Salem Political Snark

We found Trump's auto tariffs causing panic buying at Salem dealership

Yesterday was quite an interesting day for my wife and me. We were able to buy a 2025 RAV4 Plug-In Hybrid XSE at Capitol Toyota, but it was a close call -- because of Trump's 25% tariff on imported cars and auto parts that goes into effect next Thursday.

The saga started last Tuesday when Laurel and I were picking up her 2019 RAV4 Hybrid (which isn't a plug-in) after service on it was completed, and she asked a Toyota salesperson if there were any 2025 RAV4 Plug-In's that she could take a look at.

Laurel has liked her car a lot, but would like the plug-in feature. A while back she leased three Chevy Volts in a row before the Volt was discontinued and found that the all-electric range, which was about the same as the RAV4 Plug-In, around 45 miles, meant that she rarely used the gas engine when driving locally. And she's been longing for wireless Apple CarPlay to make it easier to listen to podcasts and audio books.

The salesperson said they had a couple of used RAV4 Plug-In's on the lot but no 2025 models. He told us that typically every new RAV4 Plug-In they get is pre-sold, the demand is s0 high for them. 

During the next few days Laurel researched the 2025 RAV4 Plug-In. She wanted the one pictured above, the XSE trim in Wind Chill Pearl with a Midnight Black roof. On Saturday she called Capitol Toyota to ask whether a matching RAV4 she'd seen on their web site was available, or if it had already been sold. After Laurel was told that it was available, she made a 3:30 pm appointment for a test drive. 

Since Laurel wasn't planning to buy a car yesterday, I decided to stay home and do some yard work on a pleasingly rainless day. But I contributed to a possible future purchase by getting a CarMax estimate of what our 2019 RAV4 Hybrid was worth, $27,000, and gave a printout to Laurel.

Then the real "fun" began. Laurel texted me at 3:58 pm. 

Looks like I will be at the Toyota place for quite a while. They are very busy. The guy came out and said that the White XSE, he claims is still available, is out being test driven right now by someone. So I am waiting for him to get the key for it and now he’s disappeared for a while. A blue XSE RAV4 is being sold at the moment didn’t want that one anyway it looks like I will be here a long time either way.

Now he stopped by with an associate who is going to check to see whether the white one has been sold. If it isn’t sold and it looks like what I want we have to pay for it today. We can’t hold it because they’re going so quickly.

Not long after I got a phone call from Laurel. She said that the person who had driven the white RAV4 Plug-In Hybrid hadn't bought it, so I needed to come to Capitol Toyota ASAP with our Schwab checkbook so we could buy the car ourselves before 8 pm.

I put aside the lawn fertilizer spreader I'd been using, changed my clothes, put the dog in my Subaru Crosstrek (also bought from Capitol), and hurried off to the dealership. When I got there, I learned that the woman who had driven the car we were going to buy had returned to Capitol Toyota and told the salesperson that she wanted to buy "our" car.

After several managers got involved in this controversy, the decision was that whichever customer is holding the keys to a vehicle after a test drive is over has the first right to buy it. That was Laurel, and she wanted to buy the white RAV4. So we lucked out. Barely. 

During the rest of our time at the dealership as we discussed accessories (Laurel picked some), extended warranties and such (we declined all of them), our trade-in (Capitol Toyota agreed to match the CarMax offer), and how we'd pay for the car, we learned what a crazy day it had been at Capitol Toyota.

Trump's 25% tariff on imported cars and auto parts had led to a near-panic by people who wanted to buy a Toyota that was on the lot and not subject to the tariff -- which is expected to add thousands of dollars to the price of a new car. A PBS story, "How Trump's steep tariffs on imported vehicles may affect car prices and the auto industry," says:

Some car buyers have been rushing to showrooms across the country this weekend, as automakers brace for Trump’s 25 percent tariffs on vehicles and auto parts made outside the United States. The tariffs kick in on Thursday and could raise some car prices by thousands of dollars.

Walking around the Capitol Toyota showroom with our dog, who had gotten three biscuits from the canine-friendly dealership to tide her over until we could give Mooka her dinner, I could see that most desks were filled with salespeople working with customers. It had been a very busy day at Capitol Toyota.

Ordinarily that'd be good, but in this case it was caused by people like us who desired a new Toyota but didn't want to pay $5,000, or whatever, more for a car after the Trump tariffs go into effect. Trump has said that he "couldn't care less" in automakers raise prices because of the 25% tariff they will have to start paying next Thursday on imported cars and parts, since Trump thinks this will lead people to buy American cars.

He's wrong, as Trump so often is. A CBS News story says:

General Motors, one of the so-called Big Three automakers, along with Stellantis and Ford, is widely expected to be the most exposed to the forthcoming auto tariffs. Headquartered in Detroit, the U.S. car company makes just 45% of vehicles it sells to U.S. customers domestically, leaving 55% of its lineup exposed to tariffs, according to Cox Automotive. 

GM, which makes Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac vehicles, is heavily invested in Mexico and Canada, where it builds heavy-duty vehicles, according to Cornell's Wheaton. 

So General Motors, an American auto company, will be hugely affected by the tariffs, because so many of their vehicles are assembled in Canada and Mexico and include imported parts. The RAV4 Plug-In Hybrid is made in Japan, by the way. A story in The Hill says:

Last month, the average transaction price for a new vehicle was $47,373, up more than 20 percent from just before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Edmunds.

If the tariffs are fully passed onto consumers, the average auto price on an imported vehicle could jump by $12,500, a sum that could feed into overall inflation, The Associated Press reported.

Cox Automotive, a research firm, estimates that the tariffs will add $6,000 or more to the cost of a typical vehicle assembled in Canada or Mexico.

Public records show only one city official did right thing in Stahley debacle

Yesterday the Salem Reporter, our city's excellent online publication, ran a great story based on documents received from the City of Salem via a public records request concerning the forced resignation of City Manager Keith Stahley last month.

Journalist Joe Siess wrote "Records reveal Nishioka wanted to sue Hoy after Stahley resigned." The story starts off with a bang.

Salem Council President Linda Nishioka felt so misled by Mayor Julie Hoy over the city manager’s exit that she considered suing her, newly-released public records show.

Nishioka sought advice from some of her fellow councilors on how to do that, according to the documents.

The startling possibility emerged as councilors reacted to learning in February that then-City Manager Keith Stahley was resigning.

City officials have issued varying accounts of what triggered his departure, which cost the city $256,000 in severance pay, close to a full year of Stahley’s $270,000 salary. 

A fuller account of what led to his resignation and the ensuing turmoil among city leaders emerges from the emails, text messages and other records from the time released to Salem Reporter. They were provided in response to a public records request.

The documents provide an unprecedented look behind the scenes of city politics. They show councilors confused about why Stahley was quitting – and whether he had been pressured to do so.

Hoy has never commented publicly about her role in that departure, but records indicate the council’s president put the blame squarely at her feet.

Hoy did not respond to an emailed request for comment from Salem Reporter.

I'm familiar with previously known details about Stahley's resignation because I've filed a complaint against Mayor Julie Hoy with the Oregon Government Ethics Commission, arguing that Hoy engaged in prohibited private serial communications with members of the City Council about whether Stahley should consider resigning instead of having these deliberations occur in accordance with Oregon's public meetings law.

Nothing in the Salem Reporter story altered my view that Mayor Hoy behaved badly, and that my complaint has merit. In fact, I learned from the story that Councilor Deanna Gwyn acknowledged that she talked with Hoy about Stahley. That confirms my conclusion that Hoy had private serial communications with a majority of the members of the City Council, which currently numbers eight because of a vacancy: Councilors Gwyn, Varney, Matthews, Nishioka, and, of course, Hoy herself.

The other three members, Councilors Nordyke, Tigan, and Brown, haven't made any public statements about whether they spoke with Hoy concerning Stahley -- which isn't exactly a profile in courage. I suspect each of them did indeed speak with Hoy. Apparently they just don't want to be further embroiled in this debacle, failing to realize that a cover-up can look just as bad as the "crime" itself.

Not that Mayor Hoy committed a crime. According to the Salem Reporter story, Councilor Nishioka "advised some of her colleagues on council and in the city over email and text message that she felt 'pushed,' 'used,' 'misguided,' and 'gaslit' by Hoy." Unfortunately, these are common strategies used by politicians. They're harmful to democracy, but not illegal.

It turns out that only one city official comes to the fore as being ethical, responsible, and appropriately outraged at how Mayor Hoy, with the assistance of Councilor Nishioka, forced Keith Stahley out of his City Manager job by informing him -- correctly or incorrectly -- that a majority of the City Council wanted him to consider resigning.

I said "correctly or incorrectly" because Stahley said in his resignation letter that Nishioka represented herself as speaking for a majority of the council who wanted him to consider resigning, but Nishioka denies that she told Stahley this. I discuss this difference of opinion in my ethics complaint. My view is that Stahley is correct. The Salem Reporter story supports this:

Nishioka explained in her Feb. 16 statement that she met privately with Stahley on Friday, Feb. 7 to alert him that Hoy and a majority of city councilors wanted him to resign. It was after that meeting that Stahley decided to step down from his post.

So while Nishioka was upset enough with Hoy to want to sue the Mayor, Nishioka went along with Hoy's request to meet with Stahley and convey to him what Hoy supposedly learned from her improper talks with city councilors -- a majority wanted Stahley gone.

Dan Atchison, the City Attorney, comes off looking bad.

According to Nishioka's text messages, Atchison told her that any efforts she undertook to confirm with her colleagues what Hoy led her to believe would be unethical, the records show.

Wow. That was horrible legal advice, given that Atchison had told Mayor Hoy that it was perfectly fine for her to talk privately with members of the City Council about Stahley's employment status. So the City Attorney first told Hoy that it was ethical for her to engage in private conversations with councilors about whether Stahley should resign, then told Nishioka that if she did the same thing, that was unethical.

The only city official who comes out looking great in the Salem Reporter story, and previously known information about the circumstances of Stahley's resignation, is Councilor Micki Varney. I included her public statement about this affair in my Oregon Government Ethics Commission complaint, because it was so well written, compelling, and honest. 

While most of her City Council colleagues were either hoping this whole mess would go away, pursuing a head-in-the-sand approach, or blaming each other for the debacle, Councilor Varney tried to take some positive steps. The Salem Reporter story says:

Varney subsequently circulated a draft of a statement she proposed would represent all the councilors. She sent it to Nishioka and City Councilor Paul Tigan in the morning on Feb. 12 – three days after the resignation.

In her draft, Varney challenged media accounts of the resignation and saw the statement as a way to set the record straight.

“We are all confused about what really happened over the past few days,” Varney wrote in the letter. “What we do not believe is that removing a competent, if not visionary, chief administrator during the beginning of the budget process was a rational, reasonable, or responsible action. We do not believe this resignation was harmonious; we have grave concerns over the methodology and the reasons behind this leadership change.” 

In the letter, Varney proposed that the council call for a third-party investigation into the matter. 

“The media reported a version of what happened that may not be the entire story. Media reports suggest the city manager was asked for his resignation by a city councilor. It is apparent the city manager accepted that request from a representative of the whole (or at least a majority) of the council,” Varney wrote. Tigan opposed the letter. 

“This is too much,” he said in a text message. “It will only dig us in a deeper hole. Also, if we undercut the premise of Keith’s resignation (that he was informed that a majority of the council sought his resignation), I’m afraid we could undercut his ability to receive his severance. As I stated at the council meeting, that is important to me to ensure Keith is kept whole under his employment contract.”

Varney’s letter never advanced. 

John F. Kennedy wrote a book called Profiles in Courage, which, according to Wikipedia, described acts of bravery and integrity by eight United States senators. Aside from Councilor Varney, no city official demonstrated such courage during or after the successful attempt to force the Salem City Manager to resign.

Trump administration sends war plans via text to journalist

If there was any doubt about the incompetence of the Trump administration, this story in The Atlantic today should squash it.

Jeffrey Goldberg is the editor in chief of The Atlantic. I'm a subscriber. This gift link to Goldberg's story should enable anybody to read it. 

Remember the uproar over Hillary Clinton using her own email server when she was Obama's Secretary of State? Trump and other Republicans thought she should be go to jail for engaging in a breach of security protocols.

Well, the debacle described by Goldberg is way worse than Clinton's emails. Hopefully there will be investigations of what happened. Here's some excerpts from Goldberg's story to whet your appetite to read the whole thing.

The world found out shortly before 2 p.m. eastern time on March 15 that the United States was bombing Houthi targets across Yemen.

I, however, knew two hours before the first bombs exploded that the attack might be coming. The reason I knew this is that Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, had texted me the war plan at 11:44 a.m. The plan included precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing.

This is going to require some explaining.

...On Tuesday, March 11, I received a connection request on Signal from a user identified as Michael Waltz. Signal is an open-source encrypted messaging service popular with journalists and others who seek more privacy than other text-messaging services are capable of delivering.

I assumed that the Michael Waltz in question was President Donald Trump’s national security adviser. I did not assume, however, that the request was from the actual Michael Waltz. I have met him in the past, and though I didn’t find it particularly strange that he might be reaching out to me, I did think it somewhat unusual, given the Trump administration’s contentious relationship with journalists—and Trump’s periodic fixation on me specifically.

It immediately crossed my mind that someone could be masquerading as Waltz in order to somehow entrap me. It is not at all uncommon these days for nefarious actors to try to induce journalists to share information that could be used against them.

I accepted the connection request, hoping that this was the actual national security adviser, and that he wanted to chat about Ukraine, or Iran, or some other important matter.

Two days later—Thursday—at 4:28 p.m., I received a notice that I was to be included in a Signal chat group. It was called the “Houthi PC small group.”

...The principals had apparently assembled. In all, 18 individuals were listed as members of this group, including various National Security Council officials; Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s Middle East and Ukraine negotiator; Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff; and someone identified only as “S M,” which I took to stand for Stephen Miller. I appeared on my own screen only as “JG.”

...After receiving the Waltz text related to the “Houthi PC small group,” I consulted a number of colleagues. We discussed the possibility that these texts were part of a disinformation campaign, initiated by either a foreign intelligence service or, more likely, a media-gadfly organization, the sort of group that attempts to place journalists in embarrassing positions, and sometimes succeeds.

I had very strong doubts that this text group was real, because I could not believe that the national-security leadership of the United States would communicate on Signal about imminent war plans. I also could not believe that the national security adviser to the president would be so reckless as to include the editor in chief of The Atlantic in such discussions with senior U.S. officials, up to and including the vice president.

...It was the next morning, Saturday, March 15, when this story became truly bizarre.

At 11:44 a.m., the account labeled “Pete Hegseth” posted in Signal a “TEAM UPDATE.” I will not quote from this update, or from certain other subsequent texts. The information contained in them, if they had been read by an adversary of the United States, could conceivably have been used to harm American military and intelligence personnel, particularly in the broader Middle East, Central Command’s area of responsibility.

What I will say, in order to illustrate the shocking recklessness of this Signal conversation, is that the Hegseth post contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing.

...According to the lengthy Hegseth text, the first detonations in Yemen would be felt two hours hence, at 1:45 p.m. eastern time. So I waited in my car in a supermarket parking lot. If this Signal chat was real, I reasoned, Houthi targets would soon be bombed. At about 1:55, I checked X and searched Yemen. Explosions were then being heard across Sanaa, the capital city.

...I have never seen a breach quite like this. It is not uncommon for national-security officials to communicate on Signal. But the app is used primarily for meeting planning and other logistical matters—not for detailed and highly confidential discussions of a pending military action. And, of course, I’ve never heard of an instance in which a journalist has been invited to such a discussion.

Conceivably, Waltz, by coordinating a national-security-related action over Signal, may have violated several provisions of the Espionage Act, which governs the handling of “national defense” information, according to several national-security lawyers interviewed by my colleague Shane Harris for this story.

Harris asked them to consider a hypothetical scenario in which a senior U.S. official creates a Signal thread for the express purpose of sharing information with Cabinet officials about an active military operation. He did not show them the actual Signal messages or tell them specifically what had occurred.

All of these lawyers said that a U.S. official should not establish a Signal thread in the first place. Information about an active operation would presumably fit the law’s definition of “national defense” information. The Signal app is not approved by the government for sharing classified information. The government has its own systems for that purpose.

If officials want to discuss military activity, they should go into a specially designed space known as a sensitive compartmented information facility, or SCIF—most Cabinet-level national-security officials have one installed in their home—or communicate only on approved government equipment, the lawyers said.

Normally, cellphones are not permitted inside a SCIF, which suggests that as these officials were sharing information about an active military operation, they could have been moving around in public. Had they lost their phones, or had they been stolen, the potential risk to national security would have been severe.

American voters got us Trump. They'll have to rid us of Trump.

There's a lot of anger among Democrats, especially the left wing of the Democratic Party, right now.

The anger is divided between Donald Trump and his billionaire buddy, Elon Musk, and Democrats in the Senate -- especially minority leader Chuck Schumer -- for preventing a government shutdown by voting to end a filibuster that would have blocked a Republican-backed continuing resolution to fund federal agencies through the rest of the fiscal year, September 30.

That anger is completely understandable.

Trump and Musk are doing terrible things. They're taking a wrecking ball to the federal government, to our economy, to international relations, to free trade, to the rule of law, to longstanding norms designed to keep a president from acting like an authoritarian. And while I supported Senate Democrats avoiding a government shutdown, I realize that others have decent reasons for criticizing this decision.

But the way I see it, the real culprit here is American voters. They're the reason Trump is president instead of Kamala Harris. They gave Trump a second term knowing full well what kind of man he was and what he planned to do after re-entering the White House. Harris warned them that Trump was a serious threat to our democracy. Voters elected him anyway.

Currently Trump's favorability rating is 46%, with 51% viewing him unfavorably. That's low by the standard of how other presidents have been viewed at this point post-election, but this chart by The Economist shows that Trump is more popular than he was in his first term, and also during Biden's presidency.

Us progressive Democrats can't stand Trump. The rest of the country is fairly evenly divided between having a favorable and unfavorable opinion of him. (Trump's approval rating not surprisingly closely mirrors his favorability rating.)

It's encouraging that recent polls are showing that voters disapprove of the job Trump is doing with the economy, as this has been one of his strengths. Prices are still high, even though Trump promised that he'd reduce them as soon as he became president. Trump's tariffs, which amount to a national sales tax, almost certainly will lead to an increase in prices.

The base of the Democratic Party is pleading with party leaders to do something, anything, to stop Trump from doing further damage to our country and the world. Again, that's an understandable sentiment. I just don't see it as being a viable way to derail the Trump Train, which has a powerful head of steam and few roadblocks in its way at the moment.

Yes, courts are ruling against the Trump administration. But there will be appeals of those rulings, which can take many months or even years to play out. And while the Supreme Court may curb Trump's authoritarian desire, such isn't at all certain given the court's 6-3 conservative majority. 

So it seems to me that the American public turning against Trump is the only way he can be stopped, or at least slowed down, between now and when he leaves office in 2029 -- a depressingly long time away. If it becomes clear that Trump is defying court orders, this would lead to a constitutional crisis that might bring millions of protesting people into the streets.

And if the economy tanks under the weight of Trump's misguided tariffs and other policies, this should produce a drastic reduction in his approval/favorability rating. That could scare Republican politicians into opposing what Trump is doing, though Trump has such a grip on the GOP, I wouldn't count on that.

I think Democrats have to do whatever they can to stop Trump and Musk.

However, unless the midterm elections in 2026 bring Democrats back into power in the House, Congressional Democrats won't have many ways to do this. The Senate filibuster is the only viable option, and that can't be used on Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill," a reconciliation package that renews tax cuts which favor the wealthiest Americans. 

Seven reasons why I support Senate Democrats voting to avoid government shutdown

We Democrats are notorious for engaging in circular firing squads where different factions of the party take political shots at each other. But the arguing over Senate Democrats voting today to avoid a government shutdown is unusually intense.

Yesterday I was surprised to see MSNBC's Chris Hayes, who I usually agree with, telling Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer not only that he was wrong to support ending a filibuster so a continuing resolution passed by the House that would keep most federal agencies funded at their 2024 level until this fiscal year is over on September 30 could pass with a simple majority, but that this was a betrayal of the American people.

Today Hayes said pretty much the same thing, along with two guests who, not surprisingly, agreed with Hayes. The three of them argued that a government shutdown was justified as a show of resistance against the horrible things Trump, Musk, and their MAGA minions are doing to federal employees and the agencies they work for. 

I have a different opinion. I'm glad nine Senate Democrats and one Independent (King) voted to end a filibuster. As shown above, they were Chuck Schumer, John Fetterman, Catherine Cortez Masto, Dick Durbin, Brian Schatz, Maggie Hassan, Kristen Gillibrand, Gary Peters, Jeanne Shaheen, and Angus King. But I respect fellow Democrats who think these lawmakers were mistaken. 

It bothers me that so many Democrats are viciously attacking the ten Senators. This wasn't an easy call. There were good reasons to avoid a government shutdown, and there were good reasons to embrace a government shutdown. Schumer acknowledged that voting for the continuing resolution wasn't desirable, since it allows Trump and Co. to continue with their extreme, thoughtless, and often illegal attempts to shrink the federal government.

He just considered that a government shutdown would be even worse. I agree. Here's reasons I find persuasive for why Senate Democrats did the right thing today.

(1) Democrats are making progress at convincing the American people that indiscriminate layoffs of government employees and the arbitrary elimination of government programs is a bad thing the Trump administration is doing. So if Democrats said they need to shut much of the government down as a protest against Trump/Musk shutting much of the government down, this would sound crazy to the public. Which, in my view, it is.

(2) Courts have ruled that the Trump administration needs to rehire many workers wrongly let go for spurious reasons. A government shutdown would give Trump the power to decide which federal employees are essential and which aren't, seemingly making it easier for Trump to reduce the size of the federal workforce.

(3) Democrats hate it when they're in power and Republicans use the threat of a government shutdown to pressure a Democratic administration to give in on some political issues favored by Republicans. Now many Democrats have been calling for their party to do what they hate when Republicans do it. Government shutdowns are bad for the country, no matter who is responsible for one. 

(4) Pro-shutdown Democrats have a fantasy that after a government shutdown has been in place for a while, Trump will have to negotiate with Democrats to reopen the government, enabling them to make demands that limit the damage Trump/Musk are doing to federal programs. Dream on. Just look at the chaotic way Trump is handling tariffs. He doesn't like to lose or feel like he's being disrespected. When he's pushed hard, Trump pushes back harder. Zelensky learned this in his Oval Office meeting with Trump. Rather than negotiate with Democrats, likely Trump would have let the shutdown continue.

(5) In line with the above, Democrats who favored a shutdown never clearly specified what the "endgame" would be. Republicans control the House, Senate, and Presidency. Today's Republican Party believes that the best government is the smallest possible government. Most Republicans in Congress, and certainly Trump, would be fine with a lengthy government shutdown. It's unlikely that they'd ever work with Democrats on a deal to reopen the government, at least not until a shutdown had done extensive damage to the United States.

(6) Other countries don't have government shutdowns. This is an American invention. It isn't something to celebrate, but to avoid. 

(7) I'm fine with Democrats playing hardball. My objection is to doing this via a government shutdown. The nation's debt limit must be raised in coming months. That's a better fight for congressional Democrats, as the Trump administration will care more about preserving faith in the credit worthiness of the federal government than they do about keeping discretionary federal programs operating.

Here's my Oregon Government Ethics Commission complaint about Keith Stahley's forced resignation

I am submitting this complaint to the Oregon Government Ethics Commission in the form of a post on one of my blogs because the complaint is lengthy owing to the complexity of this matter, which would have made it difficult to file the necessary information on the Commission's web site.

In addition, by consolidating all of that information in a single document, I felt this would make it easier for Commission staff to read and understand the issue at hand: whether Salem Mayor Julie Hoy engaged in prohibited serial communications involving the forced resignation of City Manager Keith Stahley.

This complaint is in three sections: (1) Grievance notice sent to City of Salem; (2) Response to grievance notice by City of Salem: (3) My comments on City of Salem response to the grievance. Due to the length of this complaint, I've inserted a page break after section (1). Simply click on the notice of the page break to read the rest of the complaint. There are a few formatting and font problems in the complaint, a result of copying and pasting from other documents, but the problems don't interfere with readability.

(1) Grievance notice sent to City of Salem

TO: Acting City Manager Namburi, Mayor Hoy, City Attorney Atchison, city councilors, and other city officials
FROM: Brian Hines
RE: revised Oregon Government Ethics Commission grievance notice

Please consider this my revised grievance notice to the notice I sent you last night. After reading a story in today’s Statesman Journal about Stahley’s resignation, I’ve added mention of a part of that story as it demonstrates that Mayor Hoy told Councilor Nishioka that a majority of City Council members wanted Stahley to resign, and edited some other parts accordingly.

 

In accordance with the policy of the Oregon Government Ethics Commission that before a complaint alleging a violation of the Public Meetings Law can be submitted, the public body at issue — in this case the City of Salem — has to be given 21 days to respond to a written grievance setting forth the facts and circumstances of the alleged violation, this email sent on February 16, 2025 is that written grievance. 

 

Official FlashAlert communications from the City of Salem provide a primary basis for my grievance. Stories published by the Salem Reporter and the Statesman Journal also will be used to support this grievance. 

 

The issue at hand is the recent forced resignation of City Manager Keith Stahley. It appears that Mayor Hoy violated Or. Admin. Code 199-050-0020 dealing with the prohibition of serial communications. However, there may have been additional violations of Oregon law and administrative rules.

 

On February 13, a FlashAlert was sent out titled “A Statement From the City of Salem Regarding the City Manager’s Resignation.” A timeline comprised most of the communication. On February 15, a FlashAlert was sent out titled “Salem City Attorney’s Statement Concerning Keith Stahley’s Resignation.” 

 

I’ll use excerpts from these to make my case for this grievance, supplementing that information with information from two Salem Reporter stories, both by Joe Siess: “Mayor Julie Hoy set in motion events that led to Keith Stahley’s abrupt resignation” (February 13) and “Councilor Micki Varney breaks the silence about city manager’s resignation” (February 14), and a Statesman Journal story by Whitney Woodworth “Salem city councilor calls for transparency after city manager’s exit” (February 16).

 

This saga began at some undisclosed date when, according to the city, "Mayor Julie Hoy had individual communications with different members of City Council concerning Keith Stahley's performance and potential separation from the City.” The Salem Reporter learned that Councilors Micki Varney and Shane Matthews had talked with Hoy by phone. In addition a city communication says that Hoy "spoke on the phone with Councilor Linda Nishioka.”

 

So Mayor Hoy, a member of the City Council herself, spoke with at least three other councilors about Stahley (four, actually, since we can assume Hoy speaks to herself). The Salem Reporter has gotten "no comment" from Councilors Nordyke and Tigan about this, adding "Hoy and Councilors Deanna Gwyn, Irvin Brown, and Nishioka haven’t responded to emailed questions about when they decided the matter of Stahley’s resignation and to whom they communicated that decision.”

 

The current membership of the City Council is eight, as one seat on the nine-member council is vacant. Thus at a minimum, Mayor Hoy had spoken with half of the City Council (again, including herself) about Stahley’s performance and potential separation from the city via resignation or firing prior to Nishioka’s meeting with Stahley on February 7. And as noted below, the Statesman Journal story indicates that Hoy spoke with a majority of the council members.

 

Regarding that meeting: there is no evidence that prior to February 7, anyone on the City Council had  expressed to Hoy a desire for Stahley to resign. In fact, according to the Salem Reporter, on February 2 Varney had told Hoy that she needed more information to make a decision either way, and Matthews told Hoy that he didn’t indicate support for Stahley’s resignation. 

 

However, it is entirely possible that of the remaining six councilors on the current eight-member City Council, five (including Hoy) expressed a desire for Stahley to resign or be fired during the talks Hoy had with councilors. That would be a majority of the council. Since we know that Hoy spoke with three councilors, it seems likely that she spoke with all seven of her fellow councilors. In fact, the Statesman Journal story says tthis about a statement Councilor Nishioka released on February 15.

Nishioka said a discussion with Hoy led to her reaching out to Stahley. She said Hoy told her a majority of councilors believed Stahley should resign.

On February 7 Councilor Nishioka met with Stahley after meeting with Hoy. There’s no dispute that Nishioka asked Stahley if he would consider resigning. A key question that spurred this grievance is what Nishioka told Stahley. In a February 9 resignation letter that followed his meeting with Nishioka that was included in the February 13 Salem Reporter story, Stahley said, in part:

I understand the desire of the Mayor and Council to move forward and have a fresh start. I hope that my resignation per Section 14: Severance (b) (3) of my contract will help to facilitate that.

 

I am submitting this resignation based on a meeting that I had with Councilor Nishioka on Friday February 7, 2025, where she represented that she was the duly authorized representative of the Mayor and a majority of City Council and requested that I tender my resignation. 

Note that Stahley says that Nishioka represented herself as being both a duly authorized representative of the Mayor and a majority of the City Council. Since Nishioka is president of the entire City Council, her saying that she was a representative of a majority of the council clearly indicates that she’s speaking here about whether Stahley has the support of that majority to remain in that position. 

 

Obviously Stahley was told by Nishioka that a majority wanted him gone, or he wouldn’t have resigned two days after his meeting with Nishioka. 

 

The key point here is that the only way Nishioka could have known that a majority of the City Council wanted Stahley to resign or be fired was if Mayor Hoy had told Nishioka this in their meeting prior to February 7. This is precisely what the Statesman Journal story says, referencing a statement from Nishioka. The February 13 city communication says:

Due to public meeting law limitations, Councilor Nishioka was concerned that speaking with other members of Council about this issue would violate the law. She relied on her understanding of the situation after speaking with Mayor Julie Hoy.

So how would Nishioka be able to tell Stahley that she represented a majority on the City Council that wanted him gone? Because Mayor Hoy didn’t have the concerns about breaking Oregon’s public meeting law that Nishioka did. Hoy engaged in what’s known as prohibited serial communications under Or. Admin. Code 199-050-0020. It states:

A quorum of the members of a governing body shall not, outside of a meeting conducted in compliance with the Public Meetings Law, use a series of communications of any kind, directly or through intermediaries, for the purpose of deliberating or deciding on any matter that is within the jurisdiction of the governing body.

The prohibited methods of communication include in-person; telephone calls; emails; and such, including “any other means of conveying information.” Deciding whether to keep a City Manager on the job is within the jurisdiction of the City Council. 

 

In his resignation letter, Stahley said that Nishioka told him that she represented a majority of the City Council and requested that he tender his resignation. This is strong evidence that Hoy engaged in a prohibited serial communication with members of the City Council and instructed Nishioka to tell Stahley that he should resign. Again, Nishioka said that she avoided talking with her fellow councilors about this, so it was Hoy who concluded through her serial communications that a majority wanted Stahley gone.

 

Legally, it doesn’t matter whether Hoy spoke truthfully with Nishioka about this. What matters is that Nishioka, putting herself forward to Stahley as a representative of a majority of the City Council, asked Stahley to resign. This action needed to take place at a public meeting, not via a series of private phone calls or other communications Mayor Hoy had with city councilors.

 

In the February 15 communication that was the city attorney’s statement concerning Stahley’s resignation, City Attorney Atchison said about Nishioka’s meeting with Stahley:

At that meeting, Councilor Nishioka asked Keith Stahley if he would consider resigning. Councilor Nishioka never said that she was City Council’s “duly authorized representative" or implied she was speaking on behalf of City Council.

However, what Stahley said in his resignation letter directly contradicts what the city attorney claimed in the quotation above. 

 

This is one reason I’m initiating an inquiry by the Oregon Government Ethics Commission: to resolve the question of whether Mayor Hoy and possibly other city officials engaged in prohibited serial communications that caused, in Stahley’s view, a request by a majority of the City Council for him to resign — even though no public meeting of the council had been held regarding this issue.

 

I want to note something misleading in the February 15 statement by the city attorney. Atchison said:

Stahley’s resignation letter stated that Nishioka said she was “the duly authorized representative of City Council" acting on Council’s behalf. That language is straight from Stahley’s employment agreement concerning severance benefits. Stahley used that exact language apparently because it was consistent with the language in his employment agreement concerning his eligibility for severance, not because Nishioka ever uttered those words.

There are several problems with this assertion by the city attorney. First, the quote Atchison shared, the part in quotation marks above, isn’t in Stahley’s resignation letter, which actually said:

I am submitting this resignation based on a meeting that I had with Councilor Nishioka on Friday February 7, 2025, where she represented that she was the duly authorized representative of the Mayor and a majority of City Council and requested that I tender my resignation. 

I’m virtually 100% sure that this language isn’t in Stahley’s employment agreement. So the city attorney was wrong when he claimed that Stahley was echoing the language in the employment agreement. Second, the city attorney doesn’t know why Stahley said what he did in his resignation letter. That’s why Atchison included “apparently” in his conjecture that Nishioka never said that she was the duly authorized representative of the Mayor and a majority of the City Council. Basically, the city attorney is accusing Stahley of lying.

 

Here’s a much more likely reason Stahley said what he did: it was the truth as he remembered it from the meeting with Nishioka that occurred just two days before he wrote his resignation letter.

 

Lastly, I want to share Councilor Varney’s public statement about the resignation of Keith Stahley that appeared in a February 14 Salem Reporter story by Joe Siess, “Councilor Micki Varney breaks the silence about city manager’s resignation.” It provides a valuable perspective from the only member of the City Council who has issued a public statement about this disturbing action that, as argued above, seems to violate Oregon’s public meeting law.

“I write this feeling great sadness and regret at what has transpired over the past week. It has eroded the trust and transparency we as a Council have been trying to rebuild over the past year.

The public has every right to, and deserves, an explanation of the events leading up to and following the city manager’s submission of his letter of resignation. The public has a right to demand that their elected officials follow the rules and statutes they all took an oath to uphold when they took office. 

I believe that trust matters and respect is the currency of trust. I also believe that my duties, as your elected city councilor, include the sharing of concerns when warranted, and in a timely manner. 

Transparency is a standard you have every right to expect of your government.

Members of the public and members of the Council deserve answers. The manner in which the city manager’s resignation occurred is untimely and unacceptable. I believe we all must continue to ask questions in order to discover exactly what actions were taken, and by whom and why, between the timing of the recent audit report and the abrupt resignation of the city manager earlier this week.

I am unaware of what really happened over the past few days, and I believe it is essential that we understand the reality of how we ended up in the situation we now find ourselves. Namely, we are now without a city manager while beginning the city budget setting process for the upcoming fiscal year.  

There are many reports circulating around the various media speculating what may or may not have occurred. This suggests that either the facts were not provided to the media, or someone, or someones, misreported the facts to purposefully shape the larger narrative for a desired outcome. 

It is apparent the city manager accepted a request to resign from a representative of the whole or (at least as stated in the resignation document), a majority of the council. However, no single city councilor – or mayor – has the authority to ask for a resignation absent a vote of the entire council. In this instance, this never occurred.

I, and to the best of my knowledge many of my fellow councilors, were not aware of what was transpiring during the week prior to the city manager’s resignation. We were following the rules which specify that we do not communicate with one another regarding city matters outside of a public meeting.

I was shocked to hear of the city manager’s resignation. 

I am looking forward to being able to fill in many of the gaps as more facts are brought forward. I urge patience as more information is gathered.

In conclusion, I ask our city and community to remain engaged and participate in the steps ahead of us. I recognize the need for trust-building and truth-telling, and that is precisely why I am sharing my concerns with you in this message. 

Together, I believe we can and will move Salem forward, but it will take all of us working together to be able to achieve that objective.”

     — Brian Hines

 

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. 

Trump looked strong in last night's speech. Democrats looked weak.

My wife couldn't believe I was able to do this, but I've watched most of Trump's speech to a joint session of Congress last night. I did so because I believe in knowing your enemy. I wanted to see how Trump came across rather than just read about his speech.

I also was curious to see how Democratic legislators acted during the speech.

How aggressive would they be in protesting what certainly would be copious amounts of lies coming out of Trump's mouth, not to mention his truthful statements about what his administration has been doing since inauguration day, naturally including the dangerous antics of Elon Musk and his merry band of DOGE'sters?

In short, Trump looked strong and Democrats looked weak.

I'm no fan of Trump, to put it mildly. But I've got to give credit to him for exhibiting a lot of energy at the age of 78. The speech set an all-time record for the longest State of the Union/joint session of Congress presidential address: 99 minutes I believe it was. Trump stood throughout. I haven't finished watching all of my DVR recording of the speech, but I didn't notice any decline in Trump's energy and enthusiasm. 

The speech, which I'm sure he had little to do with the writing, was well done. When Trump was simply reading from the teleprompter, I actually didn't find him very annoying, even though I rarely agreed with what he was saying.

Meaning, while I didn't like what I was hearing, I had to give Trump some grudging respect for he and his speechwriters making a decent MAGA case for what has been done in the early days of his second term as president.

Trump also did a good job with his unscripted remarks. He's adept at both insulting his opponents, in this case Democratic members of Congress, and sounding like a talk show host, a skill he's perfected from his time on television and all the political rallies he's spoken at. 

There were a lot of special guests in the chamber that Trump recognized and talked about at various points in his speech. This was a smart move. It's a typical thing to do, but not to this degree and with that level of emotion.

It was easy for me to sympathize with the female athlete who reportedly suffered a serious head injury when a transgender player on the opposing team spiked the ball into her face, and equally easy for me to feel warmth to the boy with a major medical problem whose dream is to become a policeman, and who was told by Trump that he now is a member of the Secret Service. 

Of course, Trump had the advantage of being in control of the speech. Democrats struggled to find ways to protest Trump while not looking like jerks, given the solemnity of the situation. But wherever Trump goes, tradition and norms fly out the window. 

So I thought it was entirely appropriate for Rep. Al Green to stand up early on, point his cane at Trump, and yell at him. That got Green kicked out. However, it was an effective move since the camera captured what Green did and it disrupted the flow of Trump's speech. 

Other than that, mostly Democrats held little signs that earned this comment from a late night talk show host:

“He barked out one appalling claim after another, but don’t you worry: Democrats are getting ready to fight back with their little paddles,” said The Late Show host Stephen Colbert.

I wish Democrats had been able to come up with a unified way to protest Trump's speech. Trump has been breaking laws in his so-far mostly successful attempt to remake the federal government in his own image. Trump is acting like an authoritarian, not a president. We're barreling toward a constitutional crisis that sure seems like a break-the-glass moment where loud alarms need to sound.

Yet last night Democrats, with the exception of Rep. Green, responded to Trump with little tinkles akin to someone gently tapping with a knife on a glass to get the attention of people at a dinner party. 

Here's an excerpt from a Politico story, "'Giving bingo': Democrats' silent protest against Trump falls flat."

President Donald Trump mocked Democrats who sat in front of him Tuesday night, needling them with a grin, “nothing I can say or do to make them happy.” Democrats mostly responded with silent protest — wearing pink, waving placards emblazoned with “FALSE” and “Save Medicaid.” More than a dozen walked out of his speech early, some revealing shirts that said “No Kings Live Here.”

The shambolic scene was emblematic of Democrats’ larger problem after facing a brutal election cycle that locked them out of power as they struggled to communicate in a vastly fragmented media environment. Though the official Democratic response, delivered by Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin, got carried on major networks, much of what Democrats had to say didn’t play out on voters’ TVs.

“We’re all trying to get up to speed as fast as possible to take this fight right to Republicans,” said Shasti Conrad, associate Democratic National Committee chair, in an interview with POLITICO after the speech. “But there’s a little bit of a delay.”

Absent a sharper, in-the-room response, frustrated Democrats vented online, complaining that the Democrats’ signs were “giving bingo” and “not landing,” as former Joe Biden spokesperson Symone Sanders Townsend put it on X. North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton added: “why did democrats go to this tbh,” while late-night host Stephen Colbert mocked Democrats for their signs, making one of his own that said: “Try doing something.”

Democrats’ protest was “very silly, and unserious, but I can’t help but feel some level of empathy for them,” said a Democratic strategist granted anonymity to discuss the issue candidly. “I’m sure they feel like they have to do something, anything, [but] that wasn’t it.”