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The Portland Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund, the climate-change program approved by voters in 2018, canceled a grant-making meeting scheduled for Wednesday evening because the fund’s staff is busy investigating fraud allegations against a company that it selected for work.
The cancellation of a public meeting of a volunteer advisory committee comes three days after The Oregonian reported that one of the fund’s grantees, Linda Woodley, had a history of defrauding energy companies and had failed to pay taxes in three states.
Woodley is the founder of Diversifying Energy, a Portland-based firm whose “mission is to facilitate equitable access to clean, sustainable energy and improve air quality to vulnerable populations, including low-income communities and people of color.”
In a phone call with WW on Wednesday, Woodley said she planned to challenge The Oregonian’s findings.
“We’re in the process of putting together a rebuttal,” Woodley said in the interview.
The PCEF is funded by a surcharge on large retailers with annual sales of $1 billion or more in the U.S. and $500,000 or more within Portland. Grant awards are made by a nine-member committee and must be approved by the Portland City Council. The fund is administered by the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, which provides staff to the grant-making committee. Through August, the fund had raised $109 million.
Following the PCEF committee’s recommendation, the City Council this month awarded Diversifying Energy a $11.5 million grant to purchase heat pumps and cooling units for 15,000 homes and apartments that house low-income residents and protect them from deadly heat waves like the one that struck last summer.
Eden Dabbs, a spokeswoman for the Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, said the meeting was canceled because PCEF staff have been focused on documenting recent allegations against a PCEF grantee.
“We are doing due diligence now,” Dabbs said. “We take it very seriously.” Dabbs said the PCEF grant committee was eager to make the award for the cooling project because supply chain constraints are likely to delay the delivery of equipment for next summer.
“There was a great sense of urgency to award the contract,” she said.
Mayor Ted Wheeler’s office couldn’t be reached immediately for comment. A spokesman for Commissioner Carmen Rubio, who oversees BPS, declined to comment.
Bureau staff had concerns about Diversifying Energy’s high costs and delivery time, The Oregonian reported, and recommended giving the grant to the one other bidder, Earth Advantage, whose staff is 85% white. The grant committee chose Diversifying instead, and the City Council approved the choice unanimously, The Oregonian reported.
Portland voters approved the creation of PCEF in a November 2018 ballot measure. It is charged with investing in climate remediation projects that advance racial and social justice. The program is projected to generate $44 million to $61 million in new revenue each year to provide grants to qualified nonprofit organizations.