Prior to his term as mayor, Ivancie served for fourteen years on the Portland City Council. Since his retirement from elected office, Ivancie has remained active in community affairs, occasionally lending his support to political causes.

During his political career, Ivancie was a conservative Democrat who throughout his political career cultivated support from both business interests as well as blue collar workers; however, the city government offices he held are all officially non-partisan.

Early political career

Ivancie was first elected to the Portland City Council in 1966, filling a vacancy on the Council when Ormond Bean did not run for re-election to the post. He was re-elected to the Council several times, in 1970, 1974, and 1978, only serving the first two years of his final term.^[1] While on the city council, he served as Portland's police commissioner.

In 1976, Ivancie launched his first campaign for mayor, running against one-term incumbent Neil Goldschmidt. A key issue in the campaign was the Mount Hood Freeway, a controversial freeway proposal which the City Council had killed by a vote of 4-1 in 1974 (Ivancie casting the lone dissenting vote) and which Ivancie and his supporters hoped to revive. Billboards were erected proclaiming "If Ivancie were mayor, you'd be home now". Unfortunately for Ivancie, the primary beneficiaries of the proposed freeway project were suburban commuters who were ineligible to vote for the mayor of Portland.^{[citation needed]} City residents were in widespread opposition to the freeway (which was never built), and Goldschmidt handily won re-election, defeating Ivancie in the primary election. (The Portland mayoral election is held in May of years divisible by four; if no candidate secures a majority in the primary then a run-off election is held in November between the top two vote-getters in the primary election).^[2]

Tenure as mayor

In 1979, Goldschmidt resigned as the city's mayor to take a post with the Carter Administration as United States Secretary of Transportation, and fellow commissioner Connie McCready was appointed to fill the remainder of Goldschmidt's term. Ivancie then ran for mayor again in 1980 against McCready—a candidate who had neither the populist appeal of Goldschmidt nor the powerful backing of Ivancie—and defeated her in the primary election. The primary election that year occurred on May 20, 1980.

Ivancie's tenure as mayor was scandal-free, however his conservative politics and pro-business positions were frequently controversial in Portland, a city with strong progressive leanings. Ivancie opposed the development of the popular Pioneer Courthouse Square, on the grounds that the square would become a gathering place for transients. He oversaw the construction of the Portland Building, and advocated construction of wells to back up the Bull Run Watershed—the city's primary source of drinking water. Much of the construction of the original MAX Blue Line occurred during his tenure.

Defeat in 1984

In 1983, a coalition of progressive activists in the city, disenchanted with Ivancie's politics, sought out a challenger to run against Ivancie in the 1984 mayoral election. This was a proposition that local political observers considered unlikely to succeed, given Ivancie's strong political connections with local business interests, The Oregonian, and organized labor. They found an unlikely candidate in J. E. "Bud" Clark, a local tavern owner and former beatnik. Clark announced his candidacy less than six months before the May 1984 election, but was widely dismissed as a "joke" candidate who had no chance to win the election.^{[citation needed]} However, dissatisfaction among Portlanders was running high – the economy was in recession and crime was on the rise.

In March 1984—two months prior to the election—Clark trailed Ivancie by 35 points in one poll. However, the Clark campaign put together a large number of volunteers who canvassed the city. After an early May poll by The Oregonian showed the race tied, the Ivancie campaign replied with negative advertisements questioning Clark's religious beliefs (Clark has claimed to be a "born again pagan"). The ads offended Portland voters, who elected Clark to be the next mayor on May 15, by a margin of 13 points.^[3][4]

Post-1984 political career

After the defeat, Ivancie briefly turned to national politics, heading up the Oregon branch of Democrats for Reagan; after Ronald Reagan's re-election, Ivancie was named to the Federal Maritime Commission. After this, he retired from politics and moved to California.^[4] He stayed out of the Portland public eye until 2007, when then-mayor Tom Potter proposed an amendment to the Portland city charter to convert the city from a commission form of government to a strong-mayor system. Ivancie, along with Bud Clark, lent support to those opposing the charter amendment;^[5] the proposal would go down to defeat.

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