Our two younger boys take music lessons at Ethos - our oldest attended nearby Jefferson. What Charles did for our neighborhood, in creating a vibrant, useful community resource that provides jobs and fosters creativity, energy, hope - he could certainly do for the city as a whole.

Charles identifies community needs and addresses them with effective action - he gets good things done. We live in a better city because of what he's already accomplished.

I definitely prefer the candidate who created jobs, and served real community needs - who has an actual track record of success.

Charles is an extremely bright young man on his way up. He has a vision for including ALL of Portland, and has given attention to parts of the city that others would like to sweep under the rug. He does seem to be the underdog in this race, but that doesn't mean he isn't qualified.

Thanks for posting this. We're on the same page...supporting Dean in 2003/2004, Obama for 2008, and Charles Lewis for City Council. To say that you have a tendency to support "no hopers" is a little harsh. There's always hope that voters will see through the establishment's choice.

Though Dean didn't win the nomination in 2004, his strategy of using a 50 state campaign helped Democrats win red districts in 2006 and helped Obama rack up delegates to defeat Hillary in the primaries and is now giving McCain a run for his money.

Some newspaper endorsements seem to take issue with his age, but the U.S. Constitution set the age requirement for President at 35. If a candidate can run for president at 35, why not City Council at 36? Especially one who started his own non-profit organization ten years ago and successfully saw it's expansion with number of employees, youth served, and operating budget. He'll be the only person on City Council with executive experience, who has created jobs, and kept a budget. With a tightening economy and a sluggish job market, he has right experience for the job in this critical time.

Fritz would make a great auditor, but Lewis is ready to help lead Portland through the visionary planning for the next 25 years. I trust him to keep the best interests at heart of those who are starting their careers, raising a young family, and buying their first home in Portland. He not only received a great education and learned about Public Policy, his actions with being a Peace Corps volunteer as well as starting a vital non-profit organization for low income students wanting to learn how to play instruments speak loudly what his values are. Our city should not wait until another election for this candidate to serve on City Council. His experience proves he is ready to lead now.

T.A, I think you've summed up Charles's attributes nicely. I have met Charles three times during this campaign, and he continues to impress me with his intelligence and humility, his understanding of Portland, his commitment to innovative and effective solutions to economic and housing challenges, and his sincere concern for the public schools and for the youngest of our citizens. He is a superb candidate and would be a terrific addition to the City Council.

I was afraid this was going to happen, T.A. I decided to go ahead and get my voting done, not wait any longer. And now, at the last moment, come more of the kinds of presentations that would have helped me tremendously more! Ah well, I did my best with what I had. Hopes that I can sit on it longer next time, wait for these edge of the cliff, last ditch helper-posts. There were some folks on these ballots I did not have enough information on to make a real judgement,and had not seen enough discussion to rat out angles and issues.

Thanks for this anyway. He's on the radar now, for me.

I was very impressed with Charles Lewis during the primary. I wish I didn't have to choose between him and Amanda - but Amanda won out for me. I hope Charles runs again.

btw, what happened to his ads? I remember he had a number of clever ads in the primary, but haven't seen any during the general. Didn't he take public financing? I thought they got a new batch of dough for the general election.

I first met Charles shortly after he moved to Portland, and I've always felt he would be a good candidate some day. Fortunately this year we have two very good candidates for City Council (actually, we had five or six good candidates for the same seat). I have known Amanda Fritz for a few years as well, and have seen her work with people in the community, in the neighborhoods around the city, and in city government, to make things happen. Much of what she does is bringing people together to improve their neighborhoods.

Amanda has a solid understanding of what needs to be done at the city, and has a track record of bringing people together to find common ground and a common understanding. Perhaps this is why she was the only candidate to be endorsed by BOTH the Democratic and Republican Parties. Even though Republicans are irrelevant in electing someone to the Portland City Council, it is good to know that a potential City Councilor can work well with divergent groups of people.

While I hope Charles does run for another office in the future, I encourage the election of Amanda this year.

A dissenting opinion....

I recently listened to Lewis and Fritz on the KBOO morning talk show hosted by Joe Uris. Fritz unsurprisingly came off as enormously wonkish, and I found this rather tedious. But Lewis' responses I found more troubling. His one-size-fits-all recipe for solving Portland's problems seems to boil down to "City Hall ought to promote small business, and by golly, look at me and my non-profit as examples." I'm sorry, but when a candidate starts telling me, hey, I've got business cred, let me run the city, I get very nervous, because no government agency is like a business, and we shouldn't pretend otherwise.

I was also quite troubled by Lewis' response to a question about whether or not the City Council should reconsider having Portland participate in the Joint Terrorism Task Force. He indicated that the council ought to consider participating if the FBI is "more open" with the city about data. Uris, the host, rather pointedly criticized this stance and cited police over-reaction againt protestors in Minneapolis, during the GOP convention, as a good example of where things like the JTTF actually lead. (In fairness, Fritz also waffled about the JTTF, making some vague remarks about holding more hearings.)

For better or worse, Lewis has become the favored candidate of the "all politicians are either incompetent or thieves" crowd. This isn't Lewis' fault, I suppose, but it does suggest to me that he has not been averse to playing the resentment card. And folks, in this election cycle, we are seeing (I hope) a clear rejection of candidates who stir up voters' resentments.

In the end, I decided to vote for Amanda Fritz.

While Amanda Fritz may well have an auditor's mentality, Charles Lewis, based on what I saw in the Willamette Week interviews, is simply an angry young man. His grudge against the Portland Development Commission clearly has a lot to do with his involvement in Ethos.

Lewis, as Joel Dan Walls put it, does play the "resentment card" for all it's worth.

Speaking of Ethos, no one in his right mind should consider Ethos an effective substitute for full funding of music programs in Portland Public Schools.

I did not support either Fritz or Lewis in the primary, and unfortunately have been left with the two of them to choose between in the general. It's a fairly easy choice: Lewis

I too listened to Lewis and Fritz on the Abe and Joe show and wanted to clarify Lewis' remarks regarding JTTF. Lewis said he supported the City not participating in the JTTF. I've included a link to the audio file:
http://kboo.fm/node/10019

Speaking of Ethos, no one in his right mind should consider Ethos an effective substitute for full funding of music programs in Portland Public Schools.

But where is this "full funding?" Portland voters, by passing property tax limit legislation (Ballot Measure 5), effectively slashed adequate public funds for important public programs.

And Charles, who saw opportunities for music education vanish, stepped up and did something productive. Thanks to Ethos, a lot of Portland kids, many of them low-income, learn to play instruments, and experience the significant developmental benefits of early exposure to music.

That's your "angry," "young" Charles - he stood up, took action, and made things better. Sounds great to me.

So would Fritz sit and wait for state money, or for Portland voters to rescind those property tax limitations they voted in, while Portland kids just do without..? (It might keep a few more beans in the city jar...)

I can assure you that Charles Lewis is not an "angry young man" and that is not his motive for running in this election.

Yes, his complaints against PDC are fairly well known. However, if you look at his background (Political Science degree; Masters in Public Policy; internship with Senator Mark Hatfield; ombudsman for Mayor Katz), it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that he would eventually run for political office someday.

I've had quite a few conversations with him and I don't sense any trace of "anger". I've known people with a chip on their shoulder or have "anger issues" and Charles is not one of them. He's running for the right reasons and even the Oregonian seems to want to see him in political office someday. The question is...why wait?

Charles should boldness when he announced his campaign months before Mayor Potter or Commissioner Adams indicated their intentions in the upcoming election. Everyone else waited until those two made a decision before they jumped into the race. What that tells me is that Lewis is a bold decision maker. Anyone who dismisses his ten years work starting up and operating Ethos Music Center, well...I'd like to see you try to establish your own non-profit organization without any funds and see how successful you would be. I know I couldn't do something like that. I would like to see more of that kind of boldness in City Hall.

Fritz's natural abilities seem to be looking at the details and getting bogged down in minutaie, thus why I can see her as being a perfect City Auditor. For City Commissioner? No thanks.

I've met Charles Lewis before and got a very bad impression.

He was arrogant, and gives feel good answers about hard choices like paying adequate taxes for our transportation system. He said we just need to be more efficient and can get the job done. Sorry, that rhetoric is way too Republican for me. Glossing over hard decisions that must be made is to some extent understandable during a campaign, but his statements about various components of the city's budget have been very misleading or simply uninformed.

He has absolutely no public sector experience, and does strike me as an overpriveleged white guy who feels entitled to represent a populace he doesn't know that much about. You get the feeling that he feels that because he went to Harvard that he is ready for the job. Sorry, but while that is a nice little resume item, it is not sufficient experience to be in city council.

I am not sure what it is- another person posted that he is an angry young man - but something about him deeply rubs me the wrong way.

Maybe some of it was the way he took pot(hole)shots at Mayor-elect Adams early in the race. Talk about personal opportunism and not working for an overall progressive movement! Sam is a good one that does not need shots from his own side.

He strikes me as deeply ambitious, but not in a good way. And he does seem to have a chip on his sholder of some kind.

But please, do not invoke Bobby Kennedy in one breath and employ the conservative rhetoric of bashing taxes in th enext.

I am all for underdogs, but this one deserves to lose. I hope he stays out of local politics in the future.

Amanda is detail oriented, that's for sure. But I think we need more of that on the city council. Commissioners usually "broad brush" the proposal and they fail to dig in and find the unintended consequences that often result from the details. I'm convinced Amanda will be a tireless watchdog when it comes to city contracts, etc.

In addition to her prior experience on the planning commission, Amanda has also been tireless when it comes to participating in council meetings and keeping us informed of the goings on through her blog.

She would make a good auditor, for sure, but she isn't a CPA so that precludes her running for that position.

Charles Lewis is an appealing man who has done a lot of good. He needs to take the next two years to mature his positions and broaden his issue base. If he's in it in 2010 I'll be giving him a good long look. But for this election, my vote went to Amanda.