Amanda Fritz
| Amanda Fritz | |
|---|---|
Fritz in 2008
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| Portland City Commissioner | |
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Assumed office January 2009 |
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| Preceded by | Sam Adams |
| Personal details | |
| Born | April 1958 (age 59) England (UK) |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse(s) | Steve Fritz (1982–2014; his death) |
| Alma mater | University of Cambridge |
| Occupation | Politician; nurse (retired) |
Amanda Fritz (born April 1958) is a retired registered psychiatric nurse and politician from the U.S. state of Oregon. Before being elected to Portland's City Council in 2008, Fritz was known as a neighborhood activist, a critic of City Hall, and a seven-year member of the Portland Planning Commission. She was also the first candidate to win public financing under Portland's Clean Elections system in 2006, though she lost to incumbent Dan Saltzman in the first round of that year's election.
She was elected to City Council in the November 2008 election. She succeeded Commissioner Sam Adams, who vacated the seat to run for mayor.
Fritz was born in England and grew up there, in Leeds, West Yorkshire. After graduating from the University of Cambridge, where she earned a bachelor's and a master's degree in Biological Sciences, she moved to the United States, in 1979. She attended nursing school in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and then moved to Rochester, New York. She relocated to Portland in 1986.
Upon moving to Portland from New York, Fritz began working at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) as an inpatient nurse in the hospital's psychiatry department.
In 1996, she was appointed to the city's Planning Commission, and served on the Commission until 2003. In 1999, Fritz was noted as a Planning Commission member who valued an emerging online list for contributing to the discourse on planning in the city.
In 2008, Fritz became the first non-incumbent to successfully run under Portland's public financing system. She took the most votes in the May primary election (43%) in a field of six candidates, and faced second-place finisher Charles Lewis (13%) in a November runoff election. Fritz and Lewis were among the candidates who each qualified for $150,000 in public financing by collecting over 1,000 five-dollar contributions, and pledging to accept no other campaign contributions. Each received an additional $200,000 for the runoff election. Fritz defeated Lewis with 70% of the vote in the runoff. Fritz was also the first candidate to qualify for public funds under the program, in her first race, when she challenged incumbent Dan Saltzman in the 2006 election. In the 2008 race, her decisive victory in the primary enabled her to reach out to new classes of constituents; she was noted for expanding her appeal from neighborhood activists to the business community, and placing a strong emphasis on fiscal responsibility.
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