Fritz sworn in at Multnomah Center

By Shasta Kearns Moore

The Southwest Community Connection, Feb 1, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Amanda Fritz signs her name to an oath of office, becoming the newest member of the Portland City Council. Fritz signed her name with a pen from the labor organization AFL-CIO in a ceremony designed to emphasize the fact that she was first person in Portland elected with public campaign funds.

Shasta Kearns Moore / The Southwest Community Connection

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MULTNOMAH — West Portland Park resident Amanda Fritz — in a ceremony steeped in symbolism of the fact that she is the first publicly funded candidate to win a Portland election — signed her name into the history books at the Multnomah Arts Center on Jan. 3.

“The reason that you’re all here tonight is that you helped me get elected,” Fritz told the crowd.

Fritz had issued a citywide open invitation to the ceremony and about 250 attendees showed up. There, they munched on homemade cookies and lemon bars while they waited for the grand event — which included testimonials from friends and campaign organizers, rather than a celebrity keynote speaker.

In a gesture of gratitude and unconventionality, Fritz also had her campaign manager, Ellen Ino-Klaastad, become a notary public in order to officiate the signing ceremony, a role that is typically played by a municipal judge.

“Without her,” Fritz said of Ino-Klaastad, “I don’t think I would have been elected.”

In order to qualify for the $482,000 in public funds her campaign received, Fritz had to get 1,000 people to donate $5 — which she was the first to do, both in 2006 and 2008.

Fritz’s neighbor and a campaign volunteer, Rebecca Sawyer, said the signing ceremony was a good way to involve the many people who helped her get elected.

“It’s all people like me who put in $5 and a few hours here and there,” Sawyer said.

71 percent

The November election garnered 71 percent of the vote for the newest occupant of Position 1 on the City Council — the seat vacated by Mayor Sam Adams, who had his own signing ceremony two days later at Parkrose High School in Northeast.

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