Murmurs: Oregon Elections Director Was Forced Out

OREGON ELECTIONS DIRECTOR WAS FORCED OUT: The Associated Press, quoting from a resignation letter by Oregon elections director Deborah Scroggin, suggested Dec. 12 that Scroggin was voluntarily leaving her job after 18 months because of an “extraordinarily challenging time for elections officials.” But reached by WW, Scroggin says the AP never interviewed her and that, in fact, her boss, Secretary of State Shemia Fagan, asked for her resignation. Scroggin says she never would have quit, despite rampant misinformation from election deniers, and is disappointed to leave: “I respect the secretary’s vision and decision and understand we have different approaches.” Fagan spokesman Ben Morris confirms Fagan asked Scroggin to go. “Secretary Fagan’s priority for the Elections Division is that it will be a customer service division,” Morris says. “This priority was repeatedly met with resistance by Ms. Scroggin.”

PORTLAND SEES THIRD SCHOOL SHOOTING IN TWO MONTHS: In what has become a disturbing trend, a 16-year-old student at Cleveland High School was hospitalized after being shot Monday afternoon outside the school building. The school went into lockdown and students were sent home early. It’s the third time in the past two months that a student has been injured in a shooting outside a Portland Public Schools building. Three Jefferson High School students were injured earlier this year in two separate after-school shootings just outside the high school—one in a car a block from the school and two others outside the school’s gym. Classes were canceled at Cleveland on Tuesday. “As gunfire rattles another PPS community, I urge our community to come together and work collectively towards resolving the social problems plaguing our neighborhoods,” Superintendent Guadalupe Guerrero said in a statement released Tuesday morning. This is the sixth school shooting in Portland in 2022, according to the national K-12 School Shooting Database maintained by independent researcher David Riedman, which counts the number of times “a gun is brandished, is fired, or a bullet hits school property.” There were two in 2021, and one in each of the prior two years. The rise in shootings reflects a national trend. In a September presentation, Multnomah County health officials identified “exposure to violence” on social media and “an increase in high capacity and fully automatic guns” as “emerging themes” in Portland-area gun violence.

ADVOCATES QUESTION JOINT OFFICE DIRECTOR HIRING PLAN: The advocacy group Shelter Now is pushing back against what its leaders say is a hasty process for hiring a new permanent director for the Joint Office of Homeless Services, the joint city-county venture that will spend $260 million this year. Longtime JOHS director Marc Jolin stepped down earlier this year, and his interim replacement, Shannon Singleton, abruptly left in November. Multnomah County announced that its recruitment process for the director, who reports to County Chair Deborah Kafoury, would close Dec. 16, two weeks before County Commissioner Jessica Vega Pederson succeeds Kafoury as chair. In a Dec. 5 email to Kafoury and Vega Pederson, Shelter Now chair Sean Green asked officials to “extend the search time frames, engage diverse community stakeholders, and improve communication and transparency.” Green repeated that request in public testimony last week. So far, crickets. “It’s frustrating that there’s not more involvement from the community in the process,” Green tells WW. Spokesman Denis Theriault says the county launched a “wide, deep and thoughtful engagement process” in late summer, including Green’s group and many others in surveys. “It’s possible the deadline for applications will be extended, pending a review of the initial batch of applicants,” Theriault adds. “We expect stakeholders will continue to play a role in providing perspectives as interviews start.”

DEMOCRATS REMAIN MUM ON FTX GIFT: Two weeks after WW’s initial inquiry, the Democratic Party of Oregon still won’t say whether it plans to return a $500,000 contribution from Nishad Singh, former director of engineering at FTX, the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange run by Sam Bankman-Fried. Bankman-Fried, who bankrolled Democratic candidates across the county, including Oregon congressional hopeful Carrick Flynn, was arrested Monday in the Bahamas and on charges of lying to investors, wire fraud, and conspiracy to defraud the United States. He also violated campaign finance laws, according to federal prosecutors, by making political contributions to both parties under the names of “co-conspirators.” In truth, that cash came from customer funds misappropriated by FTX affiliate Alameda Research, prosecutors say. Democratic Party of Oregon executive director Brad Martin declined to comment. Records at the Oregon Secretary of State’s Office show the DPO has $473,000 in its account.