Pharmacist Sandeep Bali on race for City Council District 3

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) -- Eighty-four candidates are running for the 12 new Portland City Council seats in November.

Twenty-three of them are running in the newly formed District 3, one of four new districts created for Portland's new system of government. District 3 is essentially Portland's inner east side, up to 82nd Avenue and jogging over to 102nd.

Sandeep Bali hopes to be one of those three City Council candidates to represent District 3 at Portland City Hall. A pharmacist by trade, Bali founded a non-profit to help students pursuing healthcare careers.

On this week's Eye on Northwest Politics, Bali explained he decided to opt out of the small donor elections program - which helps provide matching funds for campaign expenses. He claimed it would be a strain on taxpayers based on where the money is actually being spent.

"It's being spent on haircuts, it's being spent on outfits, nails. Some candidates have hairstylists on retainer, which I just think the taxpayers should not be paying for something like that. They shouldn't be paying for a brand new lifestyle for a candidate," he said. "And so is that a good use of taxpayer funds? I decided it wasn't and so I took myself out of it."

Bali also explained that his choice to go into politics stemmed from his background working in a pharmacy as well as his knowledge regarding mental health, drug addiction and more. Additionally, when the downtown Portland pharmacy he worked at was destroyed in 2020, it spurred him into action.

"It's policy makers that are behind what's happening downtown, how people are held accountable, what happens when there's a riot, that's all policy," he said. "So I decided instead of just sitting at home and complaining, I'm going to run for office and I'm going to try to make a difference and I'm going to go out there and be courageous."

As far as his priorities should he be elected, number one on Bali's mind is the homelessness crisis.

"I feel like instead of giving our taxpayer money to nonprofits who don't have specialized healthcare personnel, we should be giving this to nonprofits that do have specialized healthcare personnel and can produce results," he stressed. "Also on top of that, we should be giving that money to hospitals, local hospitals that already have doctors, already have nurses, already have management to make sure that a goal is started and completed start to finish. It would be a better use of our resources to kind of move forward."

Bali has also been a vocal critic of Portland's Safe Rest Villages, saying they are unsafe and only a temporary solution to a long term problem.

"Portland can't be in charge of every single person suffering with mental health and addiction issues in the entire nation," he noted. "But we can be in charge of the population that we have here and we can provide them with housing and provide them with transitional housing, which gets them stable and on their own. The Safe Rest Village is - to me - I don't think it's very humane just to give somebody a small shed and say, 'This is where you're going to be at.'"

Oregon House Bill 4002 will go into effect Sunday. As a result, Bali believes the recriminalization of drugs and deflection for people who are caught in possession is a much-needed change.

"[With Measure 110], we created this environment where it's very easy to sell drugs," he stated. "And I think it's great that we're going to be going back on that and also holding people accountable, because drugs are being sold on our streets. It's increasing our homeless issue, it's increasing our substance abuse issues."

Watch the full interview in the video above.