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Candidate Martha emphasizes process redesign, prioritization and evidence-based safeguards for AI and ALPR
Summary
Martha (last name not provided in the transcript) told council she favors process redesign, stakeholder engagement and evidence-based policies to balance climate, homelessness and technology concerns; she stressed disclosure and human oversight for AI and called for sideboards and community buy-in for ALPR.
Martha, a finalist interviewed Jan. 13, emphasized process design, stakeholder engagement and defensible, evidence-based policies as tools to manage climate, homelessness, technology and organizational change.
Drawing on experience at Metro and in multiple Oregon jurisdictions, Martha described redesigning processes to start decision-making “from the ground up” so local jurisdictions propose growth projects that are ready for development rather than expanding into land that is hard to serve. She told council that successful regional work requires meaningful stakeholder engagement and noted a failed Gorge preservation effort where stakeholder alignment was insufficient.
On federal-state tensions, Martha said her approach was to avoid knee‑jerk changes and instead ground policy choices in data and legal defensibility while collaborating with the city attorney and federal representatives where needed. Asked about ALPR, she said the technology can have law-enforcement value but must be accompanied by community sideboards that build trust and protect privacy.
On artificial intelligence, Martha described a pair of local approaches: a tool that uses only the city’s data and does not send information back to external large language models, and a second tool that requires review for potential hallucination. She emphasized retention of queries for public records, staff training, ethical standards and mandatory human review; ‘‘you have to disclose when you use it,’’ she said.
Martha urged that council time be treated as a finite resource and recommended a formal annual goal-setting session with quarterly check-ins so the council can focus on chosen priorities and evaluate tradeoffs. She described a plurality of services as interdependent and recommended forcing concrete tradeoff discussions (for example, response times, level-of-service and where to allocate FTEs) rather than abstract debates.
She closed by recounting a local project misstep — moving quickly on a library relocation discussion without sufficient parent engagement — as a reminder to slow down and broaden stakeholder conversations.
Council thanked Martha and adjourned the special meeting; deliberations were scheduled for Jan. 14.
