U.S. Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, R-Oregon, listens to Portland business owner Ann Naughton while Portland Police Sgt. Aaron Schmautz looks on. (Julia Shumway/Oregon Capital Chronicle)
OREGON CITY — Crime, drugs and homelessness are wreaking havoc on small businesses in Portland and Clackamas County, a small group of business owners told U.S. Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, R-Oregon, on Wednesday.
The event in an Oregon City wedding venue followed the same script Chavez-DeRemer used at the handful of other discussions she allowed reporters to attend this year: She asked the five business owners and Portland Police Sgt. Aaron Schmautz — president of the Oregon Coalition of Police and Sheriffs, which has endorsed her in her reelection bid — to share their stories so she could repeat those accounts to other members of Congress.
“One of the reasons I ran for Congress was the disconnect between the federal level and the local level, not to mention what goes on between the state level and beyond. But every policy and every law that we make, it affects at the local level,” she said.