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Commissioner Amanda Fritz prepares for a day of meetings in her City Hall office in 2013.
(Michael Lloyd)
Ending speculation about her political future, recently widowed Portland Commissioner Amanda Fritz has decided to run for re-election in 2016 and will use money from her late husband's life insurance policy to help finance the campaign.
Fritz, 56, had previously declared that she would not seek a third term on the City Council. But Fritz changed her mind after her husband, Steve, died in a September car crash.
With the couple's retirement plans gone in an instant, Fritz said she now wants to remain in City Hall and hopes to make something positive from her loss, continuing to push for citywide equity, smart money management and police reforms.
"Because his death was an accident, I have a sizable life insurance payment," Fritz said Tuesday, in advance of her formal announcement. "And I know that he would fully support my putting that toward another re-election campaign."
Without public money to run for re-election in 2012, Fritz – who is known to despise fundraising – took the unprecedented step of largely self-financing her political campaign. Fritz accepted individual campaign contributions of up to $550 per person but said she and her husband, a state psychiatrist, ended up sinking about $300,000 of their own money into her campaign.
Fritz said her husband had picked up extra shifts, working the equivalent of two full-time jobs, in the years since to help rebuild their savings. Steve Fritz died Sept. 24 while commuting to his job at the Oregon State Hospital in Salem.
Fritz said she is putting away the bulk of her husband's life insurance money for retirement but will dedicate cash from a "sizable" supplemental insurance policy to help pay for her campaign. She also plans to accept campaign contributions, although she hasn't decided on a per-person maximum.
"It's enough to cover an election, even if nobody chooses to give me anything," Fritz said of her husband's supplemental life insurance policy. "I feel fortunate that I will get to run a campaign that will be on my terms. I'll continue to be beholden to voters and volunteers and not to moneyed interests."
Fritz said she decided to seek re-election after talking it over with her three adult children while on vacation in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, overlooking an oceanfront sunset on Christmas. The family paid for their trip after receiving a modest $3,500 life insurance payment under a policy taken out by AFSCME Local 3327, the union that Steve Fritz headed.
"Obviously, there's no entitlement to re-election," Fritz said. But "I believe I've earned another term."
Looking ahead, Fritz said she wants to focus on fully implementing police reforms under a settlement agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice and work with the public to set priorities for spending a $68 million parks bond measure approved by voters last year.
Fritz said she will also continue pressing for wise city investments, including a policy headed to the City Council on Wednesday to dedicate half of surplus money to maintain or improve existing assets.
Known for her tireless work ethic – and to personally respond to emails from Portlanders – Fritz acknowledged the therapeutic nature to her City Hall work.
She said she's particularly excited about options to provide more psychiatric help to residents in a mental health crisis, including improved emergency services.
"Frankly," she said of the effort, "it's been one of the things that's been motivating me to get out of bed for the last four months."
-- Brad Schmidt
bschmidt@oregonian.com
503-294-7628
@cityhallwatch