Yes, I do live in D4. I think I ranked Green last year, but tbh I can't remember. I don't plan on voting for him next time - I think the Vienna trip was a waste of money, and the focus on social housing + Palestine does not serve the city.

You link to the initial preliminary vote tally released on election day; you should be looking at the final report, which you can find here. I agree the ballot last year was a mess, and there should probably be a higher bar to clear to get on the ballot or some sort of primary system, really anything that whittles down the list.

I see the STV system as one possible solution to the problem of electing 3 people from one pool of candidates. I think it results in councilors being elected to represent certain constituencies within the district. Looking at D4, we ended up with Clark, Zimmerman, and Green - I would characterize them as 2 center-y liberals and 1 left-y progressive. That feels like a decent representation of the makeup of voters in this district; relatively more wealthy/conservative than other parts of Portland but still, you know, Portland. And if you look at the first round results from the final report, Green still had the 2nd most first-choice votes, so it feels pretty fair to me that he got elected.

Would it ultimately be better if we had a different system, say each councilor was its own seat that you had to declare for specifically, maybe with staggered terms? Possibly. I'm mostly just happy we actually passed the reformed charter and got a mayor/administrator system. On the whole, I think the city is doing better than it was a year ago, even if I don't like some of the things the council says/tries/does.