A few days ago the Salem Reporter published another informative story about the Oregon Government Ethics Commission decision to investigate Mayor Julie Hoy and city councilors for failing to comply with our state's public meeting law.
Here's an excerpt from "State investigator concludes Salem council discussed manager's ouster out of public view" by Joe Siess.
Mayor Julie Hoy and Salem city councilors appear to have engaged in an illegal serial meeting leading up to the departure of former Salem City Manager Keith Stahley in February, a state investigator concluded in a preliminary report.
That report led the ethics commission last week to vote in favor of pursuing a full investigation into Hoy and the entire city council.
The vote came as an investigator’s early review found there’s a basis to believe city officials violated the state’s open meetings law.
The investigation can take up to six months.
Salem Reporter obtained the investigator’s May 9 report and accompanying exhibits through a public records request.
The report provides more detail on the circumstances surrounding Stahley’s surprising ouster, which became public on Feb. 10.
Investigator Joshua Sullivan’s report found that between Feb. 1 and 10, Hoy had a series of conversations with a majority of the city council through phone calls, text messages and meetings.
Those conversations considered Stahely’s performance and continued employment with the city and occurred before the council publicly voted to accept Stahley’s resignation, the report said.
The investigator wrote that it appears that through those conversations, Hoy was gathering information from city councilors that could be used by the council to decide about Stahley’s employment.
Since I was the first person to file a complaint with the ethics commission (another person filed a complaint a few days after I did), naturally I'm interested in how the commission's investigation turns out.
The Salem Reporter story includes links to both the preliminary review by commission staff of the complaints against Hoy, which the commission broadened to include the entire city council, and the response by Mayor Hoy's attorney to the complaints.
Hoy is in legal trouble because she spoke with a majority of the City Council about whether City Manager Keith Stahley should keep his job in individual calls/meetings with the councilors. Instead of conducting this city business in public -- the City Council is responsible for hiring and firing the City Manager -- Mayor Hoy did it privately out of public view.
This excerpt from the Salem Reporter story highlights how Hoy's story has changed about whether she was aware that Oregon law prohibits the sort of "serial communications" that Hoy engaged in with city councilors.
During her appearance before the commission on June 13, Hoy said she would not have made the calls if she knew it was against the law, modifying her attorney’s earlier statement that she was fully aware of the rules after consulting with the city attorney.
She told the commission she lacked the necessary training and experience to understand her behavior might have violated state law.
“I would not have made these phone calls had I known that the ethics commission would have viewed them as a serial meeting. We have a need in Oregon for greater education for all electeds, myself included,” Hoy told the commission.
Here's an excerpt from the April 9, 2025 letter that Hoy's attorney sent to the Oregon Government Ethics Commission.
During these telephone calls, Mayor Hoy was very aware of the requirements and prohibitions of the Public Meetings law because she had sought and received advice from City Attorney Atchison prior to making the calls. City Attorney Atchison advised Mayor Hoy that one-on-one conversations with other members of Council did not violate the Public Meetings law or constitute a “serial meeting” as long as the Mayor did not serve as a conduit to allow a quorum of the Council to deliberate towards or make a decision.
So on April 9 Hoy's position was that she was "very aware of the requirements and prohibitions of the Public Meetings law." But on June 13 Hoy told the commission that she lacked the necessary training and experience to understand her behavior might have violated state law.
That statement is hard to believe.
The preliminary review by commission staff certainly doesn't support Hoy's revised position that, basically, "Gosh, how could a volunteer like me know that talking with members of the City Council privately about the employment status of the Salem City Manager was prohibited by Oregon's public meetings law?"
This is B.S. for a couple of reasons. First, Mayor Hoy got advice from the City Attorney, Dan Atchison, about what is and isn't allowed by the public meetings law when it comes to serial communications with a majority of the City Council. Second, the Salem Reporter story says:
State law requires elected officials in cities the size of Salem to undergo training in public meetings law at least once per term in office. Hoy was elected to the city council in 2022 and held the seat until she was sworn in as mayor in January.
Neff, the city spokeswoman, said the city provides periodic training to city councilors and also updates the council when changes to state law and administrative rules concerning public meetings take place. She said such training is part of orientation for new councilors.
So it sure seems that Mayor Hoy was well informed about our state's public meeting law before she apparently flouted it in her zeal to get rid of City Manager Stahley, who Hoy reportedly didn't get along well with.
Hoy had previous ethical lapses, as discussed in the Salem Reporter story. This shows that Hoy views ethics rules as an annoyance rather than as a requirement.
The possible serial meeting is not Hoy’s first brush with ethical concerns on the council.
Last spring she received a warning from Stahley after she promoted a Salem tire shop for a city contract, nearly violating city ethics rules. At the time Hoy was a city councilor and a mayoral candidate running against former Salem Mayor Chris Hoy. The two Hoys are not related.
During Chris Hoy’s tenure as mayor, Hoy, along with Councilor Deanna Gwyn, was publicly censured by a majority of the council after she did not recuse herself from voting on a land use appeal that benefitted a major campaign donor.
That campaign donor was prominent Salem developer Larry Tokarski who donated $20,000 to Hoy’s mayoral campaign. Mountain West Investment Corp. donated $19,000 to Hoy’s campaign. Tokarski is the president of Mountain West.
Lastly, I found it amusing that in her letter to the ethics commission, Hoy's Lake Oswego attorney called this Salem Political Snark blog a "bog" and was upset that I filed my complaint with the commission as a blog post. Gosh, what a terrible thing, me making public my complaint about how Mayor Hoy violated the public meetings law.
I have been retained by Julie Hoy to represent her regarding a complaint filed by Brian Hines. He posted his ethics complaint on his publicly available bog, thereby circumventing the confidentiality rules of the Oregon Government Ethics Commission (the “Commission).
I read the commission's procedures for filing a complaint. I haven't been told by the commission that filing a complaint via a blog post goes against any rules. To the contrary, it seems to me that complaints about violations of the public meetings law should always be public.
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