George Rheault is a write-in candidate for Mayor of Portland. He’s lived in Portland’s Bayside neighborhood for almost a decade and works remotely as a transactional attorney with active law licenses in the states of California and New York. Since he moved here, he’s been more involved in local politics than most other Portlanders, attending many city council meetings and workshops and contributing through the public comment system. While four out of the five other mayoral candidates have experience serving on the city council (which the mayor is a voting member of), George is the only candidate other than Dylan Pugh who would be serving his first term if elected.

Editor’s Note: The mayoral race is decided using ranked choice voting, a system in which you rank all candidates you wish to vote for. If your first choice is eliminated in initial rounds of counting, but no winner is selected, the vote you cast for your second choice is counted in the next round of counting. This continues until a winner is determined, which in Portland means one of two final candidates receives a majority of votes. To vote for a write in candidate, simply write their name on the line in the “write in” box and fill in the associated circle with the ranking of your choice.

What experience do you have that qualifies you to hold the office of Mayor of Portland?

As an experienced transactional attorney (private practice) and person familiar in investment management and corporate governance, I understand complicated negotiations and parties with dissimilar interests (often wildly so) trying to come to acceptable terms they can move forward under. Also, corporate attorneys, like journalists and politicians, often have to be quick studies of new issues they may not have dealt with previously. This requires absorbing lots of new information, data and viewpoints in short order so that you can move to decision points. As the primary “project manager” for the City Council, my mayoral role is to be as informed as possible and educate the rest of my colleagues fast. I think I bring a lot to the table here. 

What inspired you to run for office?

The rest of the field of candidates (those named on the ballot) are either incumbents (Dion, Zarro, Ali) or a representative of the status quo (Justin Costa). All of these gentlemen could have done a lot to have helped Portland be in a better position to handle its current challenges and did not. I do not believe they deserve a promotion when their message is effectively, “I have been sitting on my hands, but just make me mayor, and oh boy, you will see a different politician!” Dylan Pugh of course is in a different category. I do not believe he has spent much time thinking about Portland municipal government prior to entering the mayoral race. He is earnest but dramatically underqualified in my view and Portland cannot afford to get him up to speed when a new mayor must hit the ground running.

What made you decide to run as an official write-in candidate, rather than seeking signatures and appearing named on the ballot alongside your competitors?

As noted, I was dissatisfied with the candidate field and after Labor Day I decided that I could be depressed about that or I could try to make a difference by giving voters a SIXTH choice for mayor. I have a big hill to climb since some voters may believe I took the easy way, but there is nothing easy for a write-in candidate since every vote for me requires an extra step from a voter to write my name sufficiently clearly for the election clerks to recognize. All of the debate organizers have also refused to allow me to participate because I did not gather the 300 signatures required during the initial nominations process.

Are there issues on which you feel you diverge from the rest of the candidates? If so, what are they?

I want our city to be a high performer in everything it does. Right now our city elected officials are hesitant to dig deep regarding our city’s flaws and shortcomings for fear of looking bad or making city staff look bad. Yet we cannot do better if we cannot look under the hood and have honest conversations about making improvements. From our homelessness response to public safety to basic city services, I want us to understand deeply and from that understanding and homework find small and big ways to innovate and achieve more with less so we can do the many new things our citizens often demand.

Are there any changes you’d advocate for to the current homeless encampment sweeping guidelines, in either direction?

Nothing about our homelessness crisis will be fixed overnight or even greatly in the next several years. We need a lot more housing options (shelter, transitional and permanent) to move the needle and I want to focus on land-use reform to achieve more chances for new housing to accomplish this. Regarding sweeps, we have to recognize that our homeless neighbors cannot be harassed every few months and disrupted without them getting angrier and angrier and less cooperative with those who are trying to help them. Therefore I believe we need to create some well-managed designated campsites that have some reasonable expectations regarding hygiene and behavioral standards. It will require staffing and more resources, but it shows us being constructive rather than DESTRUCTIVE and will pay dividends down the road. 

Do you support establishing a city-run encampment site, as some residents have proposed?

Yes. 

Do you support adding more beds to the Homeless Services Center through zoning changes, as proposed by the City Manager?

Yes. In cases of severe storms and the chance that more homeless can be encouraged to use our shelter system, we need to have extra capacity. It should be temporary if we can get other things right to allow us to rely less on emergency shelter as a solution over time and move homeless into real housing options much more quickly than we are currently. 

How will you address the recent influx of asylum seekers?

This is a global issue. We need to bring everyone who is connected to this issue together to make sure the strains and burdens of being a destination are not made worse.

What are your solutions for adding more housing supply to Portland, given that there’s a 22,000 unit shortage of affordable housing alone in Maine?

We need to legalize housing across the city so that those who want to build housing find it worth their while to do the hard work that it takes to build housing in our high-interest rate climate.

Are there any issues you feel are important to the City, but not being discussed enough? If so, which ones?

The School Department is a primary responsibility of the City Council. The “school buck” stops with the City Council, therefore we have to be constantly mindful, if not on a day-to-day level like our School Board colleagues, on a super frequent basis, what are the long and short term needs of our public education system are and that we are keeping them front and center as we map out the rest of the city’s initiatives.

Are there any local groups or organizations you can see yourself working closely with? If so, which ones?

The door to the mayor’s office will be open to ALL during my tenure! 

Do you support reforming the citizen initiative/referendum process? If so, how?

Adding more signatures is not a bad thing. This will require referendums to have to build greater support AT THE BEGINNING so that greater attention is paid to what is being offered.