Skip to main content
Story: EYE OF THE TIGER
Date: July 17
What happened: Bobby Lee, Mayor Ted Wheeler’s longtime chief of staff, shepherded $60,000 in taxpayer funds to art inspired by the Chinese water tiger. The drawings he championed were created by a local high school student, who was also the niece of Lee’s then-girlfriend. Lee directed the city’s economic development agency, Prosper Portland, to cut two $30,000 checks on various water tiger pieces for two of the city’s tentpole events in 2023 and 2024: the Waterfront Blues Festival and the Winter Lights Festival. In the spring, one of the art installations, a water tiger-inspired mural, was moved into one of the city’s primary office buildings at the direction of Lee. When the city’s newly formed Arts & Culture Office took the mural down in order to fix a malfunctioning art piece behind it, Lee blasted the office in a series of emails as culturally insensitive and disrespectful, and told it to write a $40,000 check to the teenage artist for more water tiger art. (The office never cut the check.) Throughout WW’s water tiger stories, Lee defended his actions, saying he merely wanted to support a young artist’s ambitions.
What’s happened since: Bobby Lee resigned in late September, saying he needed to go care for his elderly parents in South Korea. He left with a little less than three months remaining in Mayor Wheeler’s eight-year tenure. There’s no evidence Lee’s departure was connected to the water tiger scandal. He has no workplace listed on his LinkedIn page since his chief of staff position at the city. The water tiger mural is still displayed in a conference room of the Portland Building.