Rene Gonzalez Challenges $77,000 City Fine for Deeply Discounted Campaign Office

His campaign argues that $250 per month for 3,185 square feet of downtown office space is not, in fact, unreasonably discounted rent—and that similar offers are available to others.

GOAL: Rene Gonzalez in a campaign ad.
By Sophie Peel

Last week, the city’s Small Donor Elections program slapped Portland City Council candidate Rene Gonzalez with a $77,000 fine for renting deeply discounted office space in downtown Portland from prominent Portland developer Jordan Schnitzer.

The director of the elections program, Susan Mottet, wrote in her decision that the $250 per month rental agreement is a prohibited campaign contribution under the city’s new elections program, and also cited a failure to report the discount as a campaign contribution. (Mottet determined the market rate for that space is $6,900 a month.)

On Tuesday afternoon, Gonzalez’s campaign challenged the program’s fine in a request for reconsideration sent to Mottet, arguing that no transgression was committed because $250 a month is, in fact, not an unreasonable amount to pay for office space in downtown Portland these days, and that other entities have been offered similar deals.

The campaign argued too that Mottet “assumes that the appropriate value is simply [Schnitzer Property Managment’s] asking price for the lease. But that does not reflect current downtown realities, nor does an advertisement establish the ‘fair market value,’” the campaign wrote. ”For example, just because someone lists a house for $1 million does not mean the house is worth $1 million; rather, the house is worth what someone will actually pay for it.”

The campaign also argued in its request that Mottet did not give the campaign appropriate time to cure the fine, and that the pricey fine, if there had been a transgression, was unreasonably high.

If the city rejects the campaign’s challenge, Gonzalez can then formally appeal the decision, which campaign manager Shah Smith says they intend to do.

In a statement, Smith wrote that the city “blindsided” the campaign with the fine. Smith suggested the fine was politically motivated: “This is the city putting its finger on the scales in our election.”

The city is expected to respond to Gonzalez’s challenge within the coming days, Mottet told WW. Mottet and the City Attorney’s Office declined to comment on the specifics of Gonzalez’s arguments.

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