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COURT ERRED ON PROTECTIVE ORDER STANDARD: The Oregon Court of Appeals on July 12 took the unusual step of admitting it had erred. At issue was an appeal by plaintiff Kim Bradley to overturn a 2022 Multnomah County Circuit Court’s rejection of her application to renew a Family Abuse Protection Act order against her ex-husband, John Bradley (“For More Than 30 Years, Kim Bradley Hid From Her Husband,” WW, Nov. 15, 2017). In its ruling in Kim Bradley’s favor, the Court of Appeals determined it had previously used an outdated standard to judge FAPA renewal applications. That standard required plaintiffs to prove “imminent danger,” which lawmakers in 2019 decided was unreasonable. “We agree that we misstated the renewal standard,” the court wrote. “We failed to take into account a recent legislative amendment to FAPA that indirectly affected that standard.” John Bradley’s attorney was unavailable for comment. He has a month to appeal the ruling. Kim Bradley hopes the ruling stands. “I’m pleased,” she says, “and especially pleased it’s going to help so many other people.”
PORTLAND CONSIDERS RESUMING ENFORCEMENT OF NUISANCE CODE AT DOWNTOWN CLUBS: Following community requests and discussions with bar and club owners in May, city officials are contemplating ways to begin enforcing a long-unused city statute designed to address nuisance complaints downtown, the Portland Police Bureau tells WW. The regulation, known as a “time, place and manner” ordinance, empowers a city liquor license team to review complaints and potentially restrict the hours that bars and nightclubs can operate—or require other interventions, like hiring security or installing additional noise insulation. But there’s a catch. “The process to restart doing them is in the works,” Police Bureau spokesman Kevin Allen told WW on June 24. “However, I have no timeline for when we might have the resources to start them back up.” The last recorded meeting of Portland’s liquor license team was in 2019. In 2020, officials within the city’s liquor licensing program noted recent changes, including “no police reports [and] no capacity on staff to focus on enforcement or to take on more administrative work,” according to a meeting agenda obtained by WW. So far, the mere threat of additional enforcement appears to be making a difference. “Within two weeks of the bar summit, a large bar brawl happened at a club,” Allen says. “The owners shut the club down for a week to reset their practices, and they haven’t had any serious issues since.”
ETHICS COMMISSION LAUNCHES FAGAN PROBE: The Oregon Government Ethics Commission voted unanimously July 14 to pursue a full investigation into former Secretary of State Shemia Fagan’s contract with embattled cannabis duo Rosa Cazares and Aaron Mitchell. Among its findings, commission staff concluded there was reason to believe Fagan may have used her elected position for personal financial gain and that the $10,000-a-month consulting work would not have been made available to her had she not been in her elected position. Fagan resigned May 2, less than a week after WW reported on the contract. Fagan’s attorney, David Elkanich, denied in a letter submitted to the commission in June that his client had acted improperly or unethically. “If suspicion and innuendo are enough to find that Ms. Fagan violated ethics rules,” Elkanich wrote, “then OGEC would allow innuendo and optics alone to render suspect the private employment of hundreds of public officials across Oregon.”
FEDS SAY PAMPLIN BERRY FARM STIFFED WORKERS: After an investigation into allegations of unpaid overtime, the U.S. Department of Labor found May 17 that a berry grower and processor owned by R.B. Pamplin Corp. had failed to properly compensate 43 workers, including some who worked up to 75 hours a week. The federal Labor Department ordered Columbia Empire Farms to pay workers $167,000 that they should have been paid earlier, as first reported by the Salem Statesman Journal. R.B. Pamplin Corp., the family-owned company of Dr. Robert B. Pamplin Jr., owns 24 Oregon newspapers, including the Portland Tribune. “The U.S. Department of Labor will protect the rights of vulnerable workers and hold employers accountable when they fail to pay them all their hard-earned wages, including overtime,” said the department’s Portland-based wage and hour director, Carrie Aguilar. Pamplin officials did not respond to a request for comment.