Remembering former Portland Mayor Bud Clark

Bud Clark was best known as the owner of the Goose Hollow Inn when he ran for mayor in 1984 with the slogan “Bud Clark is serious.” Shocking many in the Portland political establishment, he won the primary and went on to serve two terms. Clark was beloved as someone who brought a sense of whimsy to City Hall and also got a lot accomplished, including funding for the Oregon Convention Center. He died on Feb. 1 at the age of 90.

We hear memories of Portland’s “citizen mayor” from former Portland City Commissioner Mike Lindberg and Multnomah County Chair Deborah Kafoury, whose mother, Gretchen Kafourey, served on the Portland City Council while Clark was mayor.

The following transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer:

Dave Miller: From the Gert Boyle Studio at OPB, this is Think Out Loud. I’m Dave Miller. Bud Clark died yesterday. He was 90 years old. In 1984, Clark was elected Mayor of Portland. He had never held political office before. His big claim to fame was running a beloved bar, the Goose Hollow Inn. But Clark ended up serving two terms and became an iconic part of Portland’s history. We’re going to get two remembrances of Bud Clark right now. We’re going to start with Mike Lindberg who served on the Portland City Council from 1979 until 1996, overlapping with Clark’s time as Mayor. Mike Lindberg, thanks for joining us on a somber day.

Mike Lindberg: Thank you, Dave.

Miller: Do you remember where you first met But Clark?

Lindberg: Yes, Before I was elected to the City Council, I was one of the many people who went to the Goose Hollow Tavern and had conversations with him then, and was able to see him in action in terms of his curiosity, his intellect, and get a lot of his views in terms of what he thought about the future of the city.

Miller: What was he like in action as a Publican? A great word.

Lindberg: Well, he primarily focused on his business, but he started the Northwest Neighbor Newspaper. He started the Neighborhood Association. I saw him personally in action trying to,  let’s say, develop more responsibility on the part of individual citizens, to take control of their future, to improving their neighborhood.

Miller: What was the Goose Hollow Inn like in those days?

Lindberg: That was pretty wild actually, very noisy, very loud. It was a place where people gathered that were involved in arts and culture, literature, city, county government. It was just sort of a hotbed of great conversations.

Miller: What did you think of his plan to run for Mayor?

Lindberg: Well, when I first heard it, I thought it was very unlikely that he would have a chance of winning. But as I found out more about his campaign, that he actually had a strategy to run a stealth campaign where the current mayor at that time would not even know that somebody was really running a serious campaign and I heard about it is that, but Clark had a plan to go to every tavern in the city of Portland and sit down and really not do a lot of drinking, just tell people he was running for mayor, get their ideas and when you think about the number of taverns, the number of people he reached that way, It was pretty astounding.

Miller: How big an upset was it for somebody who had never held political office to beat an incumbent mayor?

Lindberg: Well, particularly at that time, It was almost unprecedented. And I think it was a combination of Frank Ivancie not being very popular, but Bud Clark ran an incredibly strategic campaign. For example, I had my toughest election in 1984 and every time I had a coffee or house party or went to an event, he looked at it as an opportunity to meet more people. Every time there was a neighborhood event or a parade, like the St. John’s Parade, in fact, that was one of the first times I think that people understood that he was probably going to have a good chance of winning in that he was roundly cheered and Frank Ivancie was booed during that campaign, which of the parade, which was just a couple weeks before the election.

Miller: What was Bud Clark like as a colleague?

Lindberg: He really proved that you could have a well managed city by a larger than life, charismatic personality. There was no one better that I worked with, in terms of numbers and budgets. What he was like was very collegial. He didn’t care who got the credit as long as we got things done. He basically had the City Council working as a team. He not only met with each of us once per week, but every year we had a two day retreat with a professional facilitator where we would make sure that we were rowing the boat in the same direction. So what was our vision? What was our goals, What was our action plan? Who was going to do what? It was very impressive. He was very impressive as a manager.

Miller: You had already been on the council for five years or so when he was elected. What was his learning curve, everything you’re saying is… it’s the story of an amazingly outgoing guy who seemed to just thrive from the beginning, but I imagine he had to learn the ropes?

Lindberg: He did, but he had so many things going for him, many people didn’t know. He had a very deep person with a tremendous intellect. Plus he was a historian about the City of Portland, the whole Columbia River Basin, the Willamette Basin. He was an environmentalist. He basically came in with a vast degree of knowledge and in addition to that, he was the only council member, whether it’s been one since I guess who actually went to school at Portland State once he was elected, but before he took office, in public administration. So he was willing to admit, ‘I don’t know everything. I’d like to learn more about how to govern,’ and so that really impressed me. He also went on the Johnny Carson show as you probably know and was interviewed about it because it was so rare for somebody to go back to school before taking office.

Miller: And made his ‘Whoop, whoop’ sound, apparently flummoxing Johnny Carson. Where would you put Bud Clark politically, how would you define his actual political vision?

Lindberg: So I think he had very strong values, which he expressed; the fact there’s a plan. I think it’s over at the Convention Center, that talks about what are the most important things –  they were family, community, the environment, making sure that businesses function, and he very much was into the livability of neighborhoods and took a very hard line in terms of keeping the city clean, making sure that  citizens were involved. So the accessibility was incredible, and that was really a breath of fresh air when everybody felt like it was bubbling up to the surface, anybody that had ideas could stop Bud while he was riding his bike or catch him in the Goose Hollow Tavern, he’d listen to their ideas and bring them back to City Hall.

Miller: What do you see as his lasting impacts?

Lindberg: I think he certainly had the projects he accomplished like the Oregon Convention Center, but I think the lasting impact and why he’s so loved by people even to this day is because he believed so much in the citizens of Portland and their values and judgment and he really was great in terms of citizen involvement, whether it be listening to the Neighborhood Association, whether it be having hearings that went till midnight where everybody had their turn to testify. He really went in with a real open mind rather than somebody that thought that he was a know it all.

Miller: Do you have a favorite Bud Clark story?

Lindberg: Well, I spent a lot of time with him, actually, after he left office. We actually did kind of a speaking tour together where we spoke to three or four different organizations and before we’d do that, he could tell me, Mike, you know, we need to plan for this. Why don’t we get together? Why don’t you bring an outline where you think I have to talk about? So we have a pre-meeting at Cassidy’s or somewhere, get on the agreement, what we’re gonna do and then we would arrive to speak. Usually he forgot his notes and then he basically would just start telling stories – how he got elected, how the ‘Expose Yourself to Art’ Poster happened. People would be so engaged and start laughing and they just loved what he was doing, that you just really couldn’t plan on a set speech. And I just thought that was so refreshing. I really enjoyed it. And that’s kind of the way he actually got the Convention Center launched. There was 1,000 people waiting to hear him speak. We were walking over where he was going to speak and he said, ‘Oh, I forgot my speech’... he asked, turned to somebody and said, ‘What should I say to all the people involved in the hotel hospitality industry and everything.’ And they said, ‘tell them you’re going to build a Convention Center.’ So he got up and he said that and everybody stood up and started applauding. So that was vintage Bud Clark.

Miller: Mike Lindberg, thanks very much for sharing some memories with us. I appreciate it.

Lindberg: Thank you.

Miller: That’s Mike Lindberg, he served on the City Council from 1979 to 1996. If you’re just joining us, we’re talking right now about Bud Clark, The Barkeep turned Mayor who led the city of Portland from 1985 until 1992. He died yesterday. We’re going to get one more remembrance right now. Deborah Kafoury is the Chair of Multnomah County. Her mother, Gretchen Kafourey served alongside Bud Clark on the City Council in the 1990s Deborah Kafoury thanks for joining us.

Deborah Kafoury:Thank you, Dave.

Miller: What is your first memory of Bud Clark?

Kafoury: Oh, first memory, it’s hard to say. I’ve known him probably my entire life. I just remember as a child, my sister and I used to comment how much he looked like Santa Claus because he had this big beard, obviously was whiter in his older years, but he had a big beard. So we thought he looked just like Santa Claus.

Miller: You’ve called Bud Clark, the ‘People’s Mayor,’ What do you mean by that?

Kafoury: Well, in my lifetime, before Bud, mayors were downtown businessmen in suits and stiff, kind of, very professional and Bud was nothing like that. He was a peoples’ person. He loved people. He was always interested in hearing your story. He wanted to know about you as a person and it just was really different than we had had before in this community.

Miller: You come from a political family, so I imagine you soaked up plenty of lessons from your parents, but what did you learn specifically from Bud Clark?

Kafoury: He was a very authentic person. He was who he was and he didn’t try to be anything else. I think the story that Mike Lindberg just told about going to be giving speeches, he didn’t try to fit into a mold of what people wanted him to be. And I think that that’s what politicians and elected officials today should. try to emulate as well, is that you don’t have to be somebody else. People are looking for that authentic, real, down to earth person that they can connect with.

Miller: It helps if they actually like the authentic version of you, though.

[Combined laughter]

Miller: It seemed like that was the case for Bud Clark. I was struck by something that Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty, City Commissioner. Hardesty mentioned on Twitter as part of her remembrance of Bud Clark. She said that she will miss his sense of optimism for Portland. I’m wondering if you think that optimism was really specific to Bud Clark or if it was more reflective of the time.

Kafoury: Oh, I think both. I think he loved this city so much that he would run for mayor when many people didn’t think that at first that he had a shot. But I do think it’s something at the time, but I do believe it still exists now. I think we’re hearing a lot of negativity about our city and about people’s frustrations, but I think Portlanders are an optimistic group and we believe in our community and we believe in our city.

Miller: How do you think that Bud Clark shaped the city of Portland?

Kafoury: Oh gosh, so many ways. He had this persona that was a larger than life persona, but the people loved him because he was funny and he was friendly, but he was also wicked smart and he brought back the city from real financial troubles and he got the city’s finances in line. He did some of the things like Mike Lindberg was talking about with the Convention Center.

But he also started the city’s focus on ending homelessness. I think that was one of the areas that he had a lot of assistance from my mother on, the 12 point plan, it was really the first attempt that I know of, by the city government to address homelessness and that’s why one of the reasons why years later late Commissioner Nick Fish suggested naming the Bud Clark Commons after Bud Clark.

Miller: Deborah Kafoury,  Thanks for joining us today. I appreciate it.

Kafoury: Thank you.

Miller: Deborah Kafoury is the Chair of the Multnomah County Commission.

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