When did Blackmer know about Sten?
The flap about the timing of former Portland Commissioner Erik Sten's abrupt retirement -- and his sharing the secret with his hand-picked successor, Jim Middaugh, many weeks before the public heard a word -- has prompted an alert reader to poke around city records a bit. What the reader came up with is this:
I ran across this in the minutes of a Citizens Campaign Commission meeting in July of ’07. The Auditor [Gary Blackmer] was concerned with the special election issue back then, but didn’t schedule it for the Commission to review until 2008. What did the CCC have to do in the meantime? Very little. They took two months off before wasting three months discussing independent expenditure scenarios (a lot of good that did them, considering that they never anticipated the possibility of a potential voter-owned elections candidate being disqualified by an unsolicited in-kind contribution).Wow. That's around the same time that Sten was breaking the news quietly to Middaugh. That's either an eerie coincidence, or Blackmer knew that there was something rotten in Denmark.Even more interesting is that in the last meeting before Sten’s announcement (a meeting which predated Thanksgiving by two weeks), Blackmer began laying the groundwork with the committee on the importance of public financing acting as a safeguard against using insider information in a resignation to get a leg up on the competition.
Alarm bells went off when I read this, but of course Blackmer would say that this just as easily proves the opposite – that he had no idea that Sten was resigning, that they were just working on an issue that could potentially arise (and it did). But given his shared interest with Sten in the VOE enterprise, I have strong doubts (it’s just too much coincidence).
It also seems odd that Blackmer brought up the issue in July but decided not to schedule action on it until the scenario eventually became real (once insiders had an idea of what the playing field would look like).
From the Nov. 12, 2007 meeting of the CCC:
VI. Special Elections
Auditor Gary Blackmer discussed different special election scenarios, spelled out in the City charter, created by a vacancy in office. The timing and length of the qualifying period were discussed, and the likelihood of a candidate achieving 1,000 qualifying contributions in a compressed schedule. Blackmer also discussed the potential that can occur without public financing: an incumbent could resign shortly before the end of the filing period, leaving the advantage to a candidate who had prior knowledge of the upcoming vacancy.
Posted at 4:25 PM
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Comments (7)
I love the way Phil Stanford describes the events here. It seems like a simple recitation of the story but you're left with the obvious: A steaming pile of BS from Sten and Sten, Jr.
Phil Stanford is a master at pointing out things subtly and letting the jive aspects collapse of their own weight. It's an art form.
Posted by Bill McDonald | April 8, 2008 5:46 PM
Bill, you (almost) never cease to amaze me.
Bill likes Phil!?!?
Who woulda' thunk it?
Not only am I gobsmacked...
I agree!
Posted by cc | April 8, 2008 6:31 PM
How about a wild guess?
IMO the city is a mess with shady goings on that are about to burst into municipal scandal.
Could it be that Sten is leaving because he got in a heated tussle with other city council members and officials as they realized and discussed an imminent exposure of the city's inner shady dealings?
Sten perhaps wanted to go public and others battled him to stay quiet,,,, at least until after the election.
Erik probably felt it was a no win situation and he would get the brunt of the blame when things blow up.
So he decided to get out and not say anything hoping the backlash against him will be less if he is long gone when the smelly stuff hits the fan.
Those remaining get some time and prepare to play CYA.
BUT time will run out a month or two before the election and the fuse reaches the fireworks and boom goes the city and the feds come in.
Posted by Ben | April 8, 2008 8:07 PM
That seems a little extreme. But one thing is for sure -- Sten's been up to something, and he's not telling anyone until it's too late for them to do anything about it.
Posted by Jack Bog | April 8, 2008 8:20 PM
Sten's been up to something, and he's not telling anyone until it's too late for them to do anything about it
And by implication it looks a lot like the stinkpot goes beyond Sten. When was the last time a city commissioner quit med-term, requiring a special election? I agree that that Blackmer being suddenly worried about that happening right before it actually happened is a bit too much to swallow as a mere coincidence.
Posted by zeb quinn | April 8, 2008 9:04 PM
I had lunch with a couple of city employees today who have worked with Sten, Adams, etc, a lot over the years. I mentioned this story and they just shrugged their shoulders and said (paraphrasing): "Of course, that's the way thing work at City Hall." Like, no big deal, politics as usual. What do you expect? That's really sad... A sign that what is going on with City Council is really affecting city business.
Posted by anonymous | April 8, 2008 9:59 PM
Sten perhaps wanted to go public and others battled him to stay quiet
C'mon....you really believe that? "whistleblower Sten"?
There is too much shady BS going on, he is a major conspirator, and neck-deep in all of it.
The voters need to flush them all and start over.
Posted by Jon | April 8, 2008 10:47 PM