NICK FISH, PORTLAND PARKS COMMISSIONER SEPTEMBER 30, 1958 - JANUARY 2, 2020
Courtesy Portland Parks & Recreation
It is with great sadness that we note the death of City Commissioner Nick Fish, a true friend and advocate for the Portland Parks Foundation. And, it is with great respect that we celebrate all that Nick did for Portland, in particular for our city’s parks.
Nick was, at 11 years, the longest-serving Portland City Commissioner. During his tenure, he served as Parks Commissioner twice—both times seeing the bureau through some of the toughest times financially in its 115-year history. He leaves a parks legacy that was based on a vision to both build community and ensure strong financial stewardship, stretching and raising dollars to ensure all Portlanders would be able to enjoy parks and to build a sustainable system for volunteers and city workers to steward.
“It was cuts, cuts, cuts,” recalls Julie Vigeland who served on and chaired the Portland Parks Board during Nick’s first round as Parks Commission, 2010-13. “I would posit that Portland Parks & Recreation has remained as strong as it has because of Nick’s care and hands-on oversight.”
During his first stint as Parks Commissioner, the Great Recession denied him money to build new parks, so he focused on community gardens, recalls then-Portland Parks and Recreation (PP&R) Director Zari Santner. He worked with Oregon Solutions to develop the “1000 Gardens Initiative” partnering with churches and Portland Public Schools to bring on hundreds of new gardens city wide and the first such community plots to the outer eastside.
“Despite his background, Nick really cared about people in need,” Santner observed. “The gardens fit into his lifelong passion for serving underprivileged communities while capturing a new generation’s passion for locally sourced fresh foods.”
Mike Abbate, who followed Santner as PP&R director notes that Nick was also the first Parks Commissioner to address East Portland through the 'E205 Initiative.' “He didn’t have much money to spend,” Abbate recalls, “so he focused on improving the parks that were there.” These were simple things: new play equipment, bark trails, and benches, Abbate said. “People were so happy. It really galvanized a lot of public officials—not just parks’—around the needs in East Portland.”
Courtesy Portland Parks & Recreation
The one new park Nick played a critical role in was Gateway Green, Longtime East Portland advocate Linda Robinson recalled. Nick co-chaired the Oregon Solutions project that resulted in a “Declaration of Cooperation” between 22 organizations to shape a 25-acre piece of property leftover between I-84 and I-205 into Portland’s first off-road cycling park. Phase I opened in 2017.
But arguably Nick’s most far-reaching legacy was a simple, but extremely effective, act of marketing: the creation of Summer Free For All. “We had been doing movies and concerts in parks for decades,” Santner recalls. “And we served kids lunch in something we called the ‘Summer Playground Program.’" When Nick realized all these things were free, he put them together and called it Summer Free For All (SFFA). "When more budget cuts came,” Santner adds, “he found corporations, businesses and foundations to support SFFA. These were things he knew the community cared about.”
Indeed, Nick’s fundraising acumen was legendary, and mostly for causes beyond his own reelection. Abbate recalled how Nick raised important gifts for the 2014 parks bond, even though he was no longer parks commissioner.
Nick was known in all his bureau assignments (Housing, Fire, Water, BES, and others) for his deep support of front-line staff and community volunteers, and his ability to engage other City Commissioners in solving the problems his bureaus faced. In his latest term as Parks Commissioner, he inherited a bureau with a structural deficit that forced budget cuts. The hearings he staged brought hand-chosen spokespeople from the community to testify rather than the usual, all-comers lottery system. The result was an orderly, transparent process during which the issues around painful cuts were clearly articulated.
With Portland Parks & Recreation Director Adena Long. Photo courtesy of Portland Parks & Recreation.
“Nick was—and I mean this completely positively—the ultimate professional politician,” said Abbate. “He could walk into any room of any group of people feeling bad, down, and angry and, in five minutes make people feel he was on their side, and then he would go do something about it. This was his craft.”
“I joked that Commissioner Fish “wooed” me to Portland to serve as Director of its park and recreation system; I am so glad he did,” said Adena Long, who arrived from the New York City Parks Department last year to become director of PP&R. “Despite the long-standing challenges the bureau faced, he knew the important role that open space, nature, recreation and the arts play in creating a healthy and thriving community, and he worked tirelessly to support them. Nick was the consummate public servant, and his accomplishments will be celebrated for years to come. I am grateful that he chose me to join his team and I am honored to continue his legacy as a champion for all things Portland Parks & Recreation.”
In the months since those most recent budget discussions, Nick led a methodical investigation of strategies for new parks funding, everything from new levies and bonds to the establishment of a parks district, bringing parks leaders and experts together to weigh the tradeoffs within Oregon’s complicated tax system. The work has yet to result in conclusions, but his leadership and the team he brought together has provided a baseline education against which to weigh the politics.
That was quintessential Nick Fish. Vigeland recalls how as a freshman parks board member, Nick invited her to his weekly Monday meetings with parks staff. “When I first joined the board, I wanted to quit: I didn’t know anything,” she said. “But Nick took me, a novice, and helped me get an education.” Vigeland stayed on the board for six years, chairing it for three, and then she joined the board of the Portland Parks Foundation. “Those meetings made me the advocate for parks I am today,” she said.
“Nick’s leadership style was uniquely inclusive,” says Vigeland. "Whether it was the volunteers or the entire bureau, he was all about how can we work together to meet the same goals. It was in his soul.”
Our collective hearts go out to Nick’s family, friends, and staff, and to all those who knew and loved him.
Courtesy Portland Parks & Recreation/Ken Rumbaugh