Oregon City voters have elected 26-year-old Adam Marl as their next mayor, making him the city’s first Asian American mayor and only the second person of color to hold the office. Early returns showed Marl with 71% of the vote, far outpacing his two challengers in a race that capped a fast political rise for a man who was once the youngest person ever to sit on the city commission.
Marl’s early lead put rivals Damon Mabee and Rodney LaBarr well behind, with Mabee pulling 16% and LaBarr 13%, according to OregonLive. Mabee, a former Oregon City commissioner, had also run for mayor back in 2018 and lost to Dan Holladay, per the outlet’s earlier reporting on the race. LaBarr entered this year’s contest as a political newcomer. Clackamas County’s own results page notes that the county won’t certify the November 3 election until no later than November 30, so Tuesday’s numbers remain unofficial.
Marl said he was feeling the weight of the moment after the results came in. “I’m grateful, and I’m exhausted, and I’m ready for the work that lies ahead,” he said, according to the same OregonLive report. He added that he expected the city commission to be productive and help push forward the projects he’s been eyeing, and said he had never been more optimistic about Oregon City’s future.
The mayor’s role is part of a five-member, unpaid City Commission, rather than a strong-mayor executive office. The commission collectively sets policy, votes on ordinances and appoints and oversees the city manager, who runs day-to-day operations. The riverwalk and Tumwata Village are among the projects ahead for Marl. The city describes its structure as a council-manager form of government.
A Rapid Rise Through Local Politics
Marl’s path to the mayor’s office started young. At age 20, he became the youngest person ever to serve on the Oregon City Commission after being appointed to fill a vacant seat, then won election to the position outright in 2022, the outlet reported. Before that, in 2020, he managed the successful campaign to recall then-Mayor Dan Holladay, who had faced criticism for suggesting Oregon City would defy pandemic restrictions and for downplaying police brutality against Black people amid the social justice protests of that era.
Marl’s involvement in the 2020 recall campaign ended with a decisive result: voters removed Holladay by a 68%-32% margin. The effort followed Holladay’s pandemic-era call for businesses to defy the governor’s stay-at-home order and his social media comments about police violence against Black people; recall supporters also raised concerns about his attendance and management of city funds. An investigation in October found Holladay had violated commission rules, OPB reported after the recall.
Marl was adopted from South Korea as an infant and grew up in Oregon City, graduating from Oregon City High School in 2018 before earning a degree in politics and communications from Willamette University in 2021. He carried the endorsement of outgoing Mayor Denyse McGriff, who is term-limited and could not seek reelection.
Following in McGriff’s Footsteps
Marl’s win builds on a history McGriff made herself. OregonLive reported that in 2019, McGriff became the first person of color appointed, and later elected, to the Oregon City Commission, before becoming mayor in 2022. KOIN’s reporting described the same milestones slightly differently, saying McGriff made history in 2019 and 2020 by becoming the first person of color appointed and then elected to the commission. KOIN also reported separately that McGriff was the first person of color elected mayor of Oregon City in 2022.
Two City Commission seats were also on Tuesday’s ballot, and voters were set to fill both. Paul Espe led that four-candidate field in early returns with 31% of the vote, followed by Gordon J. Lawrence at 29%, Jim Nicita at 21% and Betty Mumm at 18%, per OregonLive’s reporting. Espe, 66, has lived in Oregon City for more than 30 years, works as a planner for the city of Lake Oswego, and chairs the Oregon City Planning Commission after an earlier stint on that body from 2011 to 2018. Lawrence, 46, is a general contractor who owns Artisan Craft & Design/Installations, a business that specializes in appliance and specialty-item installation for residential clients and contractors.
Riverwalk and Tumwata Village Ahead
Marl pointed to the riverwalk redevelopment and the planned Tumwata Village development as the projects exciting him most as he takes office. Tumwata Village is envisioned as a redevelopment of the former Blue Heron paper mill site along the Willamette River, and Marl attended a groundbreaking ceremony for the project in May, according to OregonLive’s coverage of his win.
That groundbreaking marked a milestone for a project local leaders describe as decades in the making. The first phase of Tumwata Village will focus on infrastructure, including streets, sidewalks and utilities, OregonLive reported at the time. The broader plan is expected to eventually bring housing, a hotel, retail and office space to the former industrial complex, along with natural areas accessible to the public, the outlet reported in its coverage of a related federal grant. The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde received a $4 million EPA grant to support removal and abatement of hazardous materials at the site, along with soil remediation and monitoring, according to that same OregonLive report.
Tumwata Village is also a project rooted in the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde’s history at Willamette Falls. The Tribe says it bought the 23-acre former mill property in 2019, on ancestral homelands with deep historical and cultural significance. The land was home to Indigenous villages before the 1855 Willamette Valley Treaty; after the treaty, tribal members were forcibly removed from the falls and relocated to Grand Ronde. The Tribe’s project history describes that connection.
