This spring we're sharing a series of candidate interviews regarding Portland's future and the arts.

City council candidate Chloe Eudaly has seen a lot change in the arts community since she opened her bookstore, Reading Frenzy, in 1994. Listen in as she catches us up on that history and gives us a peek into her vision for the future of arts and culture in Portland.

2:32 - Portland's future and how arts & culture play into it.
“If we don't have affordable housing for our low-income residents, for our workforce, for our artists and creatives, we are not going to have a vibrant cultural landscape left.”

5:50 - Do you think RACC is doing a good job?
“When I opened my bookstore in 1994, there were grants available for people like me…and those dollars have by-and-large gone away…I do feel that the city has really neglected this grassroots, kind of unacknowledged category of cultural workers.”

07:40 - On why small scale arts institutions are important:
“My pivotal cultural experiences did not happen at well-funded arts institutions, they happened at all-ages music venues, at quirky little bookstores, at cafes that had galleries in the back.”

09:00 - On how the 80’s and 90s inform her current thinking about expanding arts and cultural access across Portland:
“What was essential at the time for all of these really interesting, quirky, slightly improbable businesses—like mine or like the X-Ray [Cafe]—was cheap rent. Cheap relative to wages. That's really disappearing and I fear for what our cultural landscape will look like in a few years if we do nothing.”

14:27 - On strategies to improve residential real estate problems in Portland:
“I'd love it if the city and PDC could figure out a plan to assist with the succession of ownership within low-income families because that house is many people’s most valuable asset.”

23:23 - On the changes in the close-in SE industrial district:
“The tech industry doesn't need that neighborhood. I think the maker's community has a much more compelling argument for their need to stay in that area, and they are being displaced.”

24:50 - Is there a creative class war developing between artists and creative tech workers? As an elected official would you try to take sides or broker a peace?
“I’m more concerned with preserving existing communities and creating affordable spaces than I am with accommodating people coming in with a lot of capital.”

27:18 - On what can be done to ensure that public dollars in Portland are reaching everyone and not just white, middle-class audiences:
“I think it’s a real challenge to create equity in the arts community when we don’t have it in housing, and we don’t have it in schools, and people are being forced out to the edges of the city where there is little-to-no cultural programming going on.”

29:00 - On the Arts Tax:
“Whatever problems I might have with the tax, knowing that every kid [K-5] in Portland public schools is getting arts education goes a long way toward smoothing those concerns over.”
“I’d like to see the exemption raised…a graduated tax based on income, and I would like see more money going towards access....I do not support sending people to collections over the Arts Tax.”

31:30What would you do to influence the city's built environment. Tell us about one place in the city that's an example of something to work on or something to celebrate.
"North-Northeast Portland is one of the areas most impacted by gentrification and displacement."
"I have to wonder what African-American residents have to come back to."