Carmen Rubio, a current City Commissioner and mayoral candidate, embarked on a statewide apology tour in the weeks after The Oregonian/OregonLive reported on his lengthy and troubled history of parking and traffic infractions.
Rubio told veteran KGW’s Straight Talk host Laural Porter on September 27 that she had been under a lot of pressure both personally and professionally from 2006 to 2018, when she got the most of the 150 tickets she had accrued over the course of about 20 years.
She also mentioned that the Left Bank building, which housed the Latino Network executive director’s office from around 2011 to 2015 at the junction of North Wheeler Street and North Broadway Avenue, was a spot that was frequently patrolled.
Speaking with Jonathan Maus, the owner of the reputable website BikePortland, a week earlier, Rubio had sent a similar message, expressing sincere regret and pointing out that the area was heavily patrolled by ticketing authorities. I spent a lot of time in the building at the time because my organization was expanding. Because of her lengthy work hours, she admitted to Maus that she frequently allowed her meter to run over: “Yes, I let that time lapse often or I didn’t get there in time.”
On September 29, Rubio once more described the Left Bank location, which is close to the Moda Center, as a heavily patrolled area with parking meters in an interview with KOIN-6 anchor Ken Boddie.
However, despite her frequent depiction, The Oregonian/OregonLive reviewed all 150 of her parking and driving infractions and discovered that she obtained less than one-third of them close to the Left Bank building.
Additionally, 31 out of the 46 fines she received near the intersection of Broadway and North Wheeler, or roughly 67% of them, were for failing to provide proof of payment. This indicates that Rubio either failed to provide proof of payment or simply parked her car and left without making the payment. Four tickets were for expired tags, and one more was for parking in a no-parking area.
Just ten were for exceeding a meter’s time restriction, including two tickets she received for exceeding the limit significantly.
Rubio received 104 additional tickets from all around downtown and nearby neighborhoods, ranging from the Richmond neighborhood on the east side to Old Town and the Pearl District on the west side.
According to the newspaper’s findings, she was given 33 tickets—25 of which were for an overtime meter—on surface roadways that were five blocks from Portland City Hall. Rubio has only earned four citations since joining the City Council in 2021—two for parking in no-parking zones and two for expired tags.
Rubio pointed out in a statement to The Oregonian on Wednesday that she had apologized for her acts on multiple occasions.
She said, “I also recognize that women in American public life don’t seem to be able to apologize enough for our mistakes.” Women are not offered the same forgiveness as men for past or current transgressions, which are dismissed as youthful misdeeds or bad judgment. Once more, my only option is to apologize and promise to do better.
According to court documents first revealed by Willamette Week, Portland Commissioner Rene Gonzalez, one of her mayoral candidates, earned seven speeding fines between 1998 and 2013 and had his license suspended twice more than 20 years ago.
Although court documents reveal that many Portland mayoral and city council candidates have received parking or traffic citations in Oregon, Rubio’s quantity and repeated egregious failures to pay them are unmatched. Records reveal that during the course of two decades, she had six license suspensions and at least 100 court referrals for unpaid parking citations to a collection agency. Rubio damaged a parked Tesla and then drove off without leaving a message for the owner of the vehicle, just days after The Oregonian/OregonLive first revealed her driving history.
Julia Silverman writes for the Oregonian/Oregonlive about K–12 education. You can contact her at [email protected]. You may follow her at @jrlsilverman onx.com.
