OWFP endorses Newberg city council candidates
As part of our commitment to building an Oregon that works for all of us, not just the wealthy and well connected, The Oregon Working Families Party has endorsed three candidates for Newberg City Council in the December 20th Special Election - Casey Banks (District 2), Jefferson Mildenberger, (District 4) and Stephanie Findley (District 6) - who are committed to strengthening our civic institutions on behalf of all Newberg residents!.
As working class Oregonians continue to find themselves left behind by economic policies that enrich economic and political elites at the expense of working families, political opportunists have placed extremist rhetoric at the center of political discourse across the state. Although Portland is often presented as a foil for this rhetoric, the battlegrounds of the cultural divide are often outside the metro area, where the disparity between working people and elites is no less dramatic, but is decidedly less visible.
Recently, the City of Newberg made national headlines for being such a battleground. Support from National groups like the Heritage Foundation facilitated the election of a school board that has consistently focused on divisive political issues at the expense of ensuring basic services like staffing and bussing. While the school district was embroiled in a monthslong process to ban the display of messaging in the schools specifically inclusive of LGBTQ+ and Black students, school board inaction on basic services such as transportation has left parents missing work because their children’s busses didn’t show up, and children stranded at school with no way to get home.
The Oregon Working Families Party is committed to opposing the rise of extremist division in non-partisan local election campaigns. Working people all over Oregon live in towns and school districts that are guided by volunteers elected to ensure that the basic institutions of local government serve everyone in the community. Sadly, as national groups seek to use local elections to inflame ideological division, we are increasingly seeing these important institutions guided by boards and councils that are failing to provide basic services. The burden then falls primarily on working families who rely on their cities to provide services like clean drinking water and their school districts to provide quality education, nutrition, and other resources for their children.
The voters of Newberg should reject the divisive rhetoric of outside special interests so that the City of Newberg can continue to serve the needs of all of its residents.
We urge you to vote for Casey Banks, Jefferson Mildenberger, and Stephanie Findley for Newberg City Council on December 20!
