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Two high-level officials in the secretary of state’s office resigned yesterday.
Emails show audits director Kip Memmott and elections director Molly Woon both told Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade yesterday they were leaving the agency. It’s not unusual for top staff to leave when a new secretary takes over: Chief of staff Ben Morris and deputy secretary Cheryl Meyers, whose jobs are more politically oriented, submitted their resignations earlier.
But Memmott and Woon led two of the agency’s key administrative functions. That work is less political and its leaders often stay on when their bosses leave. Memmott, for instance, led the Audits Division under four secretaries: The late Dennis Richardson appointed him in 2017 and he stayed under Richardson’s successors, Bev Clarno and Shemia Fagan, and Fagan’s successor, Griffin-Valade.
Memmott’s posture on Fagan’s controversial involvement with the troubled cannabis company La Mota raised eyebrows: First, he denied Fagan was involved in shaping an audit of the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission, then, after records showed she was, defended the audit when an outside reviewer said it should be discarded. Woon, whom Fagan hired, came to her position from the Democratic Party of Oregon without experience in the nuts and bolts of elections oversight.
Like Memmott, Woon submitted her resignation Dec. 16, with a small editorial comment. In an email to Griffin-Valade, Woon noted she was resigning “in lieu of removal by the incoming administration.” Secretary-elect Tobias Read takes office in January.