City councilor-elect Olivia Clark on representing diverse interests in a diverse district

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) -- Olivia Clark easily won the top spot in Portland City Council District 4 in the city's first ranked-choice election.

Come January, the retired policy director for TriMet will be one of three city councilors in the district, encompassing Portland's west side - including downtown and Old Town - then crosses the Willamette River into the Eastmoreland and Sellwood neighborhoods.

A former legislative director for then-governor John Kitzhaber, Clark also co-founded CASA, the Community and Shelter Assistance program, which helps farmworkers and marginalized communities.

District Four has some of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Portland, but it also has some of the biggest problems, especially with homelessness and drug use downtown. As a result, Clark said her priorities are broadly in the areas of public safety and affordable housing.

"Public Safety means not just more police on the streets, but it really means making sure that the response time is improved, that if you dial 911, somebody actually answers the phone and somebody gets there within a reasonable amount of time," she stated. "The homeless issue is a part of public safety. It's not safe for people to be living on the streets, and it's not good for the rest of us either. And housing development, we need more affordable housing. We need to streamline our permitting process. I know the current city council has worked on that, but it's up to us to implement that."

One of the other big issues that's happening in downtown Portland involves the incredibly high office vacancy rate. Workers are not coming back downtown and some of landmark businesses such as U.S. Bank and the Portland Clinic are closing services due to safety concerns. Clark believes a solution to this is finding even more ways to bring people back.

"We need to have more housing downtown, we need to look at options for activating the storefronts that are empty downtown," she said. "But I'll be looking to the property owners, the Chamber of Commerce and others for ideas around how we activate what we've got."

Clark has previously said the city needs to "revisit the climate emergency action plan that allocates Portland Clean Energy Fund money to mitigate climate change." As a result, she is encouraging other incoming city council members to see how or if they would prioritize each of the items listed in the plan, all in the name of preparedness.

"One of the other things I've said on the campaign trail is that I want to make sure that all the city bureaus - particularly infrastructure bureaus - are ready for climate change, that they're prepared, that there's resiliency, redundancy," she said. "So for example, if the water gets cut off to my building, I want to know the water department, the water bureau, has a plan for how to restore that, because there are huge climate changes coming through."

Watch the full interview in the video above.