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Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump's $2,700-a-plate fundraising dinner later this month in Seattle includes three big Portland business names as hosts.
An invitation obtained by The Seattle Times shows the Aug. 30 dinner will be hosted by Portland private equity investor Peter Stott and hoteliers Gordon Sondland and Bashar Wali.
Stott is the president of the private equity firm Columbia Investments, and is best known as a donor to Portland State University. The PSU athletic facility Peter W. Stott Center is named after him.
Sondland, who lives mostly in Seattle, owns stakes in four downtown Portland hotels: the Lucia, deLuxe, Sentinel and Westin. Wali works out of Portland as the president of Sondland's company, Provenance Hotels.
Wali and Sondland are perhaps best known as longtime foils of regional planning agency Metro and its efforts to build a taxpayer-financed Hyatt next to the Oregon Convention Center.
Update: Two Portland hotel executives disavow Donald Trump a day after being listed as his event sponsors.
The invitation to Trump's fundraiser, which starts at $2,700 a person to get in, lists Sondland as co-chair of the Oregon and Washington chapters for Trump Victory, a political action committee. The invitation says that co-chairs donated $10,000 to Trump's election.
Sondland, Wali and Stott could not immediately be reached for comment.
The Aug. 30 event in Seattle will be paired with a public rally. Trump is expected to hold another fundraiser and rally in Portland on Aug. 31.
Details of the Portland events are still being finalized.
"We're really excited to have Mr. Trump back out in the Pacific Northwest," says Jacob Daniels, Oregon campaign manager for Trump, "and we expect to have a successful trip."
Willamette Week