KGW Straight Talk – September 18, 2026

Two incumbent commissioners, Pam Treece and Nafisa Fai, are facing each other in a November runoff to become the next county chair.

WASHINGTON COUNTY, Ore. — In just over six weeks, voters in Washington County will choose their next county chair in a runoff race, triggered after no candidate cleared the 50% threshold in May’s primary.

Sitting commissioners Nafisa Fai and Pam Treece advanced to the runoff, and they each were a guest on this week’s episode of “Straight Talk” as they make their cases to voters in an election where a booming tech-forward economy, immigration enforcement and land use issues are major topics in the county.

The county council underwent a shakeup this week when current Chair Kathryn Harrington announced that she would be stepping back from the role following an incident in which she gave Fai a middle finger during a meeting on Tuesday. Current Vice-chair Jerry Willey will serve as chair pro-tem for the remainder of Harrington’s term, with Commissioner Jason Snider stepping in if Willey is absent.

Pam Treece

Editor’s note: Treece’s interview was filmed prior to the Tuesday incident. On Thursday, Treece called for Harrington’s resignation and said she planned to return a donation Harrington had made to her campaign and remove the chair’s endorsement from her website.

Treece has represented Washington County’s District 2 since 2019. For more than two decades prior to entering politics, she worked for Pacific Power, retiring as vice president of external affairs. She has also served as executive director of the West Side Economic Alliance since 2012.

Treece said that as chair, she’ll work to make the commission more relationship-based, highlighting her campaign’s support from 10 mayors in the county as well as commissioner-elect Felisa Monteblanco, who won the election in May to succeed Treece in the District 2 seat.

She also defended the commission’s record, arguing that Washington County needs to address key issues but doesn’t need “dramatic changes.” She noted that the county has cut $98 million from its budget over the past six years, but added that she worries about the county’s dependency on levies.

Treece said she’s not in favor of any more data centers in Washington County “if we can avoid that,” though she noted that the commission is primarily focused on unincorporated county land, while the big recent data center projects have been within the city of Hillsboro.

In response to surges in ICE activity in Washington County, Treece said the commission needs to be working closely with the sheriff’s office and community-based organizations, while also noting that Fai would have a roll to play.

“She should be the face of this issue,” she said. “That doesn’t mean that I won’t be actively engaged, but I do recognize a good leader knows when to put the right people forward to do, to, to lead with the community and to have the community resonate with that individual.”

Treece said her biggest public safety priority as chair will be to address the revenue needs of the public safety team, including building a new jail and courthouse and addressing staffing issues.

She said the two big reasons voters should choose her are her depth of experience managing large groups of people and budgets, and her experience with economic development and growth.

Nafisa Fai

Fai has represented Washington County’s District 1 since 2020, and is the first immigrant and refugee to hold that position. Prior to running for office, she spent much of her career working in public health at organizations like the Red Cross, Upstream Public Health and at other roles with the county.

She also owns a small business based in Beaverton, through which she founded the Pan African Festival, which celebrates cultural, economic and social vitality.

Speaking about the incident with Harringon, Fai said the tone of the meeting felt like “any other regular Tuesday” until she saw Harrington’s gesture, which she said was disrespectful not only to her, but to all her constituents and all county residents. She declined to directly join those calling for Harrington to resign, saying she wanted to focus on working for Washington County and the decision would be up to Harrington herself.

Turning to her campaign, Fai said she’s running on her record as a commissioner and her executive experience, particularly running the team that helped the county respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I’m running to, you know, make sure that everyone in Washington County has the freedom and the opportunity to thrive in Washington County, to our county to be a place where people can afford to live businesses can invest and honestly eradicate some of the toxic environment that exists in certain pockets of Washington County,” she said.

For voters who are dissatisfied with the direction of the county, Fai said her existing track record in county leadership shows that she’s been on the lone voice pushing for some of the biggest issues that resonate with voters.

“When the ICE situation was unfolding in Washington County, I called for our board of county commissioners to declare a state of emergency and to unlock and to put resources to our communities and the residents that are impacted,” she said.

She pointed to data centers as another example, saying she put forth the idea of a Washington County Data Center work group, and later a data center moratorium.