KOIN 6 News contacted candidates who are planning to run for Oregon governor in 2022, asking them to respond to these three questions:

  • Why are you running for governor? 
  • In your opinion, what are the top three issues Oregon is facing right now? 
  • What is something you believe is going right in Oregon and how would you like to continue to build on it?

Keisha (Coach Kay) L. Merchant is running as a Democrat. Here are her responses:

Why are you running for governor?  

I want to provide accessibility to all Oregonians to increase quality of life and excellent response systems in all its institutions, to end the school to prison pipeline, increase quality care ethics and high performance standards for interaction to our environment to all Oregon residents, service professionals, and professionals. I believe I am making history becoming the first Afro-diaspora woman professional to run in the state of Oregon as governor to a major party. I believe that our Oregon political process should  be accessible to all Oregonians…. No one will be left behind in accessing resources and care ethics… It seems costly to imprison nonviolent and wrongfully convicted inmates. We imprisoned sick inmates, seniors, and those who showed no form of threat. If our fear is job security, then let’s just change our economy… This is an example why I am running for governor to be a butterfly effect in our political population. Everyone should sit at the table to be a stakeholder. Giving quality care ethics, standards of excellence in all government institutions.

The government should answer their phones, excellence in response systems, in interactive conflict resolution management system, and interpersonal communications leadership in all conduct while performing their service duty for all properties, populace, and resources entrusted to us as a state.

In your opinion, what are the top three issues Oregon is facing right now? 

Please see question 1: Environmental justice, quality care assurance

Example: Homeless and incarcerated, access to excellence in leadership, and community. 

2. Universal access to all forms of health, wellness, and fitness care or alternative care

Example: Veterans. 

3. Economy (employment, entrepreneurship, education, training, and access to resources, human services, supportive systems) 

Example: Farming 

What is something you believe is going right in Oregon and how would you like to continue to build on it? 

Oregon is an excellent environmental health state. Our work ethics for caring for the environment is the sixth greenest in the country, according to WalletHub… We are ranked 17 in the best health care system in the country, according to U.S. News & World Report. We rank 23rd in the country for the best job growth, according to MoneyGeek. We are 11th in the most innovative, modernized, and technological state in the country, according to WalletHub. We ranked 18th in the country for the most favorite state to visit on vacation, according to Simplemost. 

We should be proud of these accomplishments. The way I would like to build on these accomplishments is by developing 200 cities (under 40,000 in populations) by partnerships with parks and recreation to build programs for hospitality and tourism as all-year community parks and recreation with low to no entrance fees and daily pass or overnight pass, but allow businesses to set up booths to sell products for yearly fees. I would like to scale our 14 cities (40,000 or greater in population) to increase our performance rates by building virtual reality gaming systems and virtualization operations systems that connect Oregonians to partnership with the world economy for access to resources and alliances globally as leaders. We can provide our excellent services to train, mentor, consult, and expand as a state. This will provide Oregon opportunities to develop its economic system, increase cyber security to serve all Oregonians in their pursuit of quality care work ethics, excellence code, and increase government support in service networking and connectivity for Oregonians to be leaders globally as an option and trade off from one location to many locations at lower overheads with its partnerships, stakeholders, and customers. In turn, this will increase our accomplishments as a state and increase Quality of Life for all Oregonians, potential new residents, and their visitors. I have a good stewardship platform for excellence to focus on all departments that serve our 4-million population. I want to add a social responsibility code to our conduct to all people in Oregon. I want to increase the accomplishments by developing 200 cities in quality care, so the 14 cities can extend programs to the 200 cities to increase employment opportunities and economic growth through scaling all 214 cities. (Scaling a business means setting the stage to enable and support growth in your company. It means having the ability to grow without being hampered. It requires planning, some funding and the right systems, staff, processes, technology and partners). 

Editor’s Note: KOIN 6 News redacted numbers from Merchant’s response that we could not confirm, regarding the cost of caring for imprisoned individuals in Oregon. KOIN asked Merchant to clarify her numbers, but we also could not confirm the numbers she sent in her response.   

KOIN 6 News made minor adjustments to spelling, capitalization and punctuation in the responses the gubernatorial candidates submitted.