In one of the more ironic denouements of the whole mayoral sex scandal, it would appear from Attorney General John Kroger's investigative report (now available in pdf with a h/t to Willy Week for hosting it) that Portland Mayor Sam Adams has escaped criminal prosecution by having laid down with dogs.
In the 17-page report, the DoJ addresses the two most serious charges--sexual intercourse with a minor and lesser sexual contact (ie, "The Kiss")--and finds no evidence at all to support the former. On the latter, the evidence boils down to a he said/he said, where Adams denies inappropriate contact and Breedlove says it occurred. However, because of Breedlove's past as, well...a liar, Kroger's office finds him insufficiently credible to be used as the sole substantiation of the claim. The report notes:
The only proof DOJ has obtained that Adams may have engaged in illegal sexual contact with a minor comes from Breedlove. Breedlove's account of the two alleged incidents of kissing before his 18th birthday is called into question by the lack of corroborative witnesses or corroborative evidence. In addition, Breedlove's prior inconsistent statements, financial gain, and prior felony conviction for a crime involving deception has compromised his credibility as a witness. For these reasons, we conclude there is not sufficient credible evidence to justify criminal prosecution. [emph mine]
This doesn't really qualify as a technicality, where there might be otherwise provable evidence but some process mistake or violation of rights causes the whole thing to be thrown out. Let me be clear that Adams is fully within his rights to trumpet this report and say that the DoJ found no credible evidence he committed any legal wrongdoing with Breedlove.
But is there any doubt that Adams hit the ass-saving jackpot by choosing as his underage paramour, someone who conveniently happened to have a criminal record as a liar? If he'd dated anyone else, generally speaking, Kroger might well have seen fit to accept their account over Adams', seeing only Sam's interest in lying. But because the other potentially corroborating evidence (friends, City Hall security and staff) was itself contradictory and unclear, the crucial question in the case could not satisfactorily be answered--because their only witnesses are both known liars. How sweet and balls-out LUCKY is that for Sam? The man is SO charmed.
The Mercury is also updating their story page pretty rapidly, and has reax from Commissioner Fritz (has the report on her desk, knows the conclusion, doesn't care beyond that), Jason Wurster (plans to move forward with recall despite what most analysts likely consider a crushing blow), BikePortland guru Jonathan Maus (good news, while damage has been done to Adams the bike community found out he's not the only supporter in town), Thomas Lauderdale (Yay! and Fuck off, Jason Wurster) and police union spokesman Scott Westerman (so what; he's still lying scum).
In the WWeek version of the reax, Westerman compares him to a cop lying in the course of his or her public duties, which seems odd given that Kroger cleared Adams of misconduct in his public duties. And I have to ask--what's the big boner the cops' union has for busting Adams' chops on this, anyway? Westerman has repeatedly made time to throw public statements on the fire regarding this case, and it's starting to look like a vendetta--particularly today, when just MAYBE a little fence-mending with the Mayor would not only be appropriate but prudent. Read the tea leaves on this one, Scott.
Of course more chatter will ensue, but it seems significantly more unlikely today that any recall effort against Adams will succeed--and in fact the effort to even get a recall on the ballot may now fall flat as well.
Kroger has planned a news conference for noon today, and Adams has indicated his interest in speaking to the media (duhhh....). Considering I've been unwavering in my support of his mayoralty if not his conduct, I'm hoping I might be able to get a couple minutes with him. We'll see.
As we know, no one is working harder or more frenetically to gin up opposition to the deal bringing MLS to Portland than Jack Bogdanski at his Crucible of Curmudgeonry, bojack.org. Grasping at any potential straw to indicate an agreement falling apart or suffering from lost support, bojack presents this article from Willy Week as his proof that "the wheels are coming off," asserting that "3rd vote" commissioner Dan Saltzman "smells a rat" and is now reconsidering his support.
To be fair, although WWeek's headline is somewhat more accurate and they may well have been misled a bit by what they print as Saltzman's comments, in the paper's recurring role as Bojack Lite on this issue they make rather the same mistake:
Saltzman, of course, was the swing vote on the council March 11, when this deal won initial approval. His proposed (and until now, unreported) amendment sheds new light on Adams’ announcement Monday that he would postpone three key votes on the soccer-baseball deal and reconsider the best use of Memorial Coliseum. At the time it appeared Adams was bowing to public opinion that called for saving Memorial Coliseum. Now it appears the mayor may have thought he was on the verge of losing his third vote.
Last night, Saltzman says he came to the conclusion that the proposed Rose Quarter redevelopment scheme calling for a new baseball stadium and an entertainment district south of Broadway is still moving too fast, despite a second one-week delay on finalizing the deal.
Citing lack of process, his own nostalgia for Memorial Coliseum (and a long-ago Jethro Tull concert) and increasingly troublesome questions about the deal’s financing, Saltzman says he told the mayor he wants to decouple the Major League Soccer deal from the Rose Quarter redevelopment.
Wouldn’t that imply Saltzman opposes the pre-development agreement, since it ties construction of a new baseball stadium to the city’s deal with Paulson to bring MLS to Portland?
“Yeah,” Saltzman told WW. “I didn’t say it [to Adams] in those black-and-white terms. I’m still going to listen to what he has to say about what he may come back with, but that’s the way I’m feeling now.”
Note carefully what Saltzman is saying (his quote notwithstanding)--not that he doesn't support bringing MLS to Portland under the terms Paulson specified, but that the baseball park doesn't HAVE to go in the Rose Quarter, and that the rest of the entertainment district and how the Coliseum fits into that should be a separate discussion from renovating PGE Park and bringing the Timbers here...because of course MLS doesn't care whether the Beavers have a place to play or not, as long as it's not PGE Park.
I wouldn't share Saltzman's perspective on this necessarily, but it's a rational point to make. It apparently was so rational that Mayor Adams and Merritt Paulson seemingly agree, as today's Oregonian reports.
They have indefinitely delayed the baseball siting question, essentially decoupling it from the rest of the deal, which is what Saltzman wanted. And much more directly, we have confirmation that he is still behind that part:
Commissioner Dan Saltzman said he wouldn't vote to raze the coliseum without a more lengthy public process, one that lasts two or three months and takes a hard look at alternatives.
"If I'm going to make a decision to demolish the coliseum, I'd like to do that knowing there's been some process to look at the options," he said. "All these competing uses in the Rose Quarter and the implicit commitment of public money makes me think we ought to slow it down."
Saltzman said he's not opposed to ultimately tearing down the coliseum, a building he's nostalgic about, but he wants to make sure it's the right move. He also said he's still in favor of bringing Major League Soccer to Portland and is still behind the city's agreement with Paulson. [emph mine]
So what's the upshot here? Are the wheels really falling off, or is Council doing almost exactly what critics have been asking it to do about the Coliseum issue--slow down? Saltzman still supports the deal, but doesn't want to rush the baseball aspect of it into a much larger plan being developed in the Rose Quarter. Couldn't we agree these are good things? (Nahhh, probably not).
I'm crossing lines with Commissioner Randy Leonard the last couple of days, getting his messages to late to respond to them, missing him by phone. I promise you I'll nail him down some time this week to answer questions on the MLS deal, particularly looking forward as the PGE Park Urban Renewal Area question looms, or in its place the search for alternate financing and how this affects Merritt Paulson's bid before MLS, or even Paulson's own desire to push forward with the gap unaddressed.
All of which is I suppose an ironic prelude to the point of this piece, which was to highlight how well Leonard is culling the reportage and opinion on the Council's approval of the agreement in principle last week, at his new website, http://www.commissionerleonard.typepad.com/..
Hey, that's off the venerated PortlandOnline gulag...er, centralized portal! Commissioner Randy doesn't mean to be impolite about his "employer supplied" website, but no sooner is "Welcome!" out of his virtual lips than you're urged not to hang out too long--look, Randy's got a new website, off the grid as it were! And while it's no marvel of flash animation and Randy-themed games or downloadable Randy Ringtone quotes (use that, Commissioner, and this is my record of the claim for 50%), it's pretty informative and transparent, even of reportage that's not necessarily flattering.
The most important document at the moment is undoubtedly the description of the terms of the agreement reached with Paulson, which you can read in detail here. For more of the info on the way the numbers were compiled, in that piece there's the link to the Task Force analysis as well.
But be sure to read through the links he provides; he captures a lot of the discussion from the big three papers plus the Business Journal, some of the TV coverage, etc. But you can get the gamut just from one source...The O. There's the laudatory (back page lead editorial), the critical (news analysis), the neutral but visceral (City Hall blog), and the sidebars, like Canzano's WTF about the sudden Blazers flip on the idea of a baseball park in the Quarter.
One thing that's original is a set of responses to some additional questioning from commenters at the site, written by Chief of Staff Ty Kovatch. And when I can stop Leonard's motor for 20-30 minutes and get him to answer even more questions (take a mile!), I'll report back. The FAQ-plus for the MLS deal is below the fold.
Hey, remember that time I pointed out that Jack Bogdanski was full of shit to claim (falsely) that Portland passed Measure 37? And in response he not only banned me from commenting on his blog (which is of course his right), but took the bizarre and rather megalomaniacal step of "outing" me, trying to silence me by publicizing--over and over--my real name and where I lived. It didn't work, you may have noticed--but wasn't that nice?
I stand by the principle that Bog can control access to his blog however he wants. And he can say whatever he wants too, of course--but as a blogger with various mainstream media sycophants who like to use Bogdanski as a source to represent the angry, Portland-hating webosphere, I think there's a responsibility on the part of the rest of the community to correct errors where possible. And since Bog is generally unwilling to admit mistakes if it makes his argument inconveniently, well, wrong--that should be pointed out too.
To wit, his comments today in a post continuing his harangue on the Sam Adams situation. Adams has gotten back to regular business, but Bog isn't ready to move on just yet:
The mayor of Portland has proven time and again that he cannot be trusted to tell the truth about his own conduct. But it does not stop there. Today, the WW reports that recently he also falsely suggested that John Vezina, one of the people who had correctly accused him of having sex with his teenage "friend with benefits," had done so because the mayor had accused Vezina of trying to rape the young man. WW has posted the audio of these remarks here and here.
This hearkens back to a statement that Adams made in his pathetic interview with the the O's editorial board last week. The subject of Bob Ball came up -- this is the guy who correctly blew the whistle on Adams's teeny bopping back in September 2007, when Adams was running for mayor. At the time, Adams lashed out at Ball for conducting a smear campaign that reinforced unfair stereotypes of gay men.
Catch the errors? I'll help you. Bog asserts that Adams is false in asserting that Vezina ratted on him because of Adams' accusation against Vezina. How exactly does he know this? Vezina doesn't deny it, although he angrily denies that he assaulted Breedlove. Bog is confusing denials here.
Secondly, when he says Ball "correctly blew the whistle" on Adams, that's not correct, either. As reported initially by The Oregonian, what Ball alleged to Randy Leonard was that Adams had had a CRIMINAL relationship with Breedlove. Not just that he'd had sex with him, but did so when Beau was just 17. As we know, to date no evidence has ever surfaced to corroborate this account--and certainly not when Ball made the accusations. To the extent that Ball was accusing Adams of a crime but had (and has) no evidence, that IS a smear campaign, whatever else in the account may be correct.
I tried to do the helpful thing and point it out using some variation of my old user ID to get the comment posted. It made it--but was summarily deleted minutes later. Thankfully, not all of Bog's readers are so ready to lap up the nonsense:
Posted by Michael M. | January 28, 2009 11:06 AM When or where did Bob Ball "correctly" blow the whistle on Adams's affair with Breedlove? As I remember reading, Ball accused Adams of having sex sex with a minor. Both Adams and Breedlove deny that. You're saying Adams should apologize to Ball for levelling an accusation that Adams continues to assert is false?
Posted by Jack Bog | January 28, 2009 11:09 AM Ball said that Adams and Breedlove had sex. Adams denied it. It turns out, Adams was lying.
When called out on it, what does Bog do? Repeat the lie. In an article entitled "Sam Adams, slander artist?," isn't this rather...ironic?
An interesting 24 hrs. You've hit a big story when you can knock an historic Inauguration off the lede of the TV news Wednesday morning--and there was Sam heading the update on KATU today, with coverage of his press conference from yesterday.
I really don't have a whole lot of stomach to discuss the gory details of the incident, but maybe we can put it into a few bullets:
The relationship, according to both parties, was consensual and physically speaking took place after Breedlove was of majority age. To me that takes legality out of the question until someone provides evidence of a prior relationship (which would be awfully hard to prove other than circumstantially). I don't think the Leonard and Fish calls for an investigation are appropriate; either there's a complaint or there's not, no digging on taxpayer dime. Please.
However legal it may have been, the premise of a mentor-mentee relationship with that big of an age difference suggests the likelihood of a pretty strong power imbalance favoring Adams.
It's hard for me to know whether Adams lied because he feared allegations as he's having now, that Breedlove could have been 17, or because he realized even as a legal relationship it looked sketchy and uncool.
In any case, the primary offense here is to the voters, who had the right to decide what information and allegations were important in the race, and who had that right taken away from them because Adams feared an adverse effect on his campaign. I'm reminded here of the "I don't know what's right; I just want to win" line attributed to Jeff Merkley. It's the same craven desire for the validation of office, suggesting ego seeping in on what should be public service terrain.
Since the story broke there has certainly been a vocal segment of the internet commentariat who stridently seek his resignation. The PPA and its 900 cops under Adams supervision were the first to call him out to step down, which I thought was awfully eager. I see frostiness in that relationship already (but in my view the fault usually lies more with Police than the Mayor they're dogging).
If you'd asked me about 24 hours ago if I thought Sam should resign, I might well have leaned yes. I was unmoved by his statement of apology and explanation. It seemed hollow and rather tone-deaf about his actions. He called it a "mistake," which certainly was accurate but seemed to liken it to not carrying the one on a math test.
After the press conference yesterday however, I think Sam has turned a corner and more fully embraced his transgression. And while I think Amanda Fritz's reaction was a bit mother hen and diverting (OK, the media were covering this instead of Obama, but ultimately that's Sam's fault too, isn't it?), in essence she made the challenge that should determine his fate: How far do you go in judging the way a public figure handles his unrelated private affairs? What are you looking for in an act of contrition? What's the practical cost of moral righteousness?
From the Amanda Fritz website, some assuredly welcome news for the activist frontrunner in November's Portland City Council runoff:
Former State Representative Mike Fahey and Portland Public Schools Development Director John Branam have endorsed me in the runoff for Portland City Commissioner #1. I am honored to have earned the support of these two former candidates for the seat, especially since they heard all my position statements over the past 5+ months, and gave many great answers themselves. Mike's labor supporters and John's school affiliates, in particular, were likely torn between the good choices offered in the primary.
I am very happy to have the support of these two fine men ... and more so to call them friends, after five months of running in the same race. As John often said in the campaign, Portland needs collaborative leadership. Mike talked repeatedly of jobs and helping working families. It is surely a testament to our positive, issue-oriented styles and shared values, that within a week of Election Night, John and Mike are working with me on a newly united goal.
{Branam's statement and a little discussion, below}
To Mayor Tom Potter and the four city council members who voted for the Voz day labor site contract: Bravo!
I also want to applaud your choice of Voz to administer the project. They are the key to a successful public partnership, and they will do a fine job for the city.
Your support for people who are willing to stand out on a sidewalk in all kinds of weather for an opportunity to do hard labor bespeaks also your good intentions in seeking a way to honor the great Mexican American hero, Cesar Chavez.
I did not support renaming either Interstate or Fourth Avenues, but I did recognize that you were sincere and that you suffered greatly.
May this day labor site prove salve to heal some wounds in the city, and know that they can never take the good that you do away from you. --Sean Cruz
3rd teachable moment in Portland: Cesar Chavez and the Hopi Elders Prayer:
Hopi Elders Prayer
You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour. Now you must go back and tell the people that this is The Hour.
Here are the things that must be considered: Where are you living? What are you doing? What are your relationships? Are you in right relation? Where is your water?
Know our garden. It is time to speak your Truth.
Create your community. Be good to each other. And do not look outside yourself for the leader.
This could be a good time!
There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel like they are being torn apart, and they will suffer greatly.
Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off toward the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above the water. See who is there with you and celebrate.
At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally, least of all ourselves! For the moment we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt.
The time of the lonely wolf is over. Gather yourselves! Banish the word struggle from your attitude and vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.
We are the ones we have been waiting for.
The Elders, Oraibi, Arizona, Hopi Nation
Thanks to Robin Teater of the American Leadership Forum of Oregon for passing the Hopi Elders Prayer to me; couldn’t have come at a more Teachable Moment.
Completely absent amid all of the overheated rhetoric in the present “discussion” about renaming Interstate or Fourth Avenue or whatever to “honor” Cesar Chavez is any trace of understanding of either who the man was or what the man accomplished.
If I hear one more summation of the man and his achievements that is built around the word "grapes", I may lose my patience, get upset, start speaking my mind....
People are either trying to find ways to claim authority for “honoring” a man they can't find time to describe accurately, or they are locked into intense and entirely appropriate—given the circumstances of this entire (I don’t want to put the word I’m thinking about in here)—turf battles that have sucked in entire neighborhoods, or they are responding to some political need or pressure….
I am seeing this giant tower of a human being reduced to a symbol of a symbol of a symbol, far removed from even an approximation of a clear understanding of who Cesar Chavez really was.
Many are just trying to do their jobs amid a near total collapse of the Social Contract and reasoned discourse.
For some, the victory signals unwelcome closure, but ”the Struggle” is hot-blooded intoxication….
Some folks are not going to like hearing this from me, but the way I see it, four years into the war in Iraq, the beauty of this particular “civil rights struggle” is that no one has to dodge any bullets or IEDs to engage in it.
There is no need to worry about the loss of family (or someone else’s familia), no Traumatic Brain Injury exposure, no personal risk or expense is involved in this fight at all.
This issue has managed to push the war in Iraq clear off the front page for days, and I’m not happy about that, either.
Here I am, digressing again…back to the topic of today’s Teachable Moment:
El cortito (the short one)
Please read on....
The Death of the Short-Handled Hoe
By Susan Ferris and Ricardo Sandoval
In early 1968, California Rural Legal Assistance lawyer Maurice “Mo” Jourdane was shooting pool in a smoky cantina in Soledad, California, when a small band of farmworkers approached him, a couple of them walking with a rigid gait that spoke of constant pain.
The men stopped to talk with Henry Cantu and Hector de la Rosa, Jourdane’s billiards partners, who were outreach workers with CRLA.
Cantu then translated a simple challenge from the workers to Jourdane: “If you really want to help the campesino, get rid of el cortito — the short-handled hoe.”
El Cortito, “the short one,” was a hoe that was only twenty-four inches long, forcing the farmworkers who used it to bend and stoop all day long—a position that often led to lifelong, debilitating back injuries.
The pool-room meeting with a handful of its victims led Jourdane to try working in nearby fields for two days.
Within weeks of experiencing firsthand the pain eI cortito caused, he and other CRLA attorneys began a seven-year battle to outlaw the most insidious tool ever used by California agriculture.
For Cesar Chavez, who played a pivotal role in the long drama, there were few greater moments than when el cortito was finally banished from California’s fields in 1975.
In his youth, Chavez knew the hoe well, having used it to thin countless rows of lettuce and to weed sugar-beet fields along the Sacramento River.
Later he would say he never looked at a head of lettuce in a market without thinking of how laborers had suffered for it from seed to harvest….
(Gresham blew it, big time--not just in general along the lines Jenni talked about, but...they coulda had Jenni! How dumb is that?
And don'tcha love it; all they did was make her mad enough to file for real next year. If you're feeling cynical about beating back the wingnuts or even fair-weather Democrats, think about Jenni. - promoted by torridjoe)
Well, no surprise to many of us, the Gresham City Council today chose to fill their vacancy with a former member of the council.
They had several excellent candidates to choose from who would have each brought something new to the council. They could have also branched out and actually represented a larger section of the community. They chose not to.
And based on a public comment at the beginning of the meeting, as well as during the break after the vote, people were not happy. They had expected the council to pick a new voice for the city council. One of the questions they'd asked had been about getting people more involved, yet when they had the opportunity to do it themselves, they didn't.
Well, today was the deadline for people to submit their letters expressing their interest in the vacant city council seat in Gresham. There's been almost no news of this in The Oregonian as far as I can see, and only a few letters since the initial announcement at the beginning of the month.
Hopefully we'll soon hear how many people were interested and who they were.
You would think there would be a lot more in the news regarding the vacant position. Gresham has almost 100,000 people -- and our council has a lot of work on its plate. And unlike Portland, our council is 100% volunteer.
With crime rates skyrocketing, people flocking from Portland into Gresham, two low of a tax rate to truly run a city of this size, and now finally official reports on the sad state of apartments in this city, there is a lot for this council to get done.
Whoever they fill the position with needs to be ready to hit the ground running. They don't have to be former council members or know all the inner workings of the council. But what they do need is an idea of what the problems are in the city, what needs it has, etc. - and I mean beyond the oft repeated issues of Rockwood and the Arts Center.
I'm talking about things like major traffic problems that are only getting worse; a public transportation system that is better suited for a town of 20,000, not a large city of 97,000; less and less space available for homes, meaning people often have to choose to live in an apartment or buy a house whose footprint isn't much smaller than the lot; a growing rental community that often times is living in substandard and unsafe units; and a population that wants more services, yet doesn't seem to understand why they can't be paid for with the lowest taxes of a full service city in the state.
Today we found out the process for the replacement of Karylinn Echols on the Gresham City Council. The city will be taking cover letters and resumes from interested persons through August 15th.
At their regularly scheduled meeting on August 21st, they will conduct interviews of everyone who has applied for the position. After that they will hold a vote, and the new member of the council will be sworn in at the end of the meeting.
I just finished speaking with reporters about an hour ago on the position. They confirmed that at this point, only John Kilian and myself have announced our interest in filling the vacancy.
Edit: I was told only one other person had expressed an interest, but the story in The Outlook now shows two other names as well: David Widmark, who previously served on the council, and Tom Giusto.
Democratic activist Jenni Simonis announced yesterday her intention to seek an appointment to the Gresham City Council.
From the press release:
Jenni Simonis, a local activist, announced today that she will be seeking appointment to the Gresham City Council to fill the vacancy that will be left after Karylinn Echols’ resignation later this month.
Simonis, who has been active in the community since moving to Gresham over seven years ago, had already been planning a run for the council in 2008. Joining the council now allows her to begin the work immediately of bridging the gap between the community, the city, and other local governmental entities.
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