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GONZALEZ LANDS NEW JOB: Former Portland City Commissioner Rene Gonzalez, who for his two years in office championed the public safety bureaus and vowed to restore law and order to the city, is going back to the private sector. Gonzalez has taken the position of general counsel for the North Portland trucking company Jubitz. Fred Jubitz, the company’s president, is Gonzalez’s step-uncle. Members of the Jubitz family were top donors to both Gonzalez’s campaign for City Council in 2022 and his failed bid for mayor in 2024. As Oregon Public Broadcasting reported last week, Gonzalez filed a tort claim with the city on his way out the door, alleging the city had failed to respond to threats made to Gonzalez, and fellow elected officials, swiftly enough. In an email announcement from the Jubitz Corporation to employees earlier this month, Gonzalez wrote that he looks forward to “joining the next generation of leadership in providing reliability to the people who build and transport the region in this ever-evolving environment.”
MEIERAN INTERCEDES FOR RV SAFE PARK: Sharon Meieran is gone from the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners, but she’s not forgotten. On Friday, she sent an email to County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson, the four county commissioners, Portland’s mayor, and all 12 new city councilors, urging them to extend the life of the Sunderland RV Safe Park off Northeast 33rd Avenue just south of the Columbia River. Sunderland, always intended to be temporary, has been so successful in getting RV dwellers and their rigs off city streets and into a central location where they can get services that its life should be extended, Meieran argues. Her husband and co-petitioner, Fred Cirillo, a fellow doctor who ministers to the homeless through Portland Street Medicine, has treated people with chronic injuries at Sunderland. “It was the right place and the right time,” Cirillo tells WW. “It seems like it is really well run.” Even so, the city intends to close the park March 31, as planned. At a City Council work session Tuesday, City Councilor Dan Ryan, who helped open Sunderland, asked city staffers if the park was being closed to make room for a giant leaf mulching machine operated by the Portland Bureau of Transportation. “It’s hard to sit here and think we’re choosing a monster mulcher over saving the lives of Portlanders,” Ryan said. City officials assured him that residents at Sunderland could move into a new RV safe park 5 miles away on Portland Road that has room for 70 vehicles. Meieran says the city should keep both RV sites because there are enough vehicles on city streets to fill them. “They could double the number of people they serve and get double the number of derelict vehicles off the street,” she told WW in an email. “Expand the scale, scope and efficiency of an ideal shelter model. Finally start picking the low-hanging fruit.”
GOVERNOR’S OFFICE SPENDING REFERRED TO ETHICS COMMISSION: On Jan 3, the Oregon secretary of state’s Audits Division referred a series of expenditures by the governor’s office to the Oregon Government Ethics Commission for investigation. The referral, first reported at wweek.com, involves state-paid parking for first lady Aimee Kotek Wilson and for the state’s federal affairs representative, Annie McColaugh. Auditors noted that public officials typically pay for their own parking, so getting state-paid parking could violate the state’s prohibition on using public positions for private gain or the avoidance of costs. Auditors also questioned expenditures of $615 for Kotek, her wife and friends to attend various performances with no obvious public purpose, and $9,330 for an August 2023 state employee party at the governor’s residence, Mahonia Hall. “We believe the potential violations are minor, and these instances were unintentional, in that the public officials involved may not have been aware of the technical requirements of state ethics law,” wrote then-deputy secretary of state Cheryl Myers in a letter to Gov. Kotek. Kotek’s office did not respond to a request for comment. In a separate letter, the Audits Division criticized the Oregon Wine Board for failing to keep an inventory of the more than 900 bottles in the state wine cellar at Mahonia Hall. Read more at wweek.com.
MAYOR WILSON BACKTRACKS ON RETURN-TO-OFFICE MANDATE: Before Mayor Keith Wilson took office Jan. 1, he told more than 1,000 city employees that he would ask them to return to the office at least four days a week. Currently, city employees are required to work at the office 20 hours per week. Wilson was met with swift backlash both from employees and the unions that represent them—several of which are negotiating new labor contracts. And last week, Wilson changed his tune. His chief of staff, Aisling Coghlan, wrote to WW: “Given the current budget constraints and our ongoing efforts to address unsheltered homelessness, the full return of staff to the office will not be feasible in 2025.” When asked if Wilson’s efforts to end homelessness impeded his ability to bring city workers to the office, city spokesman Cody Bowman wrote Tuesday: “It’s a question of priorities. Mayor Wilson has fully committed to addressing the public crisis on our streets and effectively addressing the budget gap. Revisiting work arrangements and negotiating new contracts that reflect a return to office will have to wait for another day.”