Lake Oswego City Council Candidate Patrick Walsh Visits Old Town Neighborhood Today
- Derrith Schmidt
- 7 hours ago
- 4 min read
Patrick Walsh, a LO resident for 5 years in the Bryant neighborhood with a 4 year old who he takes to play at the George Rogers playground and a wife who is active in Rotary, spent his lunch hour with us today walking around our Old Town neighborhood hearing our history, problems and priorities and meeting neighbors. Thank you for taking the time to get to know us and our neighborhood Patrick.
I met Patrick when he attended the July Neighborhood Chairs meeting that Lynn Peterson spoke at. He wants to connect with people from all the neighborhoods in LO and shared his campaign motto is, "A Leader for ALL of Lake Oswego."
Patrick Walsh is a Lake Oswego community leader who is currently serving as the Chair of the Lake Oswego Public Library Advisory Board and running as a candidate for the Lake Oswego City Council in the upcoming November 3, 2026. He also shared he was part of the team to get the School Bond passed. His "day job" is leading a non-profit and he shared with us about his volunteer work with inmates at Coffee Creek women's correctional facility.
Joining us on the walkabout today were OTNA Board members Ann Garcia (with her daughter Maya) and Michael Schmidt, and me the Neighborhood Chair. We also stopped and talked with Nancy Headlee, a long time Old Town neighbor and former chair of OTNA who we affectionately call "the Mayor of Old Town" because she's always talking to neighbors and has a wonderful pulse of what's happening.
We walked with Patrick from Wilbur Street down to Furnace Street explaining the challenges for safety there that we've been working with the City on for several years. As we walked from Furnace Street to turn onto Ladd to go into the playground we almost got run over by a car. Patrick quickly and thoughtfully helped Maya get to the side of the unsteady dirt area to keep her safe. He realized walking with us that the streets can be dangerous for pedestrians.
We continued our neighborhood walk about through the playground and down Ladd Street, pointing out the unsafe and unattractive "entrance" to GRP at Ladd and Durham Street. We then walked up Durham Street up to Leonard Street to share the concerns and priorities of neighbors in each section of the neighborhood. We heard gas blowers going and talked to him about the neighbors concerns about the noise.
We talked to him about the 2002 "shelved" GRP (George Rogers Park) Master Plan that the City and neighbors took two years to develop but was never funded. And our frustrations of being the overflow parking lot of GRP and the safety issues around that, including people who sleep in their vehicles next to our homes (a City ordinance that needs to change). We shared how grateful we are for LOPD/CSO and the Fire Department teams who are so responsive and willing to help.
He asked what it's like for the Arts Festival and we responded "great because the City has a traffic plan and Public Works puts out no parking signs throughout the neighborhood." We explained we wished the City would respond that way during the busy summer weekends when so many people descend on GRP. And we talked about our frustrations working with City Traffic/Engineering to get simple changes made.
Patrick seems to be a very level-headed, involved, ready-to-learn, caring and personable candidate.
He shared with us his postcard about himself and his priorities if elected to our LO City Council which I've posted below.
It impressed me when he shared, "This is the most intensive learning for me since college learning about land use, how the City works, what's important to the neighborhoods, Chamber of Commerce, budgets..." It's impressive that he's "going to school" to be ready to be a prepared City Councilor. He pulled out the book Abundance from his backpack and shared he's reading it now and learning a lot. He'd also read the book Interim City Manager Lynn Peterson wrote. And he'd read Theo of Golden and The Correspondent. Nancy Headlee joked with him, "You'll be doing a lot of reading as a City Councilor of packets and probably not as much fun reading."
Patrick Walsh has already proven to be someone who gets involved, listens and leads to make LO a better place. He's curious and continuously learning, a wonderful characteristic for a City Councilor.
You can learn more about him at: www.Walsh4LO.com
It was great to meet you, learn from you and share what's happening in Old Town with you Patrick. Thank you for running for this hard and important volunteer role as a City Councilor.
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