David Bragdon

Who is David Bragdon?

David Bragdon is a politician in the U.S. states of Oregon and New York. From 2003 to 2010, he was president of Metro, a regional government entity in the Portland metropolitan area, and had been a Metro councilor since January 1999. In September 2010, Bragdon assumed a new position as Director of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability for New York City.

In the private sector, Bragdon has driven a cab, worked in shipping at Nike, chartered freighters, represented Evergreen Airlines, and worked as a marketing manager for the Port of Portland. He chaired the Oregon Port Planning and Development Advisory Committee under Governor Neil Goldschmidt in the late 1980s. His brother, Peter Bragdon, was Governor Ted Kulongoski's chief of staff in the early 2000s. He ran for the Oregon House of Representatives in 1996, but lost to Chris Beck in the Democratic primary.

Bragdon was first elected to the Metro Council in 1998. He was elected regionwide as the first Metro Council President in 2002, and was re-elected in 2006 without an opponent. He is a train enthusiast, and as a kid wrote a 20-page booklet for TriMet about bus riding and how to use the TriMet bus system. In response to speculation that he would run for mayor of Portland in 2008, Bragdon issued a press release stating that he would not run for office in any city in that year. He was a member of the Big Look Task Force, which works on land use policy in Oregon.