Bright Lights:
A Conversation on Design with the Mayoral Candidates 

Through one of Portland's roughest recessions and now its biggest building boom in history, the city has been lead by three one-term mayors in a row. The next one will inherit a rapidly changing urban landscape: skyrocketing rents, exploding inequities, and citizens' heartburn over clogging streets, deepening potholes, demolitions, and the ever-larger buildings rising next door.

But the next mayor also has opportunities to shape a new Portland: a hot economy, an influx of new businesses and highly educated newcomers, and vast areas of the city ripe for change.

Join longtime journalist and Yeon Center director Randy Gragg for an interview with the two leading job applicants: current County Commissioner Jules Bailey and current State Treasurer Ted Wheeler. Both are accomplished politicians and proven leaders. Both are often individually described as "the smartest person in the room." We'll probe their opinions about the planning, development, and design of the city, the latest burst of growth, and how they hope to shape the next Portland.

6 pm, Monday, January 11, 2016
Jimmy Mak's Jazz Club
221 NW 10th Ave, Portland
Doors open 5:30 p.m.
Suggested admission: $10

Students with current ID welcomed for free.

Reservations: [email protected]

Presented by UO John Yeon Center for Architecture and the Landscape and Portland Monthly

About Jules Bailey
An alumnus of Lincoln High School and Lewis and Clark College, Jules Bailey did his graduate work at Princeton University, earning dual master's degrees in public policy and economics, and urban and regional planning. After working as an economist in Portland, Bailey was elected to three terms as a State Representative from Oregon House District 42. In the legislature, he chaired the Joint Committee on Tax Credits, as well as the House Committee on Energy and Environment. In 2014, he was elected to represent District 1 on the Multnomah County Commission, which includes areas west of the Willamette River and the inner eastside south of Interstate 84.

About Ted Wheeler
Also a graduate of Lincoln High School, Ted Wheeler earned his undergraduate degree in Economics from Stanford University, an MBA from Columbia University, and a Masters in Public Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Before entering elected office, he worked in the financial services industry.  His career included posts at Bank of America and Copper Mountain Trust where he was a senior manager. Wheeler served as the Chair of the Multnomah County Commission from 2006 to 2010. In 2010, Gov. Ted Kulongoski appointed him State Treasurer. He was elected to that post two years later.

Upcoming Yeon Center programs and collaborations

February 6: Tsunagu, Kengo Kuma’s Architecture of Relationships, featuring Kengo Kuma and historian Botund Bognar. 2 pm, Portland Art Museum.

Complimentary tickets available at japanesegarden.com/events

March 7: Learning from San Francisco I—Gil Kelley, director of long-range planning for SF on the megacity it is becoming. 6 pm, Jimmy Mak’s 

The UO John Yeon Center for Architecture and the Landscape is devoted to inspiring future acts of visionary design and conservation. The Center presents major public programs on design and conservation and hosts programs at two properties designed by John Yeon: the Watzek House, Portland's only National Historic Landmark residence; and The Shire, a unique, 75-acre work of landscape design in the Columbia River Gorge.