Rene Gonzalez | |
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Portland City Commissioner | |
Assumed office January 1, 2023 | |
Preceded by | Jo Ann Hardesty |
Personal details | |
Political party | Democratic |
Children | 3 |
Residence(s) | Portland, Oregon, U.S. |
Alma mater | Willamette University (BA, JD) |
Occupation | Attorney, entrepreneur |
Website | Official website Campaign website |
Rene Gabriel Gonzalez is an American businessman, politician, and former lawyer. He has held a seat on the Portland, Oregon City Council since January 2023. He challenged incumbent commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty in the 2022 election,[1] running on a platform that emphasized law and order and livability.[2] In December 2023, Gonzalez announced his plans to run for Mayor of Portland.[3]
Gonzalez was raised in Anchorage, Alaska, where his father worked as a trial judge and federal prosecutor.[4] In 1993, Gonzalez moved to Salem, Oregon, to attend Willamette University, where he was president of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity and played varsity soccer.[5] After obtaining a bachelor's degree, he continued at the Willamette University College of Law where he obtained a Juris Doctor.[5]
Gonzalez then worked as an attorney at Stoel Rives, a regional law firm.[6] He moved to KinderCare Learning Centers in 2005, where he served in legal advising and corporate strategy roles.[7] As of 2022, he no longer holds a license to practice law.[Citation needed] In 2012 Gonzalez founded Eastbank, a legal services company. In 2019 he purchased Artifex, a technology consulting company that primarily sells Microsoft software services, merging it to create Eastbank Artifex.[4][8][9][10][4]
In October 2020, Gonzalez founded ED300, a political action committee to support school board candidates that were focused on reopening public schools in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Teachers objected to returning to school before a vaccine had even been created. Six months after the vaccines were available, ED300 objected to the Oregon Health Authority requirement that schoolteachers be vaccinated.[4][11] Some parents also objected to ED300 for endorsing predominantly conservative candidates, including anti-LGBTQ groups.[4][12][13][14]
Gonzalez ran for the Portland City Commissioner seat in 2022 against incumbent Hardesty. He won the race with 52.6% of the vote and took office in January 2023.[1][15]
Gonzalez ran a campaign largely focused on combating homelessness and crime and investing in the revitalization of downtown Portland. In particular, he and Hardesty advocated for different approaches to policing and homelessness.[15][16] Gonzalez was endorsed by the editorial boards of The Oregonian, Willamette Week, and the Portland Tribune, as well as by the Portland Police Association, the Portland Firefighters Union, and the Portland Chamber of Commerce.[16][17] During the race, his campaign was fined by the city's elections program for allegedly accepting discounted office space, but the fine was later overturned in court for lacking proof that the rent was actually below market rate.[18][19]
Though both candidates were registered Democrats,[10] during the campaign Hardesty attacked Gonzalez for positions she claimed were right-leaning and for his alleged ties to Republican political consultants and conservative school board candidates.[18]
Gonzalez's two-year term as a Portland City Council member began on January 1, 2023.[15] The transition was headed by Tom Miller, who had been a chief of staff for former mayor Sam Adams.[20] Gonzalez was assigned management of Portland Fire & Rescue and other emergency services, excluding the police department.[21][22] In 2024, Mayor Ted Wheeler appointed Gonzalez as Portland City Council's representative on the Steering Committee Overseeing the Joint Office of Homeless Services.[23] Gonzalez first proposed an amendment to Mayor Wheeler's camping ban that included up to a year in jail for rule-breakers, before transitioning to a proposal that removed the suggested criminal penalty for violating the camping ban but still included large fines. The amendment failed and the criminal penalty was imposed.[24] In January 2024, Gonzalez announced the creation of a new drug overdose treatment response team pilot program to help address the city's drug crisis.[25]
Gonzalez and his wife Angie, whom he met in college, have three children[5] and live in the Eastmoreland neighborhood of Portland.[26] Gonzalez identifies as half-Latino,[5] as his father is Mexican-American and his mother is white.[4]
Gonzalez founded United PDX, a youth soccer club in the city of Portland.[4]
In February 2023, Gonzalez ordered Portland Street Response (PSR) and the fire bureau to stop distributing tents to the homeless and instead encouraged them to seek out shelters. There were, at the time, over 5,200 unhoused individuals with 2000 shelter beds available.[27] Portland Street Response personnel complained they were never consulted about budget and policy decisions. Gonzalez described PSR as being "police abolitionists" and on a political mission, and described the tent ban as a success.[28]
In February 2024, Gonzalez moved to significantly cut funding for the Portland Street Response program.[29][30] After criticism, agreed to move the program out of his portfolio in the following month.[31]
In January 2024, an unoccupied Honda Accord belonging to Gonzalez's family was lit on fire in front of the family's home. No one was injured in the incident, but the police investigated the fire as arson, suspecting a political motivation.[32][33]
Gonzalez announced in a February 2024 social media video that he would no longer use public transit, claiming that he faced "deliberate, unwanted physical contact" while riding the MAX light rail on his way to work.[34] Released TriMet security footage shows brief contact with a passenger followed by a short conversation about Gonzalez's policy positions.[35][36]
In August 2024, The Oregonian reported that Gonzalez spent $6,400 of city taxpayer dollars to hire a contractor, WhiteHatWiki, to make edit requests for his Wikipedia page in an effort to "spruce up his profile," possibly as part of his mayoral bid.[37] The Portland City Elections Division opened an investigation into the spending after receiving a campaign finance complaint.[38] In September 2024, the City of Portland Auditor's Office announced "insufficient" evidence of campaign finance law violation while calling its decision "an exceedingly close call" and referring the issue to the Oregon Secretary of State's Office for a "fuller investigation". The primary motivation for Gonzalez's edits appeared to be to remove mention of his Twitter thanks to supporters that tagged Quincy Franklin, a member of the far-right-wing group Patriot Prayer. The audit also revealed that Gonzalez himself was the Wikipedia editor.[39][40]
In September 2024, Willamette Week reported that Gonzalez received seven speeding tickets between 1998 and 2013, which resulted in his driver's license being suspended twice.[41]
Gonzalez has been with KLC since 2005, serving in several roles.
Ten years ago, he started his own legal firm called Eastbank and later bought up a small Texas-based tech firm called Artifex Partners.
A majority of the candidates the ED300 PAC endorsed were also backed by conservative and sometimes far-right groups with anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion agendas like Parents Rights in Education, Oregon Right to Life and Oregon Family Council. Parents Rights in Education opposes Oregon's inclusion of gender identity and sexual orientation in comprehensive sexual health education and advocates for censoring history in school curriculum.
Investigators noted the primary motivation for the edits was to remove a 2022 Mercury morning news roundup that referenced Gonzalez's tweet thanking a member of far-right group Patriot Prayer for his "support" of Gonzalez.
Members of the Portland City Council | ||||||
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Council President: Dan Ryan | ||||||
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