Hillsboro City Councilor Kipperlyn Sinclair is leaving her Ward 2 seat to run for Washington County commissioner. She faces former Hillsboro Mayor Steve Callaway in a Nov. 3 runoff for the District 4 seat.

Sinclair, elected to the council in 2022, finished second in a six-candidate May 19 primary with 21.4% of the vote, according to the Hillsboro News-Times. Callaway led the field with 32.9%. Neither cleared the majority threshold.

District 4 covers western Washington County, including most of Hillsboro, North Plains, Cornelius and Forest Grove. Commissioner Jerry Willey announced plans to retire in 2025, opening the seat.

Washington County will mail ballots to voters Wednesday, Oct. 14.

Data center opposition

Sinclair has built much of her campaign around fighting data center expansion. Washington County has 29 data centers, more than any other county in Oregon, and received $20.5 million in property tax revenue from those facilities, about 1% of the countywide tax base, OPB reported.

Sinclair is one of several plaintiffs suing the City of Hillsboro over data center tax breaks, according to OPB.

On July 27, the Hillsboro City Council unanimously passed a 120-day moratorium on new data centers and battery energy storage systems. Sinclair championed the measure and secured amendments expanding the definition to include AI computing and AI factories. She also helped launch a Washington County petition that gathered support from more than 5,000 residents, according to a statement she posted on the Hillsboro Herald.

"That is our life source. It is not a corporate resource …" Sinclair told OPB on Sept. 25. "What I want people to understand: these are your public dollars being given away to corporations."

Immigration advocacy

Sinclair's role in the case of Victor Cruz, a Hillsboro grandfather detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in October 2025, has also shaped her candidacy.

Cruz held a valid work permit through 2029 and deferred action status when ICE agents pulled him over and arrested him in Hillsboro on Oct. 14, 2025, OPB reported. His family said ICE told Cruz agents were looking for another person with the same name. His attorney, Julia Braker, told OPB that Cruz's deferred action status meant the government had already determined he likely qualified for a pending visa.

A federal judge ordered Cruz released on bond Nov. 7, 2025, overruling an immigration judge who had denied bail, according to OPB. He remained in removal proceedings.

Washington County had the largest share of immigration arrests in Oregon from July through December 2025, accounting for 33.5% of statewide ICE arrests, according to a Portland Immigrants Rights Coalition analysis cited by OPB.

Erin Palmer, who served as the Cruz family's representative, wrote in a Sept. 30 opinion piece in the Beaverton Valley Times that Sinclair spoke with the family daily and worked to connect them with officials who could help. Palmer, a Washington County business owner who has known Sinclair loosely in a professional capacity for more than a dozen years, wrote that most officials did not return her calls or emails during the crisis.

Palmer also connected Sinclair's advocacy to concerns about surveillance technology, writing that residents deserve to know what information Flock automated license plate readers collect and who can access it.

Callaway's record

Callaway served as Hillsboro's mayor until 2024. An opinion letter published Sept. 23 in the Hillsboro News-Times by Aaron Nichols, a board member of Friends of Smart Growth, alleged that Callaway signed Resolution 2558 in 2017, allowing data center tax exemption applications to bypass the city council and be approved by the city manager. No public response from Callaway's campaign to that claim appears in available records.

Two candidates are running for Sinclair's open Ward 2, Position A council seat: Karim Delgado and Ivette Pantoja, according to the Hillsboro News-Times.