By Dave Mazza

Eight candidates for positions on Portland’s city council will be seeking public funds under the city’s recently created Campaign Finance Fund. At least one candidate, Amanda Fritz, has turned in the required number of signatures and is awaiting certification for the program. Other candidates, like Lucinda Tate, also a candidate in the race against Dan Saltzman, has passed the halfway mark and anticipates qualifying well before the March deadline.

Under the rules of the city’s Campaign Finance Fund, candidates can qualify for as much as $150,000 in the primary and $200,000 in the general election if there is not a clear winner. To do so, they must limit their fundraising to collecting 1,000 $5 contributions and signatures, demonstrating broad grassroots support rather than reliance upon a handful of wealthy backers. For community activists like Lucinda Tate, public funds make all the difference.

“It is the only way I could run. I don’t have the network of people who have a lot of money,” states Tate. “I work with people who are marginalized and live paycheck to paycheck.”

For many of the candidates coming out of a community activist background, like Tate, the current style of fundraising that requires more time on raising money than on working on the isssues runs contrary to their principles.

“My feeling is that I would rather be responsive and responsible to the public and they would be the one to tell me what is important and what isn’t rather than special interest groups, businesses or individuals who make large donations,” states Tate.

In addition to Tate and Fritz, Don Smith and Michael S. Caspar, also running against incumbent Dan Saltzman, are qualifying for public funds. In the race against Commissioner Erik Sten, the only other candidate up for reelection, three candidates are seeking public funds: Jerry “Moof” Kratt, Robert Ted Hinds, and Emilie Boyles. Sten is also seeking public funding for his campaign for a second full term. City Commissioner Dan Saltzman, who voted in favor of the measure, chose not to seek public funding.

For more information about public funding of city elections, visit the city suditor’s website at www.portlandonline.com/auditor.