Salem Political Snark: City of Salem

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.

Posted at 10:20 PM in City Council, City of Salem | Permalink | Comments (0)

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

Continue reading "Here's my Oregon Government Ethics Commission complaint about Keith Stahley's forced resignation" »

Posted at 12:12 PM in City Council, City of Salem | Permalink | Comments (0)

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.

In statements released over the weekend, Salem City Council President Linda Nishioka and City Attorney Dan Atchison dispute the former city manager's claim that he resigned at city council's request. The statements
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.

Posted at 09:53 PM in City Council, City of Salem | Permalink | Comments (2)

City Council approves property tax levy to be voted on in May

It's been a long time coming, but at yesterday's City Council meeting the "livability levy" was approved unanimously, setting up a highly interesting vote by Salem citizens in the May election.

A Salem Reporter story by Joe Siess contains some details:

Salem city councilors voted unanimously Monday to put a property tax increase before voters in May that, if passed, would help pay for the public library, parks maintenance, and programming at Center 50+.

If voters accept the five-year levy, property taxes would increase by 98 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value, or about $229 annually for the average homeowner in Salem. Tax rates are based on a home’s assessed value, which is typically about half of its market value.

The tax would generate about $14 million in fiscal year 2026 and that money would go specifically toward restoring hours at the public library that were cut in 2024 and maintaining Salem’s parks and Center 50+.

Though the money isn’t earmarked for public safety, it would free up money in the city’s general fund to pay for police and fire, which also face potential cuts if the levy fails. The city is struggling to balance a nearly $14 million budget deficit.

Backers of the levy who are strong supporters of the public library tried to get the Chemeketa Community College board to postpone the college's own property tax levy that also will be on the May ballot -- the concern being that when voters see two proposals to increase property taxes, they will be inclined to reject both.

Well, maybe. The Chemeketa board unanimously agreed to go ahead with the May levy, rejecting the arguments from Salem library supporters. Here's an excerpt from a Salem Reporter story by Rachel Alexander, "Chemeketa board asks voters to renew tax measure for career education, campus renovations."

The vote came after several speakers urged the board to delay running the Chemeketa measure again until November so it doesn’t compete with a city of Salem levy that would raise property taxes to pay for the city library, parks maintenance, recreation programs and Center 50+

Those city facilities face potential closure if the measure fails, said Jim Scheppke, a former state librarian who’s helping to lead a campaign for the levy.

“To win in what is not a great climate for a tax increase, we need to be the only money measure on the ballot,” Scheppke said.

[College President Jessica] Howard and the college’s board gave little weight to that argument during a brief question and answer session.

“I don’t think it’s really possible for us not to be on the ballot for another entity. Our district is too large and there are a lot of needs out there,” Howard said.

Board Chair Ken Hector echoed her sentiment, saying it’s likely other local governments will seek funding in November given the number that face budget crises.

I suspect that the fate of both the City of Salem and Chemeketa Community College property tax levy will hinge in large part on the overall mood of the electorate in May. It's an understatement to say that things are chaotic in Washington D.C. currently, and there's a good chance the chaos will increase over the next few months, not decrease.

Uncertainty about where our nation is heading tends to make people more cautious about their family finances. So while arguments about the merits of the livability levy ideally should be more important in determining its fate than national politics, I'm worried that the latter will be on the minds of Salem voters.

For we need a high quality library, along with proper funding for Center 50+ and parks. Hopefully proponents of the City of Salem levy will emphasize the finding that, on the whole, city government is operated in an efficient manner, which supports the need for the levy. Here's an excerpt from a Salem Reporter story by Joe Siess, "City efficiencies committee says cutting costs alone won't help plug deficit."

A group of financially-savvy executives tasked with looking at the city’s budget to identify ways to save agreed Friday that the city’s budgetary woes are less about wasteful spending and inefficiencies and are largely due to structural problems outside Salem’s control.

In discussions during four meetings over the past two weeks, group members concluded that while the city is already stretched thin by chronic understaffing and dwindling resources, it is successfully squeezing more services out of what it does have compared to comparably-sized cities like Eugene.

However, the committee said that current levels of service are unsustainable without addressing systemic issues like skyrocketing pension costs, the financial burden of being the state’s capital city, and the fact that revenues from property taxes have been frozen by constitutional amendment since the 1990s.

The committee’s chair, Brian Moore, said the group ultimately concluded the city cannot “efficiency” its way out of its predicament unless those external factors are addressed.

Posted at 09:55 PM in City Council, City of Salem | Permalink | Comments (0)

Councilor Nishioka calls Keith Stahley a liar. I'm inclined to believe Stahley.

Today the Salem Reporter has a story about the shifting explanations city officials have been coming up with about the disturbing way Keith Stahley, the recently-resigned City Manager, was removed from his important position.

I already knew most of what was said in the story, "A timeline of statements surrounding Salem city manager's resignation."

After all, I've begun the process of filing a complaint with the Oregon Government Ethics Commission regarding how Stahley was forced to resign outside of a public process, as detailed in a February 15 blog post, "I just initiated an ethics complaint against the City of Salem."

My complaint focuses on a violation of Oregon's public meetings law, which prohibits serial communications by a public body. Meaning, in this instance, Mayor Julie Hoy can't talk individually in private with a majority of city councilors about whether Stahley should resign, because the decision to hire or fire the city manager has to occur in a public City Council meeting.

A February 13 statement from the City of Salem that I got via FlashAlert says just that:

The City Manager is the sole employee of the City Council. Decisions regarding the City Manager's employment are made by Council collectively and in a public setting.

Well, that's what supposed to happen. But what actually happened in this case wasn't that at all. There's plenty of evidence that Mayor Hoy (no relation to the previous mayor, Chris Hoy) set in motion a private illegal process that resulted in Stahley's forced resignation.

That February 13 City of Salem statement describes what happened on February 7.

February 7, 2025. As Mr. Stahley noted in his resignation letter, Council President Linda Nishioka met with Mr. Stahley and discussed his potential resignation. Councilor Nishioka met with Mr. Stahley because she believed that Council could conduct a public process leading to Council asking Mr. Stahley for his resignation. She has stated that she wanted him to avoid the potential embarrassment of that process. 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. This conversation triggered an Executive Session to consider the dismissal or discipline of an employee (ORS 192.660(2)(b)).

So Nishioka met privately with Stahley to discuss his resignation, believing that otherwise the City Council could conduct a public process leading to the Council asking him to resign. Well, that's what should have happened -- a public process. Unfortunately, the Executive Session where the Council considered Stahley's dismissal occurred after he resigned, not before.

But Mayor Hoy didn't want a public process. To her credit, Nishioka didn't want to speak with other members of the City Council because she knew this was against public meetings law. Hoy, however, didn't have that worry.

Amazingly, and disturbingly, in a February 15 City of Salem statement that I also got via FlashAlert, City Attorney Atchison says that he told Hoy it was perfectly fine for her to have "individual communications with different members of City Council concerning Keith Stahley's performance and potential separation from the City."

Wow. It sure seems like the City Attorney advised Mayor Hoy to break the law that Councilor Nishioka realized prevented her from doing what Hoy did. This is why I'm filing a complaint with the Oregon Government Ethics Commission: to learn whether the commission agrees with the City Attorney, or whether Mayor Hoy did indeed violate public meetings law.

A key question: how do we know that Hoy privately spoke with a majority of the City Council about Stahley resigning? This is important, since serial communications are forbidden when they occur among a quorum of the members of a governing body, as contrasted with the Salem mayor talking with a minority of the City Council about an issue.

Linda Nishioka

One reason we know this is what Councilor Nishioka said in a February 16 statement that's included in the Salem Reporter story.

Mayor Julie Hoy told me that a majority of councilors believed Mr. Stahley should consider resigning.

Since we can assume that Mayor Hoy doesn't have a mystical ability to read the minds of City Council members, obviously the only way Hoy could know that a majority believed he should consider resigning is if Hoy talked with a majority of councilors outside of a public meeting.

What Keith Stahley said in his resignation letter also shows that Hoy spoke with a majority of the City Council about his resignation.

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.

Stahley also said that Nishioka requested that he tender his resignation. This fits with what the City of Salem said in the February 13 FlashAlert communication about what happened on February 7.

As Mr. Stahley noted in his resignation letter, Council President Linda Nishioka met with Mr. Stahley and discussed his potential resignation.... She relied on her understanding of the situation after speaking with Mayor Julie Hoy.

And what was that understanding? Nishioka described what it was in her February 16 statement. To repeat, it was:

Mayor Julie Hoy told me that a majority of councilors believed Mr. Stahley should consider resigning.

So Hoy told Nishioka that a majority of the Council wanted Stahley to consider resigning. The City of Salem says that Nishioka met with Stahley and discussed his potential resignation. Stahley goes further and says that Nishioka requested that he tender his resignation.

But somehow Nishioka said in her February 16 statement:

At no point did I:

• Tell Mr. Stahley I represented the City Council or acting on City Council’s behalf.

• Tell Mr. Stahley I was acting as an authorized representative for the Council.

• Ask for his resignation.

• Nor did anyone ask me to ask him to resign.

This contradicts what Stahley said in his resignation letter. Basically, Nishioka is accusing Stahley of lying. It also contradicts what the City of Salem said in its official February 13 statement regarding the City Manager's resignation:

As Mr. Stahley noted in his resignation letter, Council President Linda Nishioka met with Mr. Stahley and discussed his potential resignation.

I could be wrong, but I don't believe Nishioka. She wants us to believe that after speaking with Mayor Hoy, who told Nishioka that a majority of the City Council wanted Stahley to resign, Nishioka met with Stahley and didn't ask for his resignation, even though the City of Salem says that Nishioka discussed his potential resignation.

It sound to me like Nishioka is trying to act like Bill Clinton, who in the midst of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, famously said, according to Wikipedia:

A much-quoted statement from Clinton's grand jury testimony showed him questioning the precise use of the word "is". Contending his statement that "there's nothing going on between us" had been truthful because he had no ongoing relationship with Lewinsky at the time he was questioned, Clinton said, "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is. If the—if he—if 'is' means is and never has been, that is not—that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement."

I can't understand what Clinton is trying to say, just as I deeply doubt what Nishioka is trying to say. Namely, that even though she is the President of the City Council and had been told by Mayor Hoy that a majority of the Council wanted Stahley to consider resigning, she never told Stahley that she was acting on behalf of the City Council when she discussed his potential resignation on February 7.

Me, I believe Stahley. To repeat what he said in his resignation letter:

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.

Of course, I could be wrong. But so could Nishioka. I just don't understand why Stahley would lie about what happened in his meeting with Nishioka.

Posted at 10:37 PM in City Council, City of Salem, Julie Hoy | Permalink | Comments (1)

I just initiated an ethics complaint against the City of Salem

Pressing "send" on an email rarely feels as satisfying to me as it did a few minutes ago when, after laboring on a message to officials at the City of Salem that is required by the Oregon Government Ethics Commission as the first step in filing a complaint regarding a violation of our state's public meeting law, I finally felt satisfied with it.

Below is the email that went to various officials at the City of Salem. Some of the formatting is screwed up given that I copied and pasted from my email, which looked fine. Note that what I've shared here is a revised February 16 version of the original email sent to the city on February 15. I changed some parts after reading a story about Stahley's resignation in the Statesman Journal today.

As noted in the email, they now have 21 days to respond to my "grievance," which will become a complaint that I'll file with the Oregon Government Ethics Commission after the 21 days is up. I just need to include a copy of the response with my complaint, or assert that no response was received within 21 days.

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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