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The primary elections have wrapped, and winners have begun the next legs of their journey. Of the three architecture, construction or engineering industry candidates I wrote about last month, two prevailed.

Lynn Peterson ran and won election as Metro Council president.

Dave Poulson ran unopposed in the Republican primary for state Senate in the district serving Lake Oswego, West Linn and Tigard. He now needs to unpack his strategy for winning the election.

As a professional engineer, Mr. Poulson will need to convince voters that he has enough political acumen to bridge the gap between an engineering specialist and the public. Engineers have a reputation as a pretty black-and-white bunch (the building will stand, or it won’t). Politics, of course, isn’t that way; it is filled with many nuances that reflect the collective will of the various constituencies.

Can an engineer make that transition? History has not been kind to engineers who have migrated to politics. Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter are two that come to mind. This is not a national race, so the issues are local and affect voters in a much more personal way. The voters in this race are also not very far removed from the candidate. Anyone in the voting district can do an Internet search on Mr. Poulson and pay him a visit without too much trouble. It might be interesting to see how many voters actually do that.

Stu Emmons’ loss is perhaps noteworthy in several regards. Mr. Emmons, while not a single-issue candidate, bet his prospects on an issue that gets a lot of press – homelessness. He had a detailed plan on how to solve this intractable issue and developed the research that demonstrated that his ideas were real and could be accomplished.

He was not a professional politician and ran against two opponents who were. Neither offered the level of detail in problem resolution that Mr. Emmons offered. The election results say that homelessness is not the important issue that many people may say it is. Specific expertise in delivering solutions is not an asset that is valued when weighed against the broader skill sets that were presented to the voters. Political inexperience may have worked against Mr. Emmons when it came time to mark the ballots.

Regardless of who won, some issues haven’t changed. The winners will need to deal with Oregon’s infrastructure. A new withholding tax on income will focus interest on infrastructure as every paycheck will see a deduction.

Infrastructure investment by local, county and state government has not kept up with the booming economy that our region is experiencing. The lack of infrastructure investment is clearly being felt by a large swath of the population. This is felt in urban areas such as Portland. Examples of nonstop congestion on Interstate 205, U.S. 26, the Interstate Bridge and other major corridors are more than ample evidence.

Compact urban growth patterns encouraged by land use laws require corresponding investment in infrastructure. That investment should not be limited to car-centric projects but must provide services to encourage all business activities. For it is these business activities that generate the tax revenue so necessary for functioning governments and are dear to the hearts of the successful candidates.

Although financing is beginning to come through, there is a continuing drumbeat of infrastructure needs and failures. The belief that this can only happen somewhere else is misplaced. As we in this metropolitan area know, there are a number of key infrastructure elements that have reached the ends of their useful lives.

The public should now see these issues being addressed in meaningful ways. The Oregon Legislature has passed a transportation bill and the largest city in the state has adopted surface transportation financing measures. The need for elected officials to closely oversee these expenditures has never been greater.

Christian Steinbrecher is president of Ukiah Engineering. He is the author of ASCE Oregon’s report card on Oregon’s infrastructure and a past recipient of ASCE Oregon’s Engineer of the Year award. Contact him at 503-297-4827 or [email protected].