Cruise Ships & Our Coast
When I first answered the scrubber-discharge question below, I said federal law (VIDA) meant a Portland councilor couldn't ban it outright — only price it and push for stronger standards. That was true as far as it went, but it wasn't the sharpest answer I could give.
Seattle didn't ban scrubber discharge through a city ordinance — they banned it through their own port's Terminal Tariff, a condition of using the port itself. The Port of Seattle's own government relations team has confirmed that mechanism is "unimpacted and independent of VIDA." Portland has that same tool sitting right in front of us.
So here's the corrected answer, reflected in Q2 and Q5 below: I'd bring a Rule 8 revision to Portland's own Terminal Tariff to ban scrubber wash discharge at berth — the same route Seattle and Vancouver have already used successfully. Not just pricing it. Banning it.
I'd rather tell you when I've found a sharper answer than quietly swap it out and hope nobody notices. That's what "Every Voice Matters" means to me — including being straight with you when my first answer wasn't as sharp as it could have been.
What role should cruise tourism play in Portland? Please describe any concerns you associate with the current level of cruise activity.
Cruise tourism has a place in Portland's economy — but the costs of that tourism should be borne by the ships that create them, not by the people who live here. The trajectory is what concerns me: roughly 100 calls in 2025, about 144 scheduled for 2026 — a 44% jump — with some vessels carrying up to 4,000 passengers. That pace has outrun the city's planning for the real costs: the load on Casco Bay, the concentrated strain on the peninsula, and the fact that residents absorb the impact while the revenue and the decisions sit elsewhere.
I'm not looking to end cruise tourism. I want Portland to set the terms rather than absorb whatever arrives — same coast, two honest questions: What does it give us? And what does it cost us?
This is the same fight I lay out in my Coast brief: "Portland's coastline is not a backdrop — it is a living system that our economy, our identity, and our future depend on." The City Council already raised cruise tariffs in February 2026 — per-passenger fees climbing from $18 to $24 by 2030, infrastructure fees from $3 to $7 starting January 2027. That's the tool already in motion. My position is that it needs to move faster than the growth it's supposed to offset.
Read the full Coast brief →Do you support prohibiting the discharge of exhaust-gas scrubber washwater in Casco Bay?
Yes — and I can be sharper about this than I initially was. Scrubber washwater is toxic to marine life, and Casco Bay has been a federally designated No Discharge Area since 2006. Here's the precise legal picture: a general city ordinance banning discharge outright would run into VIDA preemption. But Seattle didn't do it that way — they banned at-berth scrubber discharge through their own Terminal Tariff, a condition of using the port itself, not a citywide environmental ordinance. The Port of Seattle's own government relations team has confirmed that mechanism is "unimpacted and independent of VIDA."
Portland has the same tool available right now. I'd bring a Rule 8 revision to Portland's own Terminal Tariff prohibiting scrubber wash discharge at berth — the same route Seattle and Vancouver have already used successfully — alongside the tariff pricing already in motion, and partner with Casco Baykeeper on monitoring.
This matches the updated framework in my platform brief: Portland can pursue a Rule 8 revision to its own Terminal Tariff — the same mechanism Seattle and Vancouver have used — without waiting on Augusta or Washington. That's a real ban Council can act on alone, not just a pricing tool.
Read the full Coast brief →Do you believe Portland is adequately addressing the neighborhood and transportation impacts associated with cruise visits? What additional actions, if any, should the city take?
Not yet adequately. Charter-bus idling, congestion, pedestrian safety, noise, crowding — these land on specific streets, and the people who live with them haven't had enough say. The fixes are concrete: enforceable anti-idling standards with staging away from residential blocks; pedestrian-safety attention at the most-affected crossings on call days; and call-schedule coordination so multiple large vessels don't overwhelm the peninsula the same day.
There's also a real business opportunity here I don't think we've explored. Emeryville, California — where I actually keep a studio, so I know this system firsthand — runs a free shuttle called the Emery Go-Round, funded entirely by a business improvement district that commercial property owners tax themselves into. It moves over a million riders a year on a loop people can count on. Portland could build something similar around cruise days: a shuttle connecting the port to downtown, Washington Avenue, and out across the bridge to South Portland, and further out to shopping and attractions in Westbrook and Scarborough. This isn't competing with Metro's regional routes — it's the same relationship AC Transit's regional buses have with Emeryville's local shuttle: one covers the region, the other covers the crevices a regional line can't reach on a tight, reliable loop.
That opens the city to cruise passengers and to Portland elders who don't drive, and it gives neighboring towns real upside from port traffic that right now mostly stays on the peninsula. I'd bring the Chambers of Commerce, Visit Portland, and neighboring town councils to the table to structure the funding the way Emeryville did. Consistency is what makes it work — a loop passengers can count on to get back to the ship on time.
And the bigger investment: we should be building toward a green port — the electrical infrastructure that lets ships plug in at berth. That's not just a climate win; it's a neighborhood win. And it's not just Portland's cost to carry. South Portland, Westbrook, and Scarborough all stand to benefit from a cleaner harbor and the regional draw the port creates — so they should have real skin in the game in funding it, alongside pressing CMP and Augusta to help carry the cost.
Building Our City is built on one line: "A strong city depends on the people who keep it running. We need to invest in workers, families, artists, small businesses, and the everyday systems that make Portland livable." A regional shuttle funded by the businesses that benefit from it is exactly that kind of everyday system — infrastructure that pays for itself because it's good for the people who fund it, not a tax increase dressed up as a transit plan.
Read the full Building Our City brief →Do you support establishing public-health protocols for cruise ships arriving with infectious-disease outbreaks?
Yes — and this is one I speak to directly, because public health is my professional field. As a clinician, the protocol is straightforward: advance notification when a vessel reports an outbreak, transparent plain-language communication with the public, and coordination with the Maine CDC before passengers disembark. Information should be timely and accessible, not buried, and the city should be prepared to adjust disembarkation and public operations on public-health guidance. It's simply the right thing to do — protecting public health isn't optional, it's the job.
"Safety starts with connection — knowing whom to call, feeling heard, and getting help before things break down." That's the opening line of my Safety brief, and it's clinical training, not a talking point: 20+ years in direct clinical practice, MHRT-C certified in Maine, Clinical Liaison for Maine State Forensic Services. Public-health protocol isn't a new lane for me — it's the same skill set the brief lays out for crisis response, applied to a different kind of emergency.
Read the full Safety brief →Please identify your highest priorities for cruise-ship policies and how you would pursue them.
1. Ban scrubber discharge — revise Rule 8 of our Terminal Tariff, the same mechanism Seattle already used, and build toward a green port with shore power.
2. Give impacted neighborhoods real standing — anti-idling, staging, pedestrian safety, call-day coordination, built with the residents who live with the impact.
3. Honest accounting — the public should see what cruise tourism costs Portland and what it contributes, in plain numbers.
How I'd pursue them: through the tariff and berth-access levers the council actually controls; coordinating with Augusta, South Portland, Westbrook, and Scarborough on shared funding for the green port and a regional shuttle; in partnership with Casco Baykeeper and the Maine CDC; sitting down with affected neighborhoods to build the response together.
All three priorities above map to work already published in the platform: Casco Bay stewardship and the tariff structure (Priority 02), the everyday systems that make Portland livable — including transportation infrastructure businesses actually want to fund (Priority 04), and the clinical, connection-first approach to public safety (Priority 03). Nothing here is invented for this survey. It's the same platform, applied to cruise policy specifically.