The Third Man

[February 18th, 2009]

Sam Adams first met Beau Breedlove when the future mayor and a staffer went on a lobbying trip to Salem in spring 2005.

Until now, nobody has identified that staffer in then-Commissioner Adams’ office. WW has learned, however, he is Roland Chlapowski. And he has an interesting tale to tell.

Chlapowski is angry about his subsequent exile from Adams’ inner circle, yet the account he’s giving Oregon Department of Justice investigators differs from Breedlove’s in a way that could help Adams.

The story begins in May 2005, when Chlapowski, then a recent Reed College graduate serving as an unpaid Adams intern, accompanied his boss to lobby Gov. Ted Kulongoski and state lawmakers. Chlapowski recalls noticing a young man tracking him and Adams as they visited legislators to discuss Portland’s transportation needs.

“I thought at first he [Breedlove] was maybe checking me out from across the room,” says Chlapowski, who is also gay. “No matter what floor [of the Capitol] we were on, he was in the wings doing the gay cruise thing.”

When the visit ended, Chlapowski says a female secretary handed Adams a sealed white envelope. The envelope, Chlapowski says he later learned from Adams, contained Breedlove’s name and telephone number.

That account contradicts Breedlove’s version in two important ways. Breedlove told The Oregonian on Feb. 4 that Adams, then 41, later sent an aide to Salem to collect his phone number, and that it was Adams who called looking for him. Breedlove’s version thus portrays Adams as the pursuer and suggests he used public resources—employee time—in that pursuit. Neither assertion is true, Chlapowski says.

Chlapowski says he shared his skepticism about Breedlove’s veracity in a recent interview with a DOJ investigator as part of the state probe into whether Adams had committed a crime. Others, including Adams’ political strategist, Mark Wiener, have also confirmed talking to DOJ investigators. Chlapowski says he is soon scheduled to walk through the Capitol offices with the investigator to see if he can identify the secretary who handed Adams the envelope.

Chlapowski, now 26, says he expressed concern after the then-17-year-old Breedlove attended First Thursday at City Hall on June 2, 2005.

“I told Sam this is a potentially explosive thing and it’s just not worth it,” Chlapowski says. Despite Adams’ admission (see “Why Adams Confessed,” WW, Jan 21, 2009) that he lied in 2007 about having sex with Breedlove, Chlapowski says he believes Adams is telling the truth now when Adams says he waited until Breedlove was 18. Breedlove did not respond to requests for comment.

Chlapowski’s willingness to defend Adams is somewhat surprising. Chlapowski rose from being an unpaid intern in 2005 to being Adams’ $50,000-a-year senior policy adviser on transportation before becoming persona non grata last year.

Chlapowski, an economics major at Reed, shared a deep-seated wonkery with his boss. He says Adams often referred to him as a “protégé.” The two also share a slight resemblance—salt-and-pepper hair and piercing eyes.

“He used to say I was like a little brother to him,” Chlapowski says. “When I worked for Sam, we had dinner a lot because of the [Office of Transportation’s] schedule. I was his valet in a lot of ways.”

The two men spent so much time together City Hall insiders began wondering if they were having an affair.

“Even my partner confronted me,” Chlapowski says. “But the answer is no, we never did.” (Adams, through his attorney, also denies having an affair with his subordinate.)

As the mayoral primary heated up last spring, Chlapowski—increasingly burned out from what he and transportation staffers interviewed for this story call “incredible hours”—left Adams’ staff.

Adams quickly placed Chlapowski on the payroll of another Adams-run agency, the city’s Bureau of Environmental Services.

BES employees say Chlapowski rarely came to the office, and BES director Dean Marriott says he didn’t do the job assigned him—working on the city’s “river rewards” program—although the bureau paid him about $50,000 a year.

“He did not do any meaningful work for us,” says Marriott. “After eight or nine months of that, I suggested our contribution was at an end.”

Chlapowski says he did plenty of work, but it was all special projects for Adams, including research for Adams’ economic plan and an examination of the relationship between money and happiness. Rather than coming to the office, he says he worked on those projects at the Multnomah County Central Library and other locations.

Adams spokesman Roy Kaufmann says Chlapowksi contributed long hours and solid work as an aide but his “excellent research” skills are better suited to work in bureaus. He adds Chlapowski’s research will be used in updating the Portland Plan and policy making.

Chlapowski says he expected Adams to bring him back onto his staff in January when he took office as mayor, but he says Adams broke that promise.

On Jan. 22, Adams moved Chlapowski to the newly created Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, which is now laying off staff. There, he is doing research on peak oil but says he feels Adams has abandoned him.

“I put so much blood, sweat and tears into Sam’s success,” says Chlapowski. “I went from being his right-hand man to being disposed of.”