Let’s keep it positive, people
Filed under: Articles by Ralph Carmona, Campaign Trail, Portland Issues
The sudden negative campaigning among established insiders in the Mayoral election, is as bad as the negative insider governance going on in City Hall.
It only confirms the credibility of my mayoral candidacy. I know the media loves this stuff – negative campaigning plays to Richard Nixon’s view that all good news is bad news. This is why my positive approach of experience, accomplishment and being the “outsider” is resonating with voters who do not have a score to settle or any skin in Portland’s insider game of politics. It is why Portlanders will elect me as their next mayor on November 8.
A month ago, we witnessed political gang-bang attack on the then perceived front-runner – a member of the city council. The past week, we have witnessed a former Democrat state legislator questioned about his civility, conviction, and sense of inclusion by another former Democrat state legislator and a Portland Chamber of Commerce PAC-supported Democrat political consultant.
I can tell you the voters hate seeing an establishment insider fragmented election just as much as they hate establishment insider fragmented governance.
A long time ago, I have learned that getting personal and dirty in campaigns is like wrestling with pigs. If you wrestle with pigs, you get dirty, smelly, and begin to look like a pig.
My intent, as I indicated when this negative campaigning started, is to conduct a nonpartisan positive campaign in the public interest. And my experience has long taught me not to wrestle with the pigs. This is why voters will look beyond the insider supporters and vote for an outsider with experience and accomplishment.
All 15 of us will have to work together once a mayor is elected. I look forward to being that mayor, but if the voters decide otherwise, I plan to work respectfully and positively with the person who is elected.
A fighter for Portland
Filed under: Articles about Ralph Carmona, Campaign Trail, Portland Issues
From The Bollard
Ralph Carmona is scrappy. The 60-year-old retiree grew up in East L.A. amid poverty, domestic violence and discrimination, and rose to become a lobbyist in Sacramento for Bank of America and a large public utility. He’s been active in civil rights issues, affirmative action and immigration reform, has taught political science at the college level, and served on the University of California Board of Regents.
Carmona has only lived in Portland about a year, but the Munjoy Hill resident wasted no time getting involved in community affairs. He’s been vice chair of the Portland Democratic City Committee, serves on the police chief’s community advisory board, is part of the Munjoy Hill Neighborhood Association and president of the Portland chapter of United Latin American Citizens. He and his wife have been active with groups including Portland Trails, the Portland Regional Chamber of Commerce, Maine Historical Society, and more.
Man, this guy can talk. He’s a natural salesman and a snappy dresser. At the Portland Club forum in September, Carmona, like Brennan, eschewed the podium and addressed the audience without written remarks. He called himself “the three S man,” saying he has the “spirit, basic smarts, and stamina” to be mayor. (Actually, that’s two S’s and a BS, but who’s counting?)
Carmona managed to get an hour-long, in-person meeting with Gov. Paul LePage to discuss the impact proposed state cuts would have on our city. He said he invited Mavodones to join the discussion, and that the mayor was initially excited to do so, but then failed to return phone calls for four or five days. Carmona said Mavodones e-mailed a day or so before the meeting to say he couldn’t make it and that perhaps another councilor would be able to attend, but none of them seemed to know anything about it, Carmona said.
“They’re not responsive and don’t take active leadership,” Carmona said of city officials. “I’m the outsider, the anti-establishment guy.”
The way to lower property taxes is to attract more business to the city by doing a better job marketing Portland to the world, said Carmona. He supported the Thompson’s Point tax break, and said that in evaluating future requests, “the bottom line for me is whether there’ll be increased revenue and jobs.”
On the topic of limiting chains, Carmona said “anyone should be invited” to do business here, but also said he would “reflect the concerns of the citizenry” and work to stop a chain or franchise from setting up shop if most people opposed it. He supports the bond to fix the civic center and feels the city should have been trying to find a new developer for the Maine State Pier “the minute” the previous proposals fell through. He added that he’d be comfortable having the city manager handle that deal as long as the Council is kept informed of his progress.
Carmona opposes any further loosening of waterfront zoning restrictions and would not support the sale of lobster bycatch, preferring to give groundfishermen a tax break equal to the revenue they lose by not being able to sell those lobsters in Maine.
In my own words in the Portland Daily Sun
Today, the city’s economic vitality has increased in spite of city hall governance. This election provides and validates a centralizing full-time policy leader among what are now nine part-time mayors. The key will be to move beyond the part-time mindset and fragmented process; especially with a weak mayor having few formal duties or powers. What will be significant is to have a mayor with the ability to bring consensus among the city council, city manager and the key constituencies they represent; someone who is not locked into insider political conflicts that undermines the need for common ground.
By bringing together these people and constituencies, the mayor can set a city agenda of immediate and long-term goals, and work to build and sustain buy-in to that agenda through respectful listening, persistent diplomacy and relationship-building. These are skills that require experience, patience, perseverance and honesty. Yet with the right person in the job, I believe it can be done.
Part of this involves serious consideration of each councilor’s district constituency concerns, city policies, and vision. It requires ideas on viable economic growth, efficiencies and making them a part of the lobbying effort for these changes. This means going beyond City Hall and its established networks to meeting with regional and state officials, beginning with Governor LePage, to garner support for Portland as Maine’s leading city. This is a form of indirect lobbying in city hall, Augusta and Washington, D.C. Key to this success will be elevating Portland’s national stature, as a leading nation’s mayor, for the city’s interests.
With Portland on the Rise as my agenda, city government can move forward working for the betterment of the city, making it a safer and more prosperous place for all of its citizens.
With Vana at home
Natalie Conn from The Sunday Best took this photo as part of a series on the candidates in places they value. My home is the place I treasure because it is where my wonderful wife Vana lives, and because it is a microcosm of the beauty and grace of Portland.
Interview with Jason Singer, Portland Press Herald
Filed under: Articles about Ralph Carmona, Audio, Campaign Trail, Videos
Thanks to Jason for taking the time to talk with me! I think this came out well, and I hope you’ll share it with others who haven’t made up their minds.
Absentee Balloting Set to Begin
Starting tomorrow (Thursday, Oct. 6), absentee ballots will be available at City Hall for those who wish to vote early or who can’t make it to the polls on Election Day. Voting early is a great way to make sure your civic duty gets done, and it’s also a convenience for people who may be elderly, disabled, or caring for small children. With so many candidates, this is likely to be a lively election, and voting early also means you won’t have to stand in line!
Registered voters can request an absentee ballot here, or call the City Clerk’s office at 874-8677. You can also vote early by stopping by City Hall during business hours (9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.) until Nov. 3.
Need more information about voting? Visit http://www.portlandvoters.com/.
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Carmona for Mayor
P.O. Box 15111
Portland, ME 04112-
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