Long-time Portland finance aide packing it in
One of the more senior people in the City of Portland finance bureau is jumping ship. Laurel Butman, the "principal management analyst" whose tasks include answering our many questions about the city's alarmingly increasing rate of borrowing, says she is taking a position with Clackamas County. Her last day at City Hall will be next Tuesday.
In Googling Butman for this story, we discovered that in 1996 she ran for the state legislature from then-House District 17 in north Portland, losing to Mike Fahey by a 2-to-1 margin.
The bureau that Butman is leaving got a new boss, just a few years senior to Butman, a couple of weeks ago.
| Posted at 5:42 PM | Permalink |
|
Comments (1)
Butman was one of the people who gave me the runaround when I was trying to pin down the city on the date and the circumstances under which the city came into possession of Major League Soccer's "Venue Design Guide."
In an email on January 27, 2010, that Butman sent to me in response to my official public records request, she responded:
"Here is the answer to your request. The City received that document from (Paulson's PGE Park project manager) between September 1 and September 3, 2009. While the document was saved, the transmittal email was not."
I thought all emails were supposed to be saved and entered into the public record. So, how is it that the city didn't save that particular email, which would have certainly been very incriminating for Adams and the city?
Butman was not an unpleasant person to deal with, but she reminds me of a saying that a friend of mine often uses when explaining why competent people choose to work for corrupt government officials: "The job is the bribe."
Posted by Peter Apanel | May 5, 2010 6:36 PM