WEN Candidate Questionnaire: Victoria Pelletier, District 2 City Council

Victoria Pelletier Answers Our Questions

Each candidate for Portland City Council District 2 received the same five questions about mask and vaccine requirements, budget priorities, Reiche Community School, housing affordability, and property taxes. They were given the same word limits and their answers are provided in full. Below find responses from Victoria Pelletier.

District 2 represents the neighborhoods of West End, Parkside, Valley, and Oakdale.

Public Health & Mask Mandates

1. Do you support mask mandates and vaccine requirements? As a city councilor, how would you approach
public health and what would be your top priorities for Portland during a pandemic?

My top priorities for our city are to lead every conversation with a lens of equity, in order to ensure we’re providing resources for all Portlanders, especially our most vulnerable community members. We need to continue to educate by pushing for mask mandates and social distancing as much as we can to slow down the Covid-19 transmission rates.

It’s not enough to just look at Portland’s Covid numbers and assume that we are combating this virus – as we know, Portland is a very popular city with year-round visitors, and if we’re not enforcing mask mandates to keep our city safe, especially as we go into the colder months, we’re not advocating for the safety and health of our community, we’re just continuing to put everyone, especially frontline workers, at unnecessary risk.

I also think it’s extremely important to make sure we’re addressing issues surrounding racial health disparities. Maine has the largest racial disparity for Covid-19 in the country, despite the fact that only 5.3% of our state identifies as Black, Indigenous, or a Person of Color. That’s a problem and acknowledging it but choosing to not address it when we discuss disproportionate health equity further pushes the narrative of inequality in our predominately white state.

This pandemic isn’t going away, and it’s our responsibility to educate on prevention, advocate for mask-wearing, and continue to build community partnerships to address and amend the state’s disproportionate infection rates.

Budget Priorities

2. What are your social budget priorities? There is conversation at the national level about hard and soft/human infrastructure, yet so much of our infrastructure is local. What role should the city government play in public health, alleviation of poverty, and quality of life?

As Portland continues to increase in popularity, it’s important to be leaders in the discussion of infrastructures and economic growth. In order to do that successfully, we need to have an honest conversation about which direction Portland is going, and what we ultimately want from our city. Are we looking to be inclusive to all socioeconomic backgrounds? Are we trying to set the bar for public health by addressing our disproportionate health inequities that were highlighted by the pandemic? Are we finally going to agree that housing is a human right?

If we’re not prioritizing the quality of life for all Portlanders, especially our small businesses, essential workers, and marginalized community members, I’m not sure how we can accurately state that this is a city for all.

Hard and soft infrastructure may overlap locally, but we can’t even begin to discuss the human infrastructure of Portland until we have fundamental resources for all backgrounds, and at the very least, housing and food for all people. We need to align our soft and human infrastructure and let these conversations dictate how we proceed with the hard infrastructure, and if we’re not going to do that, the quality of life for our underserved communities will continue to decrease.

Reiche Community School

3. What role will Reiche play in the community’s future? The Reiche Community School has served many roles over the years in addition to being a diverse elementary school. Health center, community room, library, and community pool are just some ways Reiche has served the neighborhood. Reiche is also about to undergo major renovations. What role would you play to ensure its long term sustainability as a school and community center?

It’s an honor to have Reiche school in the neighborhood – the teacher governed/parent leadership collaboration leads by example and is a great part of our district. I’m lucky enough to also work with students and parents from Portland Public Schools, so I look forward to engaging with the Reiche community and discussing ways I can be an ally to the faculty, staff, and students.

One of my priorities as city councilor is to find ways for the city to retain young Portlanders – as the cost of living rises, it’s extremely important to invest in young individuals and provide additional options to help them build community, continue their education, and put down roots. It’s also important that we pave the way for more young people to be elected officials. Reiche has an extremely diverse student body, and it’s important to push for representation in the body of individuals that lead the city.

As a community leader and advocate myself who works with a wide range of diverse perspectives, I look forward to being a liaison between the city of Portland and Reiche school by supporting programs, advocating for equitable funding prioritization, and continuing to engage the community in the support of local programs.

Affordable Housing

4. How will we make housing more affordable? What are the solutions for our city that you find most hopeful and what role will District 2 neighborhoods play in housing Portland’s growing and diverse population?

We need a full comprehensive review of our city zoning laws, which work to prohibit affordable housing, along with the data of the current income and wealth gap between people of color and white individuals in Portland. The current single-family zoning we have in place in Portland promotes city-wide segregation and makes housing less affordable for all.

We have a wonderfully diverse district filled with low to moderate-income, working-class individuals like myself, and if we’re not discussing zoning laws, Airbnb’s, and other short-term rentals, we’re just upholding systemic barriers and actively driving our young people out of the city because they can’t afford to live here. We need young people in Portland, and if we don’t invest and prioritize their quality of life over appealing to tourists, then we cannot accurately say that Portland is a city for everyone.

It’s important that all District 2 neighborhoods advocate for housing for all, especially those who are in higher quality living quarters, because if we can push to end exclusionary zoning laws, it’s the first step towards not just saying “housing is a human right,” but advocating for it with policy.

Another concept of housing affordability is the education portion – how can we make sure all Portlanders understand the cost of living, and why it continues to rise? What community and neighborhood conversations can we have on a regular basis to provide this information? As District 2 City Councilor, I look forward to continuing the community conversations I already host on the prom and discussing the intricacies of housing affordability and exclusionary zoning laws to make sure we’re all advocating on behalf of one another to mitigate this crisis.

Property Taxes

5. How do we keep people in their homes? With the tax revaluation, many homeowners are worried about their property tax bills. What are the programs that you support to keep people in their homes?

As a large majority of District 2 are renters, the increase in property taxes can also lead to rental increases, which continues to be a concern as more and more Portlanders can no longer afford to live here.

An option worth investigating is capping the property tax, based on income and eligibility. We’d need the data to detail housing inequities in Portland, along with an eligibility criteria to ensure we’re prioritizing low to moderate income individuals, but if we considered capping the property tax while simultaneously providing a variety of financial relief options, we could begin to mitigate some of the displacement that comes with the rising cost of living.

Also, I’d push for education on unaffordable housing in Portland, to ensure all of us clearly understand how cost of living works, why the rent prices continue to increase, and how we can examine short term rentals and single-family zoning to try and amend our current crisis.

---

Learn about Victoria Pelletier ‘s campaign opponent: Read Jon Hinck’s WEN Candidate Questionnaire.