City Mayor of Portland

Mayor Sam Adams

Sam Adams (born 1963) is an American politician who is the current mayor of Portland, Oregon. He dropped out of college to enter politics and worked on a number of campaigns. Among them was Vera Katz's run for mayor of Portland. After she won, he served as her chief of staff for eleven years.

In 2004 he was elected to the Portland City Council, serving four years on the council earning a reputation as a "policy-driven advocate for sustainability, the arts, and gay rights."[2] He was elected Mayor of Portland in the May 2008 primary with 58% of the vote and a dozen other candidates on the ballot. He came out in 1993 and is the first openly gay mayor of a top 30 U.S. city.

In 2009, Adams was cleared of any criminal wrongdoing related to a consensual sexual relationship with a young man he met in 2005. Adams said the deception was warranted in light of how a public sex scandal could have disrupted his mayoral campaign.

Son of Larry Adams, a special education teacher and high school basketball coach, and his wife, Karalie (née Gibbons), Adams was born in 1963, when his family lived on a ranch eight miles outside of Whitehall, Montana. When he was two years old, his family moved to Richland, Washington for a year, and then on to Newport and Eugene, Oregon, where his parents were divorced. Adams lived with his mother and survived for a time on food stamps and housing assistance. In discussing not disclosing his sexuality, Adams noted he came from a "family of tough Montanans" where "there's a premium on being tough and strong, and being queer and a faggot wasn't strong. His mother could not find work in Eugene and moved to Portland. Adams stayed in Eugene and supported himself throughout most of his high school years. He graduated from South Eugene High School and attended the University of Oregon, dropping out to enter politics.

In October 2007 Adams announced his intentions to run for Mayor of Portland and kicked off his campaign at the Wonder Ballroom in Northeast Portland in February 2008. His main opponent was Sho Dozono, a civic leader and businessman, although 13 candidates filed for mayor. In the primary election, held May 20, 2008, Adams captured 58 percent of the vote and was elected without the need for a run-off. Dozono, his nearest opponent, received 34 percent of the vote. Adams took office on January 1, 2009. Portland became the largest U.S. city to have ever elected an openly gay mayor. With approximately 570,000 residents, it is more than three times the size of Providence, Rhode Island, the next largest with an openly gay mayor, David Cicilline. In December 2009 Houston, Texas, the nation's fourth largest city, elected Annise Parker, who is an out lesbian, surpassing Portland as the largest American city ever to have an openly gay mayor.

Address: 1221 Southwest 4th Avenue
Portland, OR
Tel: (503) 823-4120