Portland Mercury 2024 Election Preview

From the article:

Sandeep Bali is a pharmacist who said he specializes in HIV, Hepatitis C, drug addiction and mental health treatment. Bali is one of three people to announce their run for a seat in the 3rd Portland City Council District, which mostly encompasses the southeast part of the city. Bali lives in the Laurelhurst neighborhood. 

This isn’t Sandeep Bali’s first time running for Portland City Council: he vied for Commissioner Dan Ryan’s seat in the 2022 primary and received 7.9 percent of the vote, coming in third place behind Ryan and A.J. McCreary. Bali is running for office in 2024 for many of the same reasons he ran in the last election cycle: In an email to the Mercury, he cited “ubiquitous homelessness, record-breaking violence and crime, shuttered businesses, and piles of trash and garbage” as embodiments of what “Portland has become.”

“The city has been negatively impacted by the policies of City Council. I’d like to try to turn things around,” Bali wrote in an email statement, adding that he believes city officials have “put out a message that people can come to Portland and freely camp, use and sell drugs, and commit crimes without being held accountable.” (It should be noted that in recent months, Portland City Council has passed several anti-camping policies and many current members of the City Council have come out against public drug use.) 

Bali is the founder of a nonprofit organization called Next Level, which provides $4,000 scholarships to three students pursuing careers as front-line health care workers at Bali’s alma mater, Pacific University. 

Bali said he supports the new charter reform system, but wants to see new people take on leadership roles. 

“As long as the cast of characters remains the same, I feel it’s akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic,” he wrote. 

Bali said he decided to announce his run early in the election season because he “wants Portlanders to know [he] is serious about moving our city forward.” 

“It's time to get Portland back to being a city that every member is proud to live in. Portland is in crisis now,” Bali said. “I am passionate about meeting the needs of every portlander, including the ones that reside in district three.”