PORTLAND, Ore. — One of Portland’s top mayoral candidates and current city commissioner Carmen Rubio is facing criticism for her poor driving record and was caught on camera last week hitting a parked car and walking away. She later said she did not notice the marks on the other car.
KGW’s Blair Best talked with Rubio briefly Thursday afternoon outside the temporary Portland City Council chambers before she abruptly ended the conversation.
“Look, I’m human, and I make mistakes, too, so I’m just moving forward, taking accountability and moving forward,” Rubio said.
This comes after records obtained by The Oregonian show Rubio accrued 150 parking and traffic citations over 20 years before she was an elected official, and her license was suspended six times. The records also show her unpaid tickets were referred to a collection agency at least 100 times.
“Again, I’m not perfect; I make mistakes, but I put that away and resolved all those and took accountability, resolved all those things years ago. That was during a different part of my life, it was when things were hard, and yeah, I’m moving forward — learn from those lessons, take accountability and moving forward,” said Rubio.
The most recent incident happened late last week in the parking lot of a Southwest Portland medical clinic. Rubio pulled into a parking spot and scraped a white Tesla. In dashcam video sent to The Oregonian, Rubio is seen looking back at the car and walking away. She says she didn’t notice the marks she left on the Tesla.
“So, I did what most people would do as soon as I learned that I had dinged the car: I left a note and called immediately and offered to pay or go through insurance, so I did what most people did in that situation and that’s be best I can do,” Rubio said Thursday.
In a written statement Wednesday night, she admitted to not leaving a note. After Best questioned her on that discrepancy, she clarified: “I called. There was a note on the car (from the Tesla owner), I called immediately as soon as I got back to my car and saw the note,” Rubio said.
Politics professor Jim Moore at Pacific University weighed in on the significance of the situation.
“Well, she’s running to be a person in a position of trust. Is this a person who will follow through on what people accept to be right? Okay, so that’s a big thing," Moore said. "It’s a scrape on the side of a car, but what are you supposed to do when you do that? At the very least, leave a note on the windshield saying, 'Hi, I’m sorry about this. Contact me. Let’s move forward.' That didn’t happen.”
In Wednesday’s written statement, Rubio said she felt "exploited" by the Tesla owner, adding that in their conversations, the owner kept bringing up Rubio’s elected position and past traffic violations, implying she planned to go to the media. Rubio claims the owner also asked for a Venmo payment of $4,000, but said it's now in the hands of her insurance.
Rubio told KGW Thursday that she does not plan on dropping out of the race.
“I’m in it and I’m moving forward and I’m going to do everything I can to get my message out about what’s really wonderful about our city and what opportunities we have to make things great,” she said.