[October 15th, 2008]

Mike Delman

Because neither of the two candidates is terribly inspiring, this race for a seat on the five-member board that runs Multnomah County comes down to experience.

Mike Delman at least can defend his record with a straight face. Judy Shiprack cannot. Shiprack has had an unspectacular career in the public sector as a teacher, prosecutor, state representative and head of the county’s Local Public Safety Coordinating Council, where she worked closely with her friend, incumbent Commissioner Lisa Naito, who is term-limited.

The deal-breaker in this race is Shiprack’s role developing a 60-unit affordable-housing condo in Old Town, for which she still owes the city $1.8 million in taxpayer money (see “Shipracked,” WW, Sept. 17, 2008). She simply can’t be trusted to lead a county already struggling to monitor its large contracts and facing serious budget constraints.

Delman has experience from his work as chief of staff to former Commissioner Gary Hansen, for the county’s Department of Aging and Disability Services, and in his current job as public affairs director for the Portland Habilitation Center. He says he’d like to bring greater oversight of county operations—something that’s sorely needed as evidenced by the meltdown of Cascadia Behavioral Healthcare and the boondoggle over building an East County Justice Center. But after receiving our primary endorsement, Delman gave us a series of doubts.

When he came to our office in September for his endorsement interview with Shiprack, he brought current campaign literature that stated he had WW’s endorsement. We did endorse him in the primary but not yet in the general, which is clearly what his literature was trying to imply. Then, after WW published its Sept. 17 exposé on his opponent, Delman came to our office and delivered a thank-you gift for the managing news editor: a University of Oregon windbreaker. We held our nose and gave it back.

And his time in and around county government has left a bunch of folks ringing our phones to voice concern about his temper. Given Shiprack’s troubling record with public money, we’re still endorsing Delman. But we’ll be watching.

Video of WW endorsement interview (thanks to Portland Community Media)