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City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty will take a summer vacation from Aug. 2 to Sept. 6. While such lengthy vacations aren’t unheard of for city commissioners, they are unusual.
Hardesty’s chief of staff Karly Edwards wrote in a June 28 email that Hardesty’s staff are trying to give her a full-time vacation: “Commissioner Hardesty will be out and unavailable. That means she will not be available for feedback, council or check-ins. We do not make exceptions for this.”
Among the Portland elected officials who’ve taken generous vacation time on the taxpayer dime was City Commissioner Charlie Hales, when he took 48 days of vacation and personal days in 2001.
“Being inside in Portland, Oregon, in August is a sin,” he quipped, in a way that now seems anachronistic in one regard—being outdoors in June was hazardous to your health.