Mark Gamba
Candidate for:
State Representative - HD 41
What drives me to seek an elected position
During my career as a photographer I was fortunate enough to become a contributing photographer to National Geographic, and I was seeing the effects of climate change occurring much earlier than any of the models predicted, I ran for office because I did not see anyone at any level of government responding to the Climate Emergency to the degree that is required.
During my service on the Milwaukie City Council as mayor, we passed one of the strongest climate action plans in the state and have taken many concrete steps to address it. During that time I became increasingly concerned about the impoverishment of over half of the population. So I’ve been working to do everything I can towards solving that. As mayor I set in process the building of 500 new units of new affordable housing and passed a $15 minimum wage before the state did. We were also the first city to make major zoning and code changes to encourage middle housing development.
Since winning my seat in the legislature, I’ve run bills that tie the minimum wage to the cost of the average one bedroom apartment, disallow application fees and helped nonprofits like churches build affordable housing on their properties. I’ve also run critical bills to spur the development of new renewable energy.
The first three priorities or issues I want to tackle
I will continue my work to end poverty, stop climate change and create much more affordable housing.
We will run our Houseable minimum wage bill again, along with our rental registry bill that will give actual data on rental costs and daylight the private equity ownership of rental properties. We will run our bill that outlaws rental application fees. We are currently running a workgroup designed to standup the first true and sustainable social housing program in the US. It will be designed to produce 10,000 housing units a year for sale at a price so that any working couple could afford the mortgage.
Our climate work will be focused on standing up a State Transmission Authority because BPA and the big utilities have failed to keep up with the load growth and we will not be able to build out the green energy necessary due to lack of transmission capacity. We have a workgroup starting which will determine the best path for speeding up the permitting of transmission and green energy.
The experiences and insights I will bring to the office
I’ve seen a great deal of the world, and not unlike the astronauts’ experience, I have a deep and abiding love for our amazing planet.
I’ve run a successful business and a city.
I am deeply steeped in issues ranging from transportation to energy production and housing.
I served the city of Milwaukie in various ways for about 17 years, 10 of those on the council. In that time we transformed our little city: A new net zero ready library, a new city hall, thousands of new housing units, miles and miles of bike and pedestrian paths, a thriving downtown and walkable neighborhoods.
What being a Democrat in Multnomah County means to me
It means addressing in real and tangible ways the biggest issues of our time. Climate Chaos, runaway homelessness and a degrading transportation system. It also means being proactive on our broken revenue system that is causing us to fail to provide world class education, mental health care and so much more. Furthermore, it means paying attention to issues that are not yet visible to the average person like our rapidly growing electrical load that left unaddressed will cause rolling blackout in the very near future. And it means protecting the residents of our state from Trump’s Gestapo; federal attempts to privatize our services and our public lands.