Serena Cruz wants her old seat on the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners back.
The former District 2 commissioner and county chief operating officer is one of seven candidates vying for the North and Northeast Portland seat, with ballots due Tuesday, Nov. 3.
Cruz represented District 2 from 1999 through 2006 and was the first Latina elected to the board.
She returned to county government in 2021, when then-Chair Deborah Kafoury selected her as chief operating officer and director of county management after a national search, according to a Multnomah County announcement.
In that role she oversaw the chief financial officer, chief human resources officer and county budget director. She resigned from the COO post in 2024.
The seat opened after Commissioner Shannon Singleton chose to run for county chair instead of seeking reelection, according to OregonLive reporting compiled by Hoodline.
The other six candidates are Nabil Zaghloul, Nathan Ong Norris, Bri Williams, Herman Greene, Bruce Broussard and Anthony Robertson.
The election marks Multnomah County's first using ranked-choice voting. Voters can rank up to six candidates.
Cruz's background
The daughter of a Mexican immigrant mother, Cruz arrived in Oregon at age 4, when her parents moved to Eugene and worked picking fruit, according to the county announcement.
She earned a bachelor's degree in political science from Lewis & Clark College, a master's in public policy from Harvard University and a law degree from the University of California at Berkeley.
Before rejoining the county as COO, Cruz spent eight years as executive director of the Virginia Garcia Memorial Foundation, leading fundraising and advocacy for one of Oregon's largest federally qualified health centers.
After leaving the COO role, she founded Adelante Impact, a consulting practice advising government and nonprofit leaders, according to Portland Mercury reporting compiled by Hoodline.
Cruz has reported raising about $62,000 in campaign contributions, per Hoodline's account of OregonLive reporting.
Homelessness tops the platform
Cruz has called homelessness her top policy priority, particularly for people facing chronic homelessness, severe mental illness or addiction, according to OregonLive reporting compiled by Hoodline. She has proposed what she calls a "stabilizing-housing" option that would pair shelter with intensive services.
A tri-county point-in-time count on Jan. 22, 2025, found 12,034 people experiencing homelessness across the region, a 61% increase from the 2023 count, according to a report by Portland State University's Homelessness Research and Action Collaborative. Multnomah County accounted for 10,526 of those people.
The report noted that changes in how administrative data were incorporated substantially boosted the unsheltered tally compared with prior counts.
Cruz has said her first-year goal would be to bring the city, county, Metro, service providers and people receiving services together around a coordinated public-health approach, Hoodline reported, citing KATU.
Budget gap
The county faces a projected General Fund shortfall for fiscal year 2027, growing to tens of millions by fiscal year 2030. The Portland Civic Lab voter guide puts the FY2027 gap at $10.5 million and the FY2030 figure at $33.8 million.
Cruz has described the starting figure as $11 million and the 2030 projection as $33 million in an OregonLive opinion piece. Both accounts were compiled by Hoodline.
Cruz has said she would push to restore priority-based budgeting, an approach that ranks county spending against outcomes, Hoodline reported, citing KATU.
District 2 covers North and Northeast Portland. Ranked-choice ballots give voters in the seven-candidate field a new way to weigh in.
