To do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God.â Micah 6:8
Humble, kind and soft spoken, Paula Portugal, the first female to serve as Paris mayor, sees both challenges and a bright future for her hometown as she embarks on the first year of a final two-year term on Paris City Council.
First elected to the District 7 post in 2017, Portugal garnered a unanimous vote as mayor by her colleagues at a May 10 meeting after serving two years as mayor pro tem. A Paris native, Portugal returned to Paris in 2012 after a 32-year career in education.
âI donât remember ever reading Micah 6:8 in my life until this morning when it appeared as my morning devotional message,â Portugal said from the mayorâs office at city hall. âThatâs what a leader needs â to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with God. I pray every day for our staff and our council that we make good decisions.â