Skip to main contentGov. Tina Kotek has booted a vocal supporter off her Task Force on Alcohol Pricing and Addiction Services before that panel even held its first meeting.
That supporter, Mike Marshall, the director of the advocacy group Oregon Recovers, made comments (since deleted) on his personal Facebook page last month after the sudden death of Don Andersen, the co-founder of Vanguard Brewing in Wilsonville. The comments included a link to Johns Hopkins University research on the health dangers of drinking.
The Oregon Brewers Guild reacted strongly to Marshall’s Facebook post, writing to Kotek to complain.
“Mike Marshall, executive director of Oregon Recovers, has used social media to publicly denigrate [Andersen], humiliating his family and making false and unsupported assumptions about his death,” the letter from guild president Ben Edmunds of Breakside Brewing said. “How can you ask other members of the Task Force on Alcohol Pricing and Addiction Services to serve alongside someone who is lacking a moral compass, baseline compassion and respect for our fellow Oregonians?”
That letter prompted Constantin Severe, Kotek’s public safety adviser, to contact Marshall in late December. In that conversation, Severe offered Marshall the opportunity to resign from the panel but to recommend somebody to replace him.
In a three-page letter following that call, which WW obtained from Kotek’s office, Marshall let Severe and Kotek know he didn’t appreciate their response. (OPB first reported Marshall’s dismissal today.)
“Bringing the concerns of the alcohol manufacturing community directly to the Governor, without first affording Oregon Recovers the opportunity to provide important context, appears one-sided and disrespectful,” Marshall wrote, adding that the Brewers Guild’s objections went far beyond a Facebook post.
“Don’t be fooled,” Marshall wrote. “Their opposition to my inclusion on the Task Force is not about a single Facebook post. This is about five years of effective public education about the harm the alcohol industry is causing Oregon families—advocacy that has forced them to the table for the first time in 50 years. Of course they want me replaced.”
Marshall’s letter didn’t mollify Severe or his boss and, on Jan. 4, Severe sent Marshall an email telling him he was off the panel.
“Upon review of the post, we believe it was insensitive, disrespectful, inappropriate, and in conflict with the goal of working collectively with all stakeholders to advance the critical work of the Task Force on Alcohol Pricing and Addiction Services,” Severe wrote. “We understand that you have chosen not to resign or identify another person from Oregon Recovers to take your place, so I am writing to inform you that you are being removed from the Task Force effective immediately.”
Marshall could not immediately be reached for comment.