Tom Potter

Thomas Jay Potter (born September 12, 1940) is a former American politician and law enforcement officer in the U.S. state of Oregon.

Potter was born in 1940 in North Bend, Oregon.

When he was 10 years old, his family moved to Portland, Oregon.

Potter lives in the Woodstock neighborhood of southeast Portland with his wife Karin Hansen.

His hobbies include archaeology, hiking, camping, and bicycling.

Potter's openly lesbian daughter, Katie Potter, is a retired Portland police officer.

Potter, as the city's Chief of Police, marched in his police uniform in Portland's annual gay pride parade to show his support for his daughter, and the LGBT+ community.

He was the first Portland Police Chief to do so, and has spoken out in support of same-sex marriage.

Potter began as a police officer in 1966 as a beat officer in southeast Portland in the Brooklyn and Sellwood neighborhoods.

Although the neighborhoods are considered desirable residential locations today, at the time they were largely crime-ridden and threatened by gangs.

According to Potter, early in his career a citizen in Sellwood asked him what he, as a citizen, could do to help the police.

His sergeant informed him to tell the citizen to "stay inside and let the police do their jobs."

The comment helped motivate Potter's early interest in making changes between the relationship of the police and the citizens.

There was also a saying in police culture which evoked Tom's political fires known as "go along to get along."

Basically translating to "do the wrong thing so as not to disturb our nice lives."

In 1986, Potter was promoted to captain in the North Precinct.

He was appointed police chief in 1990 by Mayor Bud Clark, heading up the 1,300 officers in the city's largest bureau.

He served three years as chief before retiring at age 52 after 25 years of service in the police force.

He served as interim director of the Oregon State Department of Safety and Standards and as the director of New Avenues for Youth, a service provider for homeless youth in Portland.

He also consulted with police bureaus around the country on the topics of community policing and strategic planning and was considered for the job of Top Cop in the Clinton Administration to head up their COPS Office.

In 2003, he decided to run for mayor of Portland, based partly on a desire to help reform the Portland police department.

He built a platform on the issue of community policing, a police strategy that involves active engagement with neighborhoods with such tactics as getting police officers out of their patrol cars.

When Potter announced his campaign for mayor on October 14, 2003, running in a field of 22 candidates, he was not widely considered as a likely contender because Potter limited his individual campaign donations to 25 dollars per person.

His slogan was "It's not about dollars, it's all about sense."

He worked by the moral guidelines of "listen, listen, listen," and people according to Potter told him he listened too much as a leader.

He believed that all residents should have equal access to their politicians.

Political insiders considered this a crazy move that made him unelectable.

He marched against the Iraq War on the first anniversary of American involvement in March 2004 and was dismayed at the black uniforms and the militarized appearance of the Portland police he saw.

He made it part of his campaign to rid the police of such a militarized appearance.

Nevertheless, he won the primary in 2004, having raised only $65,000 in campaign funds, versus other candidates who raised hundreds of thousands of dollars.

For the runoff election, he raised the limit on his contributions to 100 dollars per individual.

In the months following the 2004 primary election, Potter maintained a 2–1 lead over City Commissioner Jim Francesconi in polls with roughly 25% of the electorate still undecided through October of that year.

Francesconi, who raised a city-record $1 million and outspent Potter 6-to-1 during the campaign.

Potter won the general election in November 2004 over Francesconi with 60% of the vote.

He served as Mayor of Portland from 2005 to 2009, and had been the chief of the Portland Police Bureau.

As mayor he continued his advocacy of community policing and expressed interest in other reforms of the Portland police department.

Potter was inaugurated on January 3, 2005, succeeding Mayor Vera Katz (who had served for three terms, but did not run for a fourth).

Portland is unlike most large United States cities, in that the Portland City Council performs many duties that are more typically in a mayor's purview.

That is sometimes called the "weak mayor" system, in which the mayor and the four members of the City Council each supervise the various agencies of the city.

When Potter took office, he declared that he was taking centralized control of all city bureaus for a period of six months.