Vote CHRIS HENRY for Portland City Council: Let's get CASCADIA READY
The Pacific Northwest is woefully underprepared for the next Cascadia Megaquake, with scientists reporting that Portland could see "more than $80 billion in building damage, tens of thousands of people wounded or killed and more than 250,000 people facing long-term displacement."
Even when it comes to basic emergency response, City Council has been extremely negligent. The only position in the Portland Bureau of Emergency Management dedicated exclusively to earthquake preparedness was cut in 2024. And the entire department receives only $5 million a year (for *all* emergency preparedness, not just earthquakes) from the city, while city council forks over ~$100 million/year of our tax money to Wall Street - just as interest on loans!
When it comes to proactive transformation to achieve resilience, new leadership and ideas are urgently needed. Click [here] to read our policy vision to support urban agroforestry and design natural disaster resilience into the foundations of our city. Chris will also greatly expand existing PBEM programs which need more support, like Portland's Neighborhood Emergency Teams (NETs).
Resilience for Climate, Health, and Safety
If the Megaquake were to strike tomorrow, the Heart of Portland would be struck by the most toxic fossil industrial disaster in US history. Over 90% of Oregon's petroleum is currently being stored in a high-risk earthquake liquefaction zone, along with hundreds of other toxic facilities in an 11-mile superfund zone along the Willamette River.
Despite the comprehensive study commissioned by Multnomah County documenting the unprecedented severity of the risk of an oil spill greater than the BP Gulf Spill of 2010 (in the middle of an earthquake!), city council has failed to protect us from this lethal threat.
For more information on this unprecedented threat to our city and environment, we recommend the local documentary Once a Braided River.
To speak out now: please sign this petition from community coalition Tank the Tanks!
To build power: Vote Chris Henry to decommission the CEI Hub, and make the corporate polluters pay for it! Their greed threatens the health and safety of our environment and communities today!
Our Nine-Fold Plan to meet the needs of Portlanders now and get us Cascadia Ready:
1. Revitalize Downtown
1) PCEF surplus funding can employ Portlanders in greening our city, sequestering carbon and nurturing community gathering spaces through urban agroforestry.
2) Public health requires equitable access to quality healthcare, mental health resources, and addiction treatment - which the city can help subsidize.
3) Expand public transit, safer bicycle infrastructure, and implement robust pedestrian safety measures.
2. Just Transition
The extraction economy has robbed our planet of its natural resources and the working people of their potential! The city of Portland can act as a springboard for regenerating not only the natural world, but ourselves in the process. Regenerative economies have the potential to create a vast array of new jobs that are meaningful & inspiring.
Imagine transforming Portland into a Hayao Miyazaki film!
For more details on the Just Transition movement, click here.
3. Housing For All
1) The past successes of Housing First can be replicated here in Portland. The key principle is simple and unavoidable: homeless people need homes. With thousands of vacant homes in our city, we have the resources to start making this a reality.
2) Additionally, the City must establish publicly accessible facilities—such as toilets, showers, and hygiene stations—downtown to meet immediate needs and ensure dignity for all residents, including the unhoused.
3) To ensure long-term success, we must then follow up with comprehensive mental health and addiction services for those in need, along with robust job training programs.
4) Earthquake retrofitting should be funded by the city for home-owners and apartment complex, and tenant rights need to be expanded for renters to be able to get Cascadia Ready.
4. Catalyze Worker Co-Operatives
The problems of wealth inequality can be addressed by catalyzing worker cooperatives, which often have maximum wage ratios built into their by-laws and discourage the absentee ownership that dominates traditional for-profit firms, large and small. Click here to learn more about our vision for worker cooperatives, which can lead the way in democratizing our economy and ensuring its resilience.
5. Secure Economic Justice
Corporate profit-gouging is fueling declining worker’s wages, inflation, and climate destabilization for profit. To support economic justice:
1) I will propose a $25/hr minimum wage for all Portland Workers including a Cost-of-Living Adjustment and a 10:1 Maximum Wage Ratio.
2) To support work/life balance, lower pollution, and increase productivity and job satisfaction, I will propose a 4-Day workweek and a 3-Day Weekend as city standard.
3) Portland needs rent control!
4) AND - We should most certainly TAX THE RICH to contribute their FAIR SHARE!
6. Public Electric Utility
To address arbitrary for-profit energy rate hikes, I will aggressively advocate to take PGE public and establish a Public Utility District (PUD), owned and managed by the Workers and Ratepayers it serves. According to the 2024 Public Power Statistical Report by the American Public Power Association, residential customers of public power utilities have the lowest average bill, saving an average of $20.33 per month compared to other utility types. That's $243.96 per year!
Neighborhood Associations should become their own electrical grid PUD’s at the most local level, reducing CO2 emissions in the most efficient way possible through the power of neighborhood organizing and reaching measurable emission reduction benchmarks.
To power our new public utility, I will advocate for solar panels on all public buildings AND compel all bureaus and businesses to submit annual carbon emissions plans with their current CO2 output and projected reduction benchmarks. By retrofitting trailers with solar panels on the roofs and all sides, passively stored energy can also be be net metered back to the electric grid.
In general, I will be a staunch advocate for policies promoting renewable energy, reducing carbon emissions, and preserving our forests, rivers, and parks for future generations.
Because the grid will collapse in the event of the Cascadia megaquake, decentralizing our grid with neighborhood autonomy over energy decisions and backup energy supplies will be essential to our resilience.
7. Green Manufacturing Hub
Portland has the unique opportunity to become a hub for green manufacturing, revitalizing our economy and leading the climate transition for the entire state of Oregon and PNW.
By investing in Industrial Hemp infrastructure, we can quickly replace timber harvesting and preserve the carbon sink that is our precious PNW forests. Portland should be producing hemp-fiber based products of every variety, and worker-owned logging trucks should be hauling hemp bails to mills and processing communities — NOT clear cutting our forests!
Whether it's green, carbon-negative hemp-paper, hemp-wood, or hemp-crete, there is no time to waste when it comes to making the transition to the new green economy!
8. Green Public Bank
To fund such public works projects, I will advocate for a publicly owned Portland Municipal Bank to supplant floating bonds on the stock market, cutting out the Wall Street middlemen who siphon off our tax dollars to line their greedy pockets. Year after year, city hall has continued to fork over ~$100 million/year of our tax money to Wall Street - just as interest on loans!
A Green Public Bank can invest in green jobs, worker cooperatives, climate justice, and earthquake preparedness. For more details on how a public bank in Oregon can help us achieve all these agenda items and more, click here. For an independent report on the importance of public banking to green economics, click here.
9) Real Public Safety
Zero tolerance for police racism, abuse, and bigotry is a must. True police accountability requires drastically improved anti-racism training, zero-tolerance firing policies, and independent prosecution for serious abuses and violations. It’s also critical that we restore the original recommendations of the Community Board for Police Accountability approved by 82% of voters to ensure a Citizen’s Review Board with independent oversight, which was subverted by the police union’s corruption of the outgoing city council.
Instead of pouring hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars annually into a broken system, Portland Street Response should be fully funded and expanded to provide the compassionate crisis intervention our communities need.
In times of emergency, community self-defense is crucial. Following the Megaquake, armed looting and overwhelmed emergency services are real risks. Portland should subsidize self-defense training, especially for communities currently facing discrimination from police.
Cascadia Ready is our plan for true emergency preparedness, rooted in the power of community - from community gardens for emergency food to community training for self-defense. For more details on our police accountability and public safety plan, click here.
Vote Chris Henry for District 4
I am a full-time worker and former truck driver who will represent the needs and perspectives of ordinary Portlanders. Portland's brand-new adoption of matching funds, ranked choice voting, and three councilors per district makes this election a unique opportunity to elevate the revolutionary approaches we need to heal our environment, meet the needs of every resident, and revitalize our city.
Social justice lies at the core of my platform. I am dedicated to dismantling systemic barriers to opportunity and championing policies that address racial disparities, economic inequality, and discrimination within our community.
My political experience ranges from past leadership as the Co-Chair of Willamette Neighborhood Association over two decades ago to working with the Honest Elections Action League just this year to enact robust campaign finance reform in the State of Oregon.
I humbly ask for your support to be a voice for progress and positive change in Portland! Together, let’s build a more just, equitable, and resilient community where everyone thrives.
