Astoria City Council candidate hopes to be a voice for housing
Vance Lump, the owner of Astoria Wood Windows, will run for the Astoria City Council in the November election.
Lump, who has lived in Astoria since 2018, announced his candidacy on Wednesday for Ward 4, which covers Uppertown east to Alderbrook.
The seat is held by City Councilor Tom Hilton, who has told The Astorian that he does not plan to seek reelection.
Originally from the Bay Area in California, Lump lived in Portland and Warren before relocating to the North Coast. Struggling to find housing, he and his wife, Jaime, spent their first few months living in an RV in Chinook, Washington, while he worked at Fort George Brewery and his wife worked at the Blue Scorcher Bakery & Cafe.
When the coronavirus pandemic hit in 2020, Lump, who holds a bachelor’s degree in graphic design and illustration, was laid off from his job and pursued retraining through Clatsop Community College’s historic preservation program. After completing the program, he launched his own business in 2022 restoring historic wood windows.
Lump has been heavily involved with housing advocacy in Astoria, beginning with the debate over a proposed workforce housing project at Heritage Square.
“I realized that somebody needs to be on the side of housing, to set the record straight and provide actual facts,” Lump said. “And so I was trying to do that, and became just more involved with city meetings because I wanted to know what was going on.”
Lump is the vice president of Astoria Housing Alliance, a housing nonprofit formed in January. If elected to the City Council, Lump hopes to make Astoria more attractive to development, especially for affordable housing.
“I think developers are a little bit afraid of Astoria because you’ve got, in the past, a council that has not always been as pro-housing as I feel like they need to be, considering the breadth of the problem,” he said. “When things come up for votes on council, you’ve had kind of a mixed bag on projects being able to go through.”
“Beyond specific regulations, it’s really just making it clear: we want more housing here, and we are willing to listen to what the problems are from people who are in the community, as well as people who want to build in our community and try to work toward the solutions,” he added.
Lump views himself as someone who can be a force for change.
“My general observation on the council is that, in a lot of instances, they are reactionary to problems,” he said. “They do not always — it’s changing a little bit with housing — but they have not always tried to be ahead of problems. And I, myself, am not afraid of change, and think there’s always somewhere to improve. I love Astoria. Astoria is a fantastic city. But I think there’s always something that can be improved, even in a place that’s already awesome.”
Lump is the only candidate to announce his decision to run so far. There is also an open seat in Ward 2, which covers parts of Uniontown and the South Slope. City Councilor Tom Brownson, who represents the ward, has chosen not to run for reelection.
The deadline to file for election is Aug. 27.
