Fish sees victory in education

City council candidate Nick Fish has many connections to Portland State, both personal and political.

Fish, 49, is looking to fill resigning Commissioner Erik Sten’s seat and concentrate on housing and education issues, two subjects he said are at the spearhead of his campaign.

He has been involved with Portland State for years. He is a member of the Dean’s Council for the College of Urban and Public Affairs, and he founded the Urban Pioneer Awards in 2002 while serving as chair of the Hatfield School of Government Advisory Board. In the early 1990s, Fish was also a member of the PSU Foundation, which manages donations offered to the school.

He said if elected, he would be a strong advocate of PSU, working to keep student costs at a minimum while lobbying for rights and higher pay for faculty.

“I know how hard my wife works,” said Fish, referring to his wife Patricia Schechter, a PSU history professor. “I know how hard the entire faculty works, and they deserve due credit that doesn’t need to come at the expense of students, for whom the cost of a public university education is already too high.”

An attorney working with local law firm Meyer and Wyse, where he focuses on labor law and civil litigation, Fish has served as vice chair for the Housing Authority of Portland. He is also a supporter of Home Again, a Portland low-income housing project dedicated to eradicating homelessness by 2015.

Fish has two children in Portland schools: Maria attends Lincoln High School, and 4-year-old Chapin attends PSU’s Helen Gordon Child Development Center. Fish said his ties to local education, particularly PSU, are essential to his campaign.

“I’m a member of a PSU family,” he said. “And I think Portland Public Schools is an enviable district to reside in, and it’s especially great for such an education-oriented family.”

Another focus of his campaign, Fish said, is the local economy. He has worked for legal firms specializing in the labor movement for more than 25 years, he said, and believes that Portland’s economic strength relies on local food suppliers and businesses, such as brewpubs and cycle shops.

Fish graduated from Harvard College with a bachelor’s degree in 1981 and later from Northeastern University with a juris doctorate in 1986. After practicing law in New York for 10 years, he moved to Portland, where he was admitted to the Oregon Bar in 1997.