The Gold Medal For Office Transparency Goes To … Councior Olivia Clark

The personal staffs of Portland City Councilors are the authentic and legal extensions of the councilors they serve. They have extraordinary access and power within the corridors of city hall and elsewhere in the government and political arenas. As they should. Councilors’ personal staffs carry the voice and authority of their councilors wherever they go, 24/7.

With this authority goes an obligation of each councilor to reveal to the public the names, pictures, job titles, job descriptions, relevant biographical information and email contact information of those they have hired to represent them and by extension, us, their constituents. Office staff transparency is the first and foremost level of transparency that a Portland City Councilor reveals on their official websites to their voters and the public at large. Any councilor that fails to reveal on their city government webpage all the details mentioned above of the staff under their absolute control signals their willingness to hide other behaviors and decisions while giving lip service to a commitment to transparency. No councilor can be trusted to be committed to transparency in office who is not transparent about the details of their personal staff.

I reviewed each councilor’s government webpage then asked each councilor that lacked complete information about their staff to send me the missing details. Here is what I found.

Councilor Olivia Clark wins the gold medal for Office Transparency. Bravo. Her webpage included all the necessary information I.e. all staff names, pictures, job titles, job descriptions, relevant biographical information and email contact details. Clark sets the office transparency bar for her colleagues today and tomorrow.

https://www.portland.gov/council/districts/4/olivia-clark

Councilors Candace Avalos, Jamie Dunphy, Elana Pirtle-Guiney, Sameer Kanal win the silver medal for Office Transparency. Their webpages included all the necessary information except the all important email contact details.

Councilors Loretta Smith, Dan Ryan, Angelita Morillo, Steve Novick, Tiffany Koyama Lane, Eric Zimmerman and Mitchell Green FAILED to list any staff information. Constituents and the general public could easily believe that these councilors have no staff or that they purposely do not want anyone to know who and how many are in their employ. Who, how many and how much they are paid tells voters a lot of important information about their bosses. Ideological mantles do not shield these public servants from the requirement of Office Transparency.

With the notable exception of councilor Clark, all the remaining eleven councilors were asked to provide me with the missing staff details. None of them were forthcoming.

Let’s keep in mind that these transparency failures are not a failure of our new All Powerful Representative Council and Weak Mayor form of government but rather a failure of individual councilors to accept the need for office transparency. Hiding essential information about their office staffs is, of course, a pointless obfuscation since this data is a matter of public record and can easily be accessed by a Public Records request. If shame were still a thing in politics we would say “shame on you.” Alas, shame is no longer included in the political lexicon.

And so it goes.

Richard Ellmyer

Portland resident since 1975.

Oregon Voter since 1971. NAV, Non Affiliated Voter. Citizen Activist.

Campaign manager and legislative assistant to state senator Bill McCoy 1980-1981.

Campaign manager and senior staff to Multnomah county commissioner Gladys McCoy 1981-1984.

Celebrate North Portland award 2016 for Volunteer Work and Service with Political and Social Issues Impacting North Portland.

Certified Oregon Change Agent by Governor John Kitzhaber 2011.

PSU Senior Adult Learner, Spring 2021 - Public Participation GiS, 500 level class

PSU Senior Adult Learner, Spring 2024 - Planning and Housing Markets, 500 level class

Author of more stories on the politics, players and policies of Public Housing in Oregon over the last twenty-three years than all other journalists and elected officials combined.

Project Champion and Data Wrangler - Metro/Oregon Public Housing Location Maps https://www.goodgrowthnw.org/maps

GIS for Activism conference, May 23, 2022, Portland State University, Portland, Oregon

Richard Ellmyer - How I, A Citizen Activist, Used GIS To Effectively Tell A Necessary Yet Unavailable Truth About Public Housing

30 minute Video https://media.pdx.edu/media/t/1_2vrzokta

Lifelong Learning at PSU by Jennifer Jordan-Wong.

LET KNOWLEDGE SERVE THE CITY [Section] “Richard used a course he audited at PSU to create a citizen activist mapping tool to benefit Oregon residents, stakeholders, and policy makers…His interest in mapping as a tool for change began when he noticed that public housing was not being distributed equitably”

https://psucollegeofed.wordpress.com/2022/09/23/lifelong-learning-at-psu/?fbclid=IwAR3S9Pff0mBGeT6Ha8dQeAqL0nAqU7QzZ-0pJC_oTQJxBWlAb2fdXzdE0w4

Author of The Ellmyer Report, a newsletter that informs, educates and influences on public policy. Its target audiences are elected officials, journalists and civically engaged citizens. Facebook, Portland Politics Plus. Contributor: Patch news.