Meet the candidate: Ky Fireside for HD7

Presenter: Meet the candidate welcomes Ky Fireside for the Oregon House of Representatives District 7. Please tell us about yourself and why you’re running. 

Ky Fireside: I am an archeologist, former 911 dispatcher, I’m a union organizer and a community advocate. 

I worked to unionize the first Starbucks in the state, and then once we won our vote, I worked to unionize some of the other stores in our district.

I am running for this race because I’m tired of the spineless rubber-stamping that has become so prevalent in our governing bodies. I think it’s time for someone who is more focused on the community, who’s going to prioritize people over corporate profits, and it’s just time for some new ideas.

Presenter: What’s the biggest issue facing your district, and how would you address it? 

Ky Fireside: This one’s so hard because it feels like everything is in crisis. It feels like everything’s at a breaking point, and every issue is the biggest issue. I would say right now that our biggest issue is ICE. It’s federal overreach. It’s ICE coming in and kidnapping our neighbors.

I think that we need people that have the energy to work on crisis problem after crisis problem.

One of the things that I’ve worked on is surveillance technology regulation. A lot of what ICE runs on is this massive surveillance database. So cutting down on the surveillance that they have access to will not entirely stop them, but it will slow them down tremendously. 

And, you know, that has other benefits for the rest of the population, privacy and Fourth Amendment stuff.

Presenter: What differentiates you from your opponents? Ky Fireside:

Ky Fireside: I’m not a career politician. With all respect to everyone that’s in an office right now, what we’re doing is not working. We’re in the position that we’re in because of electoral and legislative choices that have been made, and I think that electoral and legislative choices are the way that we are going to get out of this position.

So because I’m not a career politician, I’ve got new ideas. I can come in here and find creative ways to solve problems.

I’m going to bring in a lot more community input than people are used to seeing at the state level, because the people that are being affected on the ground keep not being consulted when legislation is being written

So I want to make sure that our subject matter experts and our affected communities are able to have a voice when this step is being written.

Presenter: Ky Fireside, is there anything else you’d like to add? 

Ky Fireside: We’re a grassroots campaign, so we’re entirely from the community, by the community, and that means the campaign is entirely for the community also.

You know, there’s no super PAC money here. There’s no corporate money. It’s all been community kicking in.

My team has been incredible. My team is all volunteers, so they’re all people that are passionate about the cause.

Our website is KyFights.org. That’s KyFights.org and my email is on there. I personally answer any email that comes through. You can hit me up on social media also. 

I’m looking to keep two-way communication as a big part of being in office.

Presenter: Meet The Candidate welcomes Ky Fireside, running for Oregon’s House District 7, which includes the Springfield area.

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