Multnomah County Chair candidate Sharon Meieran in a photo provided by her campaign.
Courtesy of Sharon Meieran
Former Multnomah County Commissioner Sharon Meieran is running for the county’s top office.
Meieran told OPB she hadn’t initially planned to enter the November race for county chair.
“Running for office is not a pleasant thing,” Meieran said Tuesday, “but I care deeply about Multnomah County and I have firsthand frontline experience doing the work the county does and seeing the people who fall through the cracks.”
Meieran is an emergency room physician who represented the county’s westside on the board from 2017 to 2024. She previously ran for the chair’s office in 2022, but lost in a runoff election to Jessica Vega Pederson. Vega Pederson is not running for reelection.
Meieran said she had hoped to support one of the two top contenders in the race — Commissioners Julia Brim-Edwards and Shannon Singleton — but hasn’t been convinced by their leadership.
“I haven’t seen a plan, let alone even a basic outline from either of them how they would change the county if they were elected,” said Meieran. “They seem more interested in talking about being elected than doing what’s needed as chair.”
Meieran has long called for systemic changes to how the county addresses behavioral health and homelessness. While on the County Commission, she pushed to dissolve the joint city-county Homeless Services Department, questioning its oversight and approach.
Earlier this year, Meieran released a plan to overhaul the county’s approach to homelessness and mental illness, centered on restructuring the county’s operations and more transparently tracking policy outcomes and spending. Meieran said that “roadmap” is the foundation of her campaign for chair.
Meieran’s politics are more closely aligned with Brim-Edwards, who has focused her first term on the commission on building substance abuse treatment programs and addressing public safety. Singleton previously ran the Homeless Services Department Meieran sought to upend.
It’s not clear how Meieran’s candidacy will impact the dynamics of the race. The Nov. 3 election will be the first in Multnomah County to use ranked choice voting.
