GlobeSt.com UPDATE: PDC Executive Director Finalist Withdraws Name

PORTLAND-Although the Portland Development Commission announced href=”/news/305_305/portland/135236-1.html”>earlier this week that four finalists would proceed to the public meeting phase of the urban renewal agency’s quest for a new executive director, only three will be there. Citing recently discovered personal medical issues, Gil Jimenez, director of the Arizona Department of Commerce, told the agency Wednesday he is no longer interested in the post.Don Mazziotti, the agency’s executive director for the past four years, announced in March that he would resign effective July 1. The PDC is expected to name his successor June 27.The finalists were selected after interviews with a 10-person search committee. The three remaining finalists are:

• David Knowles, vice president of locally based David Evans and Associates Inc., where he leads the firm’s planning and urban development activities;
• Bruce Warner, director of the Oregon Department of Transportation. Warner previously served as Washington County’s director of land use and transportation planning;
• Karen Williams, partner and the locally based law firm Lane Powell Spears Lubersky LLP, who previously spent seven years as the PDC’s in-house lawyer and general counsel.
• The public will have a chance to meet the candidates at two events scheduled for Saturday, June 18, and Monday, June 20. Both meetings will run from 12-3 p.m. and will take place at PDC’s office, 222 NW 5th Avenue in Old Town/Chinatown. At each meeting, each candidate will provide an overview of their work history and qualifications and then take questions from the audience.In other PDC news, City Councilman Randy Leonard’s effort to turn the semi-independent agency into a city bureau is on the back burner after learning he did not have the support on the council to make it happen. The change would have given the council control of the agency, which now is controlled by a board appointed by Mayor Tom Potter and has an annual budget north of $200 million. The council held a hearing Wednesday on the matter.