Mayor Lacey Beaty and four Beaverton City Council members jointly endorsed Rachel Philip for the Position 1 council seat in the Nov. 3 runoff election.
The five officials published their endorsement Wednesday, Oct. 21, in an opinion piece in the Beaverton Valley Times. Council President John Dugger and Councilors Allison Tivnon, Ashley Hartmeier-Prigg and Kevin Teater signed on alongside Beaty.
"We don't always agree on the issues facing Beaverton," the five wrote. "But five of us who serve on the city council agree on one thing: Rachel Philip is the right person to help lead our city forward."
Five of the city's six council members are publicly backing one candidate in a two-person race. Philip faces Evelyn Kocher in the runoff. Kocher is a communications manager with the Latino Network and an Oregon State University graduate, according to the Beaverton Valley Times.
Philip chairs the Central Beaverton Neighborhood Association Committee (NAC) and has served on the city's Budget Committee, Visioning Advisory Committee and Downtown Loop Community Advisory Committee. The endorsing officials cited her work bringing traffic-calming measures to neighborhood streets and leading community tree-planting events.
Her campaign priorities include housing, safer streets, careful spending and neighborhood emergency preparedness, according to the opinion piece. The council members wrote that those priorities reflect Philip's existing community work.
Philip led the three-candidate May primary with 48.3% of the vote, according to the Beaverton Valley Times. Kocher finished second at 33.9%. Neither cleared the majority needed to win outright, triggering the runoff.
In a September candidate Q&A published by Your Oregon News, Philip said she had "knocked on over 4,000 doors this year" and identified affordability and the city budget as the top issues facing residents. She called for prioritizing growth in the downtown core and Cooper Mountain to bring housing, jobs and revenue.
Philip has lived in Beaverton since 2018 and has been active in civic life since 2020, according to Washington County Democrats and her own statements. Election data lists her as a former senior software engineer at Nike.
No public response from Kocher's campaign to the endorsement appears in available records as of publication.
Ballots began going out Oct. 14. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 3. The Position 1 race is at-large, meaning all Beaverton voters will see it on their ballot.
