DA orders Portland to release controversial bureau audit May 11 2021
The City Attorney s Office had refused to release the third-party audit of the Office of Community & Civic Life.
The Multnomah County District Attorney has ordered Portland officials to release a third-party audit of an embattled bureau.
District Attorney Mike Schmidt said the audit of the Office of Community
& Civic Life was not exempt from disclosure as the Portland City Attorney s Office had claimed. In a Tuesday, May 11 ruling released late in the day, Schmidt said the city had not proven its claim the audit was protected by attorney-client privilege. The City has not met its burden of showing that the primary purpose, or even a substantial purpose, of this document is the facilitation of legal services. All indicators show it to be business, management, personnel, and public relations advice intended to guide the transformation of a struggling office. Such advice, and the fact finding unde
Portland refuses to release audit of controversial city bureau May 05 2021
The Office of Community & Civic Life was reviewed after employee complaints or abusive leadership and potential fraud.
Portland officials are refusing to release a third-party audit of the Office of Community & Civic Life. Former employees and several news organizations are accusing the City Attorney s Office of violating Oregon s public record laws to withhold information about a bureau that has been accused of historic mismanagement. Allowing the City Attorney to withhold this important review of the behavior at Civic Life serves, not justice for the people victimized, but rather to help the City prevent community members from understanding the full extent of the governance and management failures in City government, said Paul Leistner, a former employee who now is now a senior fellow at the PSU Center for Public Service at the Hatfield School of Government.