Mark Gamba has reshaped his city’s politics. Now, he’s challenging Kurt Schrader in Oregon’s Fifth District.
Milwaukie has gone through a radical transformation in recent years. This once blue collar, conservative-leaning Southeast suburb of Portland has adopted a vision plan for a sustainable and equitable future that’s guiding city planning and decision-making at every step.
The city of just under 21,000 has banned single-use plastic bags along with polystyrene foam packaging at restaurants, established a $15-an-hour minimum wage for all city employees, and upped its investments in affordable housing, green spaces and biking infrastructure. In 2017, it was one of the first cities to begin using the 1% construction excise tax to fund affordable housing, after the Legislature made it possible. In the past year alone, it’s adopted several ambitious plans, including a Climate Action Plan with a goal of being a carbon neutral city by 2050; an Urban Forest Management Plan, which aims for 40% tree canopy coverage of the city by 2040; and a Housing Affordability Strategy aimed at boosting the construction of and access to affordable housing.
One person is recognized as the catalyst to this rapid metamorphosis: Mark Gamba, who in January began his second term as the city’s mayor.
Gamba spearheaded Milwaukie’s vision plan, which put the city on a path toward achieving its many goals. Completed with input from more than 1,000 community members, the plan earned Milwaukie an award for Good Governance from the League of Oregon Cities in 2018.
While Gamba is first to point out that he couldn’t have transformed the community without the help of other like-minded individuals, it’s no secret he orchestrated the groundswell of grassroots activism and engagement that made it possible. His determination for seeing his forward-thinking vision for the city through has pushed Milwaukie’s policy and planning actions at a speed government bodies rarely travel.
With a dedicated City Council and Milwaukie’s rebirth well underway, Gamba has now set his sights on Congress. Earlier this month, he filed to run against U.S. Rep. Kurt Schrader, a fellow Democrat. He’ll throw his campaign launch party in the Portland Waldorf School gym in Milwaukie from 6 to 9 p.m. April 19 – his 60th birthday.
But winning Schrader’s Fifth District seat in Congress will be no easy feat.
The district includes parts of the Portland metro region and the Willamette Valley, including Salem, and a stretch of central coastal counties. Schrader has represented the district since 2008. While 55% of constituents voted Democrat in the past election, the area is far more purple than blue, with about 41% voting for Schrader’s Republican opponent. Schrader’s success in maintaining his seat has been attributed to his ability to work across the aisle as Oregon’s most moderate Democrat in Congress.
But Gamba believes Democrats in the district – tired of a representative known to stray from his Democratic counterparts in Oregon and vote with Republicans from time to time – are ready for a more progressive representative.
In 2015, shortly after a GMO-labeling bill was narrowly defeated in Oregon, Schrader was a key co-sponsor of a bill that now prohibits states from requiring GMO labeling on food products. Last year, he voted in favor of a bill to grant liquefied natural gas permits without delay, and he voted in favor of a bill to expand the definition of violent crime, a move many criminal reform advocates said was rushed and could have had harmful ramifications that would exacerbate mass incarceration, had it passed. Earlier this year, Schrader again broke from other Oregon Democrats when he voted yes on a bill to require that ICE be alerted when background checks are run for gun purchases. He was also the only Oregon Democrat to support the Resilient Federal Forests Act, which would sidestep public oversight and weaken environmental laws in order to streamline large-scale thinning and logging projects on public lands.
“(Schrader) doesn’t fight for any of the things we care about. When he engages, when he actually does something, it’s to the benefit of his funders,” Gamba said. “Timber industry, pharmaceuticals, Monsanto, big ag – every time he’s actually done a thing, it’s around that.”
FURTHER READING: Rep. Schrader: GOP's health care bill would have returned us to ‘dark ages’
Schrader’s campaign already has $2.4 million cash on hand as Gamba begins fundraising, and the incumbent’s top contributors in the last election cycle were the health care, pharmaceutical, forestry and forest products, insurance, and oil and gas industries, in that order. Whereas less than 3% of Schrader’s donations came in the form of small individual contributions, Gamba has pledged not to take any corporate cash but rely on grassroots support and small donations for his campaign.
And he’s not worried. He said people are already coming out of the woodwork to support him following Oregon Public Broadcasting’s announcement of his candidacy on April 9.
“People who understand campaigns a whole lot better than I do think this can be won with $1 million, $1.5 million,” he said.
He’s just begun to build his staff and has secured Elizabeth Wilson, who served as U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer’s (D-Portland) national finance director for the past 11 years, to manage fundraising and compliance for his campaign.
“I think the Fifth District is a challenging one,” Lincoln County Commissioner Claire Hall told Street Roots in an email. “We’ve got some very blue areas, including Lincoln County, but the district also cuts through a lot of red areas, as well. I think Rep. Schrader has done a good job of balancing the competing voices and values he’s heard from his constituents.”
Gamba said his two main focuses as Milwaukie’s mayor, climate action and housing, are top issues along the coast and in the Willamette Valley – regardless of whether constituents there recognize the threat of climate change. People in those regions struggle to find affordable housing, fishing industries are sinking under changing oceanic conditions, and changing weather patterns pose significant risks to farmers.
And, he said, he can relate to conservatives in his district. He used to be one of them.
He was raised Catholic in the small town of Glenwood Springs, Colo., in the 1960s and ’70s. The son of a mining engineer and oldest of four children, Gamba grew up in a house that didn’t spare the rod but did encourage his interests and aspirations.
He started working when he was about 9 years old, helping the milkman with early-morning deliveries. He later got a paper route, then he went to work at his dad’s engineering firm, cleaning the offices during off-hours. For most of his teenage years, he worked as a lifeguard at the local hot springs.
While he didn’t know it at the time, he was dyslexic and struggled with reading in his early years. He’ll never forget the day he was pulled out of his second-grade classroom and was sent to a special-education class in front of his peers. It’s a moment that scarred him deeply. The placement wouldn’t last. A week later, he was returned; the teacher said he didn’t belong there.
Despite the challenge books posed, he read relentlessly in his youth, especially science fiction and everything by Edgar Rice Burroughs. He remembers spending many hours in the family’s library, sifting through old magazines. As a teenager, he decided he wanted to be a photographer at National Geographic one day.
When Gamba decides to do something, there’s a good chance he’s going to make it happen.
He began to learn skills he thought would be necessary to shoot for the iconic magazine. At 13, he was already the youngest certified scuba diver in Colorado, but he went on to learn mountaineering, whitewater sporting, kayaking, canoeing and other outdoor exploratory sports.
After earning a two-year degree in photography from Colorado Mountain College, he spent his 20s alternating between working various jobs to save up cash and taking off on photography expeditions. He twice traveled Peru’s Colca Canyon, second deepest in the world.
Eventually, National Geographic began to hire him, as did many other magazines, such as Sports Illustrated. His photography took him all over the world as he shot images for advertisers, journalists and outdoor sporting enthusiasts. It was lucrative, too. He remembers gigs photographing skiers in Aspen that paid as much as $5,000 a day.
Gamba eventually settled down in Milwaukie with his second wife, Chantelle Sims, in 2003. They chose the suburb for its K-12 Waldorf school, which Gamba’s three children attended.
Not long after the couple’s arrival, they began having conversations with friends over dinner about how their little town could improve. They saw potential that wasn’t being realized while dominant voices in the community were perpetuating antiquated ideals, tied to car culture and the status quo. Those conversations prompted Gamba to found a group called Milwaukie Understands Sustainable Transitions, or MUST.
Milwaukie resident Vincent Alvarez was present at the first meeting of MUST. He was concerned about pollution, traffic congestion and economic opportunities in the area. “We all had different concerns and wanted to know, what can we do about it?” he said.
Membership of MUST grew as Gamba recruited people he met around town who seemed to have a similar vision, and eventually members began taking positions on city commissions. Gamba was appointed to the planning commission, and then in 2012, he was elected to Milwaukie City Council.
Before that time, he said, he would have laughed if anyone asked him if he were interested in running for public office.
But his newfound interest in politics put a strain on his marriage.
“The biggest reason I wanted a divorce from Mark,” Sims said, “I literally got to the point where I was jealous he was spending so much time working for the citizens of Milwaukie. Because I felt like I wasn’t getting what I needed from him.”
The way she looks at it, she gave up her husband so that other people could have him, she said, but she’s supportive of his ongoing political pursuits. She remembers the time he would spend reading for hours through thick planning commission packets before meetings, despite his dyslexia.
“I think he was the only one who actually read it,” she said. “I really appreciated the effort and care he would put into the decisions he was making.”
Milwaukie City Councilor Wilda Parks, one of the council’s more conservative members, served on the North Clackamas Chamber of Commerce for 14 years before her election in 2015. She said Gamba has been good for business in the small city.
“People like what’s going on in Milwaukie,” she said. While the city hasn’t recently implemented an economic development plan, a lot of small businesses have been moving in, she said.
Parks credits Gamba with building stronger relationships between the city and other partners, such as the Oregon Legislature, Metro and Clackamas County.
“In addition to that, on the local level, his leadership and his vision – he has a very clear-cut vision about making Milwaukie the most sustainable community it can be, and at the same time making it a very enjoyable and satisfying community to be in.”
But she’s not sure if she’ll vote for Gamba over Schrader.
“That’s something I’ve been struggling with, and it’s not because I don’t think (Gamba) would be a good congressman. He’s running against someone that I know quite well,” she said.
Parks said she’s interested to hear from both candidates on certain topics before she makes her decision.
Gamba is running on a platform of universal health care and climate action – two issues close to his heart. In the course of his travels as a photographer, he experienced medical care in several other countries. He said the difference in access between the United States and even some developing nations, where he was quickly and effectively treated, is appalling. He sees Medicare for all as the easiest path forward, and one that would save millions while providing better and more accessible health care. He also thinks this is an issue he can relate to conservative voters. Climate change might be a harder sell with conservatives, but for progressive voters who want to see climate action, Gamba said that’s his red line in the sand. He said he won’t bend on climate legislation if he thinks the compromise will mean failing to stop climate change.
Shane Abma, a senior attorney at Metro regional government who recently left Milwaukie City Council after declining to seek re-election, said he’s seen Milwaukie become more progressive, transit oriented and livable since moving there in 2008. It was because he liked what he saw that he decided to get involved in local politics. He’s agreed to be the treasurer of Gamba’s campaign, saying he’s been impressed with the mayor since the day he decided to get involved.
“Where Mark and I tend to disagree is the speed in which we should move forward on certain issues,” Abma said. “Mark thinks boldly, and he has a vision and he is dogged in pursuit of that vision, and he’s very effective, and there were times when I felt he was perhaps a little farther out there than what your average Milwaukie citizen was ready to embrace.”
But, Gamba ran his last mayoral race unopposed, which Abma said wouldn’t have happened if there were significant backlash among Milwaukie’s residents.
Gamba is willing to compromise, Abma said, and talk things through when there have been disagreements on the council.
“At the end of the day, we have a lot of 5-0 votes because we reached compromise,” he said.
Those who know Gamba well say he wears his heart on his sleeve and he fights for what he believes in. He’s not afraid to be a little unconventional or stand out in a crowd, either. Alvarez remembers back in 2011, when MUST was advocating for plastic bag bans, Gamba wore a “plastic bag monster suit” to a Portland City Council meeting.
“The suit was very insulated, and he was sweating like crazy,” Alvarez said, laughing. But Gamba sat there and suffered through it until the meeting was over.
Since becoming mayor, he and his partner, Kendra Garinger, have participated in the World Naked Bike Ride, and during the kick-off for TriMet’s MAX Orange Line, he sat in a dunk tank where his constituents successfully soaked him dozens of times.
The first time Gamba met with Street Roots, it was during a downpour on a 35-degree Friday morning in March. He rolled up, his raingear dripping wet, to a coffee shop in downtown Milwaukie on his electric bicycle, which he rides almost everywhere he goes.
Bike Portland’s Jonathan Maus once called him “the loudest political voice for bicycling in our region.”
Gamba’s friends and family say his dedication to climate action and the environment guide much of the decision making in his personal life, as well as in his public life. It’s why he drives only when he has to, and it’s why he got into politics.
And put up he did.
“Mayor Gamba is truly a climate champion here and sets the bar higher, for what cities across Oregon can and should be doing to address the climate crisis,” said Meredith Connolly, Climate Solutions’ Oregon director.
She said Gamba was also integral in the effort to push TriMet to agree to move from diesel to electric buses. He helped spearhead Oregon Climate Cities, an initiative in partnership with Climate Solutions to empower local elected leaders throughout the state and to push for statewide climate action, as well.
“What I’ve seen Mayor Gamba be able to do is hold both a broad vision for where we should go, and then also bring forward what the practical solutions are that actually move the ball forward,” Connolly said.
In Milwaukie, that’s meant using green solutions to improve the city through policies around energy use, tree canopy, low-income housing, walkability and bike-ability. It recently broke ground on a new solar-powered library that will eventually produce as much energy as it uses.
“If the farthest I ever get is the mayor of Milwaukie and I did a Climate Action Plan and made one city more climate friendly, maybe by inference a few other cities around me, or the county or whatever, so be it,” he said. “But I will continue to fight this fight until either we solve it or I’m not breathing.”
Email Senior Staff Reporter Emily Green at emily@streetroots.org . Follow her on Twitter @greenwrites .
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