Political Consultants Donate More Than $19,000 in Services to City Council Candidate Andrea Valderrama

Winning Mark, once a major player in Portland City Hall, has a candidate in the race. But they're doing the work for free.

Andrea Valderrama (Walker Stockly)

The 2016 election marked a shift in the power behind Portland City Hall.

For some time, three of the five votes on the City Council owed their jobs at least in part to the effectiveness of political consultant Mark Wiener.

Two of those candidates left office at the end of 2016, as then-Mayor Charlie Hales didn't seek reelection and then-Commissioner Steve Novick was unseated by Chloe Eudaly. The third, Dan Saltzman, is retiring at the end of this year.

But Wiener's firm, Winning Mark, is now working for free for one candidate seeking to replace Saltzman.

The firm has recorded $16,625 in donations of services to Andrea Valderrama, policy adviser to Mayor Ted Wheeler and a David Douglas School Board member.

Aisling Coghlan, Wiener's wife and a former Saltzman staffer, is the one doing the vast majority of the work, Valderrama and the consultants say.

Regardless, it's a notable sum for a political consultant to donate for a race.

"We think Andrea represents an incredible opportunity for a new generation of smart, principled leadership at a moment that Portland really needs it,"  says Coghlan. "I'm working as a volunteer because I believe in her, this is the city we live in and she doesn't have a lot of money. I'm spending enough time on it that we wanted to make sure that was properly reflected."

Wiener was headline news in 2015 after he worked a lobbyist for Uber during the time when politicians he helped elect voted to legalize the ride-hailing companies.

Valderrama is tied to Wiener through former City Commissioner Steve Novick, a Wiener client. She worked in Novick's office and he has endorsed her candidacy.

(Rachel Novick, Steve's wife, is also the niece of political consultant Liz Kaufman, who is closely allied with Wiener and his wife. Kaufman has donated another $2,500 worth of her time to Valderrama's campaign.)

To be sure, Valderrama's candidacy represents more than a return of the Wiener faction of Portland politics. It's more like the Montagues and Capulets of Portland political campaigns have made peace for a moment, in order to support her.

Valderrama works for Mayor Ted Wheeler, who was poised to run against a Wiener client, Charlie Hales, before Hales decided not to run for reelection in 2016.

Wheeler has not endorsed Valderrama or anyone in the race, but his office has been supportive enough of her run to lighten her job responsibilities and give her paid time off to campaign.

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