Meet Steve Novick

Get to know Steve

Steve’s family moved from northern California to Cottage Grove, Oregon when he was ten. For years, they mostly lived off his mom’s earnings as a waitress at the Village Green – so Steve learned early the moral importance of being a good tipper. 

When Steve was fourteen, the voters of Cottage Grove voted against paying property taxes to keep the schools open – so the schools simply closed for several months. Steve started taking classes at the U of O to pass the time, and after a while the U of O told him he could stay. 

A couple of years after law school, Steve made it to the environmental enforcement section of the Federal Justice Department. He spent nine years suing polluters and working with a brilliant, brash, committed, hard-working, hard-playing group of lawyers and staff. Steve thought of them as Knights of the Round Table, and many of them are still among his dearest friends. 

Despite growing up in Oregon, Steve had hardly spent any time in Portland until he sued the Port of Portland for Clean Water Act violations and fell in love with the city. Moving back to Oregon in 1996, he spent the next 20 years in politics and public policy – as chief of staff to the Democrats in the State Senate; as a lawyer, organizer and researcher in fights against dangerous right-wing ballot measures; in a non-profit dedicated to letting people know where tax dollars go; as a candidate for the United States Senate in 2008, losing by three points in the Democratic primary to the wonderful Jeff Merkley; and as a Portland City Commissioner. 

One the things Steve most appreciated about being a Commissioner was working with the talented, committed staff in the city bureaus, and one role he would play in a Council of mostly new people would be to urge his colleagues to listen to and respect city staff. 

As a sixty-year old guy, Steve has had a lot of lived experience, but he also values his thousands of hours of vicarious experience as a sports fan. He has great memories of the Blazers’ 1976-77 championship run, and lives with the pain of having been a passionate fan of the Montreal Expos, who came close, but never made it, and no longer exist. (Climate change makes him worry that someday, the same thing might be said of the human race.) 

Steve lives in the Woodstock neighborhood with a very silly Corgi named Barley.