Read Gosia Wozniacka’s reporting on my campaign to be the next Multnomah County Commissioner for District 2 originally published on Oregonlive.com
Nathan Ong Norris, a hazardous waste technician and community organizer running for the District 2 seat on the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners, participates in a candidate debate at PCC Cascade’s Moriarty Auditorium in North Portland on Sept. 24, 2026. Photo Credit Mark Graves/The Oregonian
Nathan Ong Norris, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, wants the county to play a much bigger role in providing housing, childcare and other services, growing a local green economy and preparing for further climate change.
His campaign, which has amassed $27,000 in total contributions, has drawn notable support from labor and environmental groups, fellow democratic socialists and progressive elected officials, including city of Portland councilors Tiffany Koyama Lane and Mitch Green, the Sierra Club and the youth-led climate justice group Sunrise PDX.
At 32, Ong Norris — who has worked as carpenter, hazardous-waste technician, stagehand and cook — is running for public office for the first time, prompted in part by his frustration that the county isn’t doing more to help people and to prepare for emergencies.
He grew up in Portland but moved to New Orleans, where he lived through several hurricanes. The experience taught him “how people in a community go through disasters together,” he said, prompting him to return to Oregon where he completed a master’s degree in emergency management and community resilience.
He wants to expand the county’s emergency management and emergency shelter capacity — including using venues like the Moda Center to serve as mass shelters during disasters. He would also like to cover the arena in solar panels, which he said could provide emergency power and help offset electricity costs for families in historic Albina.
His proposals build on a county climate justice plan adopted this summer. It calls for increasing climate resilience and reducing carbon emissions. He wants to address risks at the fuel storage hub in Northwest Portland and chemical storage tanks along North Columbia Boulevard. He also hopes to create union jobs through green investments.
“I want to take the long view. A lot of the situations we’re in right now are because 50 years ago somebody said, ‘it’ll be fine or we’ll deal with it later’ and then we never really got to it,” he said.
To raise revenue, he suggests cutting some county senior management positions, taxing data-center construction and operations and charging companies for fuel storage at the Portland hub.
Rather than spending heavily on shelter beds, he said the county should prioritize eviction prevention and help develop social housing.
“The solution to homelessness is homes, everything else is secondary,” he said.