City Attorney stopped me from asking questions about Stahley's forced resignation

As a general rule, I've found that when public officials try to stop people from asking valid questions about their organization, this is a sign that something is being covered up.

City Attorney Atchison and Mayor Hoy

The antidote to secrecy is transparency.

That's why I'm sharing the story of how Salem's City Attorney, Dan Atchison, stopped me from asking city councilors a couple of basic questions about the circumstances surrounding the forced resignation of Keith Stahley, the City Manager until February 10.

This tale tells itself through a series of email messages.

It starts with a message I sent to four city councilors who haven't issued a public statement about their involvement with private conversations Mayor Julie Hoy had with members of the City Council regarding whether Stahley should consider resigning. This email went to councilors Tigan, Nordyke, Gwyn, and Brown on February 19.

Councilor _______, last Sunday, February 16, I submitted a “grievance” to City of Salem officials that is the first step in filing a complaint with the Oregon Government Ethics Commission. My grievance concerns Mayor Julie Hoy’s talks with members of the City Council about whether City Manager Keith Stahley should remain in his job. I shared the grievance in a blog post:

 

https://hinessight.blogs.com/salempoliticalsnark/2025/02/i-just-initiated-an-ethics-complaint-against-the-city-of-salem-.html

 

What I’m concerned about is whether Mayor Hoy violated an Oregon Administrative Code prohibiting serial communications with a quorum of the members of a governing body outside of a public meeting for the purpose of deliberating or deciding on any matter that is within the jurisdiction of the governing body. 

 

City Attorney Atchison advised Mayor Hoy that her talks with councilors didn’t amount to serial communications. I disagree. So it makes sense to have the Oregon Government Ethics Commission determine whether Mayor Hoy violated the rule against serial communications.

 

City officials now have 21 days from February 16 to respond to my grievance. When I either get that response, or the 21 days are up, I can file a complaint with the Oregon Government Ethics Commission. Since I don’t know when (or if) the officials will respond, I want to have pertinent facts about this issue lined up ASAP.

 

The Salem Reporter has done an admirable job at sharing information about Stahley’s resignation, including a helpful story titled “A timeline of statements surrounding Salem city manager’s resignation.” Missing from those statements are answers to two pertinent questions that I hope to learn answers to prior to filing my ethics complaint.

 

(1) Did Mayor Hoy talk with every member of the City Council about Stahley’s status as city manager?

(2) When did these talks occur?

 

It’d be much appreciated if you could let me know whether Mayor Hoy spoke with you about this, and, if so, when that talk occurred. Understand that I’m not asking for you to tell me the content of your conversation, including what you may have told Hoy about your view of Stahley. I’m just trying to learn who spoke with Hoy about Stahley and when this occurred.

 

To date it is known that Mayor Hoy spoke with Councilors Nishioka, Varney, and Matthews, as they have issued public statements about this. I’m not aware that you have, which is why I’m contacting you. Councilor Nishioka has said that Mayor Hoy told her that a majority of councilors believed Stahley should consider resigning. This leads me to believe that Hoy spoke with all of the members of the City Council, but I want to confirm if that belief is correct.

 

Thanks for your help with this.

 

      — Brian

About two hours after I sent the emails to the four city councilors, I got this message from City Attorney Atchison:

Mr. Hines:

I have asked members of council not to respond to your email with questions concerning Keith Stahley’s resignation. My office is preparing a formal response to your grievance and akin to litigation, it unduly complicates the formal response to have multiple answers to the same questions.

I responded to Atchison this way:

Dan, what you said sounds fine to me, with this caveat. Given that you referenced “multiple answers to the same questions,” I’m assuming that your response to my grievance will include answers to the questions I posed to city councilors: Whether Mayor Hoy spoke with you about Keith Stahley’s status as city manager, and, if so, when that talk occurred.

If that information for each member of the City Council other than Mayor Hoy is contained in your response, as hopefully it will be, great. It doesn’t matter to me how that information is obtained, so long as it’s available to me by the time I file my complaint with the Oregon Government Ethics Commission.

 

     — Brian

However, last Friday, March 7, I got the City of Salem response to my grievance. It didn't contain the information I'd tried to get from the four city councilors, but was prevented from doing so by Atchison. So on the same day, the 7th, I sent a follow-up email to those councilors. I shared what Atchison had said to me, along with my reply to Atchison and an excerpt from my February 19 message to the councilors, adding:

Well, today I received the city’s response to my grievance, which was prepared by a Portland law firm. It didn’t contain answers to the questions that I had asked you and three other councilors who haven’t made public statements about the circumstances of Stahley’s resignation.

 

Early next week I’ll be filing a complaint with the Oregon Government Ethics Commission, as I don’t find the city’s response to my grievance to be compelling. I’d like to give the Commission as complete a picture as possible of Mayor Julie Hoy’s conversations with individual councilors about whether Stahley should be asked to resign. 

 

So since the city’s response didn’t include this information, I’m asking again for you to answer two simple questions. I’ll copy in part of my February 19 message to you.

...Thanks in advance for your help with this. I’m not a lawyer, but I’m fairly familiar with the notion of discovery. That’s basically what I’m trying to do here: put together as many facts as possible about the circumstances of Stahley’s resignation so the  Oregon Government Ethics Commission can make an informed decision about whether Mayor Julie Hoy engaged in serial communications with a quorum of the City Council.

 

Thanks in advance for your help with this. Again, I’ll be submitting my complaint early next week, so it’d be most helpful to get your response ASAP.

 

     — Brian

So far I haven't heard from any of the councilors. I hope that they'll tell me if they talked with Mayor Hoy about Stahley, but this isn't crucial to my Oregon Government Ethics Commission complaint. It'd just be helpful information for the complaint.

I have no idea why this is such a state secret (okay, city secret). Actually, that isn't true. I do have an idea. City officials realize what a mess this whole Stahley episode was, and they are doing their best to stop the public from knowing exactly what happened. 

Comments

[JaredO]

Brian, can you post the response from the Portland law firM?

[Brian Hines]

JaredO, the response will be part of my complaint to the Ethics Commission. I'm going to do my best to get the complaint finished in the next day or two. I'll then share it in a blog post, which will be easy, because that's the format I'm writing it in. I'm working on my responses to the City's response.