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| PHOTO CREDIT: PORTLAND TRIBUNE |
Who knew parking meters would be the scandal that rocked Portland’s City Hall?
Willamette Week is quick to allay fears that this scandal doesn’t go to the top–the mayor or his former Chief of Staff (here). But according to a 5th Listener calling into the show yesterday, “unhappy campers” who work at the City of Portland parking office have known for quite sometime that something hinky was going on. In fact, he said, they’ve known even before the newspapers picked up the story in the mid 2000’s.
Their complaints fell on deaf ears apparently.
According to the Portland Tribune (links below) the City launched an internal investigation of the head of the parking division, Ellis McCoy, in 2008. It proved “inconclusive.” Apparently the conclusion will be in federal court.
The feds got involved at some point and yesterday served search warrants– not just at his office at City Hall– but his home as well.
Flipping parking meters, looking for favors, making a few bucks on the side in bribes may be at the heart of it.
The FBI and City officials wouldn’t tell KPAM news what the hoopla was about yesterday but it doesn’t take much to string a few possibilities together based on old newspaper reports in the Trib by Nick Budnick here and here and here.
The story starts here:
In July [2008], city auditors and an independent consultant separately questioned city parking officials’ plan to sell the bulk of the city’s SmartMeters to a Canadian firm for $9.4 million, then lease them back for $12 million over five years.
…[City] officials continue to look into whether McCoy applied to become a partner in a parking business even while pursuing a contract that would have benefited the firm by privatizing part of the operation of Portland’s automated SmartMeter parking stations.
One allegation is that at the time he was in charge of the parking office, Ellis tried to get a job with one of the companies vying for a contract with the understanding that they would get the contract.
And who said so?
The allegation was made by the owner of the parking firm himself, Bruce Feathers, a member of the city’s advisory committee on small business who has been described as “instrumental” in assisting Mayor Tom Potter’s efforts to improve the city’s minority contracting.
As the Portland Tribune reported in October, Feathers sent the city a legal notice, called a tort claim, earlier this year, alleging that McCoy acted improperly to get his firm, FeatherLite, kicked off a city contract after FeatherLite declined McCoy’s overtures to hire him.
And it looks as if some ethics policies at City Hall were breached (stop laughing).
Feathers alleges in one document sent to the city that McCoy accepted Feathers’ gifts of free meals and admission to at least one Portland Trail Blazers game while he was negotiating a new parking deal that would have involved FeatherLite.Feathers also alleges that another firm that would have benefited from the new parking meter contract, Precise Parklink of Toronto, “hosted (Feathers and McCoy) in Toronto for meals, golfing and fishing.”
While the City’s investigation was inconclusive, eventually McCoy was taken out of the contract granting portion of his job. It came after he filed his own tort claim against the City playing the race card.
On Nov. 24, a story on the Tribune’s Web site detailed how McCoy had on Nov. 4 formally accused city officials of fostering a climate of workplace harassment that included racism as well as defamatory claims by other city employees that he has taken bribes from parking contractors.Though it does not demand money, McCoy’s Nov. 4 letter, essentially a four-page lawsuit threat written by his lawyer, called a tort claim, raises the stakes in the pending personnel investigation of McCoy. It also provides additional information regarding the questions swirling around the program.McCoy’s letter claims that in 2001, another manager in the Office of Transportation made a comment about McCoy’s skin color.
But in his own tort claim he actually talked about people thinking he took bribes!
McCoy’s letter says that Transportation Director Sue Keil investigated the bribery allegations and found them false —but then, in September, told McCoy that she was tired of “dealing with your issues and complaints about you taking bribes.”
So, the underlings knew about it, his boss knew about it, who else knew about it and did nothing until the Feds got involved?
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| PHOTO CREDIT: THE OREGONIAN |
http://www.portlandtribune.com/news/story.php?story_id=122653031662420000
