Mayor Remy Drabkin of McMinnville, Oregon has dedicated over 12 years to public service. She is the first woman, first Jew and first queer-identified person to hold the Mayorship. Remy served two terms on the McMinnville City Council and two terms on the Planning Commision before being appointed and then elected Mayor. Remy was pivotal in establishing the Affordable Housing Commission, and the city's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) Advisory Committee. As a housing advocate, Remy has brought forward policy resulting in thousands of nights of overnight shelter and projects that have helped people transition out of homelessness. Remy is active in her work and advocacy at the Oregon State Legislature. Additionally, Remy was appointed by Governor Brown as a Director on the Oregon Wine Board.
Remy co-founded Wine Country Pride, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit bringing LGBTQ+ Pride celebrations to rural Oregon in addition to broad regional representation through a commitment to education, economic activity and continuous visible celebrations of the queer community.
Through her eponymous winery which she founded at the age of 25, Remy Wines, Remy hosted the world's first Queer Wine Fest. Now an annual event, Queer Wine Fest showcases wineries with LGBTQ+ leadership, and through this event a queer professional network in the world of wine was established that hadn't previously existed. Remy's commitment to sustainability was highlighted through an adaptive reuse barn remodel which resulted in the creation of a new carbon-sequestering structural concrete called the Drabkin-Mead Formulation. The invention served as an incubator for others to launch a new McMinnville-based company that focuses on carbon sequestration. Remy actively promotes sequestering carbon into our built environment as key to reversing the effects of climate change.
Remy aspires to help cities implement carbon neutrality into their codes.
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