Today, we submitted the True Copy of our petition to the Multnomah County Election Division. This officially begins the signature verification process under Oregon’s City-County Act of 1971.
Here’s why we’re doing this:
Portland used to be the city other cities wanted to become. Companies relocated here for the quality of life. Young people moved here to retire.
That Portland is slipping away. After twenty years of steady growth, Portland started shrinking. Downtown office vacancy has hit 35 percent—the worst of any major American city. The businesses that defined our identity are contracting or looking elsewhere. Meanwhile Austin, Nashville, Denver, and Salt Lake City are landing the headquarters, the tech expansions, the talent that used to come here.
One factor doesn’t get enough attention: Portland is trying to compete with unified metros while running two separate governments that can’t get out of each other’s way.
The city handles some things, the county handles others, and when problems fall in between— homelessness, mental health, public safety— they spend years arguing about jurisdiction while conditions deteriorate. Businesses face overlapping taxes and regulations. Permitting is slow and uncertain. Problems that need a coordinated response get turf wars instead.
This dysfunction costs us investment and talent— all to preserve a structure that exists because in 1854, Portlanders didn’t want to travel to Hillsboro on horseback to file paperwork. That was a reasonable complaint 170 years ago. It’s not a reason to maintain two governments today.
Four out of five Multnomah County residents live in Portland. We share the same economy, the same infrastructure, the same tax base. We already function as one city. It’s time we governed like it.
Oregon has allowed city-county consolidation since 1971. It takes about 22,000 signatures to put the question before voters, and we’re gathering them now. If we succeed, a charter commission would spend up to two years studying the question and bringing a new city-county charter to a vote. Smaller cities like Gresham can choose whether to participate. Unincorporated areas receive explicit protections. Nothing happens unless voters in both Portland and Multnomah County approve it.
Consolidation won’t solve all our problems. But it would give Portland something we lack: unified leadership that can actually get things done. One government. One point of accountability. One vision for what this region can become.
Portland has always been willing to try bold experiments. We tore out a freeway along the waterfront and turned a parking garage into Pioneer Courthouse Square. We invested in light rail and bike lanes while other cities widened highways. We welcomed food carts while other cities banned them. That spirit of innovation didn’t disappear. It’s been smothered by a governmental structure designed in the 19th century that no longer serves a 21st-century region.
We can keep watching other cities pass us by. Or we can build the kind of government that has a fighting chance of bringing Portland back.