Hillsboro City Council Will Interview 5 Of 10 Candidates For Ward 1 Tonight And Fill Vacancy Without Hearing From All

Careful- Opinions and Statements of Research base facts offered from this point on.

UPDATE: Mr Cristian Salgado wins the Ward 1 Seat with a vote of 5-0 after a strong application, a passionate interview, and his focus on rooting out Bias and inequity in Hillsboro. He is a immigration success story and will give the Council a man of Color who reflect the Hispanic and Latino composition of oir City. He is the father if a young son and has lived in Hillsboro near the Fair Ground and Airport. since 2021. Congrats to Councilor Salgado and may you serve oir City well. #Hillsboro #CityCouncil #2025

A week ago, the Herald reported on the Hillsboro City Council vacancy in Ward 1, created when Mayor Beach Pace moved up from her Council seat. Someone had to fill her spot. The City posted about the opening in December, and the Herald ran a story early this year encouraging people to apply. Incredibly, ten applicants stepped forward to put their names in the hat. This a surprising outcome when we consider the fact that no one ran against the new City Commissioner, Saba Anvery, when she ran for the other seat in Ward 1 last Fall. Why 10? And why now?

Ten Citizens File For Hillsboro City Council Seat Vacated By New Mayor Beach Pace

No matter the reasons, the pool of 10 candidates was the topic of the first City Council meeting on January 7th. Instead of using the rules in the City Charter to fill a vacancy, the new council crafted a special resolution to handle this situation. Resolution 2870 was approved and has been activated. Here are the highlights of what it required:

Section 1. That the selection and appointment of a Council Member to fill the vacancy in Position A, Ward 1 shall follow the process set forth herein:
1. The application period was open on December 6, 2024, and ended on January 7, 2025, at 5 pm.
2. The City publicized the vacancy and the Council’s request for letters of interest via various methods including an announcement on the city website and through social media, including announcements in various languages.
3. Council will individually review copies of any received applications, and each councilor may select up to five individuals to move forward to an interview. Selections are due to the City Recorder by January 14, 2025 so that the Recorder may notify individuals who are most likely to be interviewed.
The selections of each individual councilor will not be shared with the Council as a body until the January 15, 2025 special meeting, discussed below, in order to avoid any public meeting issues.
4. Council as a body will review individual councilor selections and vote on who it wants to interview during a special meeting on January 15, 2025.
The Council will conduct interviews that same evening. 5. Council will make an appointment by vote on January 15 or January 21, 2025. The swearing in ceremony will be conducted on January 21, 2025

City Hall – Photo by Dirk Knudsen – Hillsboro Herald

As a result of this resolution and the way it was crafted, 5 brave Hillsboro citizens are being passed over and told “No Thank You” by our newly seated Council without ever having a chance to be seen, heard, or asked questions. In th age of DEI, this is a bad look. In a City Hall that has been speaking of Communication and Opportunity for all, Equity, Inclusiveness, this looks more like the Cool Kids VS the Outcasts.

Intended or not, this writer believes that all 10 who stepped up needed to be heard. In essence, this Resolution allowed a rank choice selection process in which five citizens were selected to move ahead, and five were excluded. As of this morning, the Herald’s Public Information Request for the names of the five who made it to the finals tonight has not been responded to.

Tonight, five people will walk into City Hall and sit for interviews. By the night’s end, we may have a new Councilor. The Council can agree to reflect on the interviews and provide 1 week for reflection and thoughtful analysis of what they hear. The public, including all of us who live here in Hillsboro, will not be allowed to testify, but given a week, some of us may wish to send messages to our city councilors that can provide context or input. Again, an inclusive, open, and transparent process would demand that at a minimum.

Message To The City Council: 1-14-25

I attempted to communicate with the City Council and address my concerns as any good citizen should do. Yesterday, I used the CONTACT form to send this message to the City Council and Mayor Pace:

Hello Mayor Pace and Hillsboro City Council,
I am writing to you to express some concerns about the selection process you are all going into tomorrow night for the replacement Councilor for Ward 1. Resolution 2870, as passed by Council crafted for filling just this seat. As a result, I have to ask WHY?
What was wrong with the process we had already?
I understand that the process in Section 3 States: “Council will individually review copies of any received applications, and each councilor may select up to five individuals to move forward to an interview. Selections are due to the City Recorder by January 14, 2025 so that the Recorder may notify individuals who are most likely to be interviewed. The selections of each individual councilor will not be shared with the Council as a body until the January 15, 2025 special meeting, discussed below, in order to avoid any public meeting issues.”
That said, nothing in this resolution that I can see would prevent any or all of you from lobbying for specific candidates, talking to applicants or meeting with them, talking to other Councilors, and forming a decision or strong opinions before the meeting on the 15th.
The Hillsboro Herald is aware of some who have been denied and some who have been asked to come for an interview. In the public interest and to assure an equitable outcome, realizing three you and Mayor Pace campaigned together as a Cohort and are likely to select Mayor Pace’s replacement and vote together, I am asking for the following:
1) Please publicly disclose any discussions or meetings you have had together, with Mayor Pace, or with any of the ten Candidates PRIOR to the meeting on 1-15-25.
2) Please consider not voting on 1-15-25 but rather reflecting on the interviews and making your selection on Jan, 21st, 2025. The Public has a right to know who made it to the final 5, and to hear interviews and debate amongst you as to who to select as being best for the City of Hillsboro.
Best of Luck!

Of course, I have received no responses. For the record and for those who do not know, the political races this past Fall for the Mayor’s race and City Council seats were contentious and hard fought. It makes sense that Mayor Pace will want someone in her seat who will support her policies and agenda items. A known entity would, of course, be good for her. And new Councilors Case, Harris, and Anvery ran as a part of her Cohort last fall – ran on the same platform. Returning Councilors Kipperlyn Sinclaire and Olivia Alcaire wanted to move the City differently on several issues. Tonight, we will see how the vote goes. We could see a 3 to 2 split right down the lines- politics are what they are.

Candidate Taneisha Redmond is Out already –

Taneisha ran for Mayor of Hillsboro last Fall, and with no organization or money and no campaign of any kind, she garnered over 25% of the Vote. She notified the Herald that she received a notice from City Staff that she could not receive enough support to qualify for the interviews tonight. That is too bad. She is a great community connector, is high on communication and inclusion, and she is Black. She deserved a chance to be heard tonight. Undeterred, she plans to stay involved with Hillsboro, serve the community, and make decisions about her future soon. Still Redmond, who could have been our 1st Black City Councilor, and she deserved a chance,

Lynn Coffin Is In-

The Herald received notice that candidate Lynn Coffin was invited to attend tonight, and we have confirmed that.

Seven Are Left who could make the list- The list of 10 below is where the Final Three will come from.

April Davis

Brian Osborn

Donavon Miller

Kurt Williams

Lori Rice

Lucas Sconyers-Rabadan

Lynn Coffin – Invited To Final 5

Maria Mondragon-Almy

Taneshia Redmond – OUT – Not invited

Cristian Salgado – He is in – he surfaced after the story published and sent his resume. See below-

The Inside Scoop?

This is pure hearsay from two or three town watchers. Cristian Salgado, who filed for this council seat, has been seen with some power elite often associated with Mayor Pace and others. Word on the street is that Salgado has an inside Track. He has been a Strategic Manager at INTEL, a Senior Consultant at PGE, and now holds a Senior Broadband Investment Coordinator position at Washington County. He ran for Beaverton City Council in 2021 and served on a committee in Beaverton. But with that work history, he could be expected to play nice with Intel, PGE, which has come under fire recently, and governmental agencies. Will he grab three votes and fill out the Council? Who knows.

(Update: Mr Salgado contacted the Herald shortly after the story went live and shared his resume. It is impressive, and clearly, he is well-qualified to lead. These resumes were not made available to the public, so we will not publish them here. They should have been, and the public deserves to see them. His story is a powerful immigrant story. He became a US Citizen in 2019 and has lived in Hillsboro since 2021. We are glad he is being offered a chance for an interview and made the Top 5. )

To conclude – I do not like the process. Kicking 5 of 10 to the curb without an interview seems lazy and anything but inclusive. But that decision was made by this new Council and Mayor Pace, and so now they own it. I am unconvinced this was the right path and would like answers to my questions. Projecting that this process is happening in a vacuum until 5:30 PM Tonight and not restricting internal discussions between the Council members or between the Council and any or all of the Ten candidates looks pretty disingenuous. Saying that this encourages Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, is a false narrative. You actually have to act upon those policies and words. And those who speak them need to mean them and own them in everything they do. So far this has not proved any of that.

I can only report what I see, hear, read, and research. I wish all of the ten well, and I hope that you all step up to lead our community in the future in any and all ways possible. If any of you are on this list and are moving to the final five or have been aced out and you want to let me know, email me at HillsboroHerald@gmail.com. We will update the article immediately.