Former City Commissioner Carmen Rubio Named Executive Director at Youth Nonprofit

Former city commissioner and onetime mayoral hopeful Carmen Rubio is the new executive director of Janus Youth Programs, a nonprofit that serves at-risk children and teenagers in Oregon and Southwest Washington.

Rubio assumes the role on Aug. 1, according to a statement from Janus. The nonprofit runs 20 programs for at-risk youth and its latest tax filing shows it has annual revenues of $15 million and employees 250 people.

Rubio served one term on the City Council, from 2020 to 2024, and ran for mayor last fall. She was seen in the early days of the contest as one of two frontrunners in the race, alongside former city commissioner Rene Gonzalez. ut reporting by The Oregonian showed that Rubio had years’ worth of unpaid parking tickets and citations. It tanked Rubio’s mayoral campaign.

Both Rubio and Gonzalez were bogged down by personal missteps and lost to now-Mayor Keith Wilson in the city’s first-ever ranked-choice election.

Gonzalez earlier this year took a job as an in-house attorney with Jubitz, the local truck stop company.

Rubio is returning to the world that she came from: the nonprofit sector. Prior to her council election in 2020 Rubio served as the executive director of the Latino Network, a major nonprofit in town.