This past winter was a history making brutal one for the Pacific Northwest, ravaging both the landscape as well as the lives of many along the coast. For some the weather did its worst while for others the toll continues to be tallied in loss of reputation, office and livelihood.
In January and February of this year Richard Lee, then a Clatsop County Commissioner, was socked with a one-two punch of allegations of using his office for personal gain through intimidation of county staff. He was accused of not following proper land use laws, filing permits improperly, late or not at all, along with various other complaints of non-compliance. First, he was accused of “running amok” by a staff member of the county planning division in a letter to her supervisor and then it was rumored that an investigation was being conducted by the Oregon Department of Justice for improper use of his office.
In the first case, because the incident involved a county employee and a county commissioner the County Manager, Scott Derickson, had the case investigated by an outside investigator, lawyer Jill Dinse Goldsmith, who had investigated two previous allegations for the county. On both previous incidents Goldsmith had found that Commissioner Lee had not used his position to garner special favors. Goldsmith did make recommendations to Lee regarding an appearance of special favors and how to avoid that appearance. She was called in as an impartial party for the third investigation.
Subsequently, from her report the four county attorneys wrote a memorandum stating, among other things, “Commissioner Lee is a land developer who has not complied with conditional use permits and letters from the Planning Department staff requesting compliance, and who has issues of non-compliance with the Building Codes Department.“ During a radio interview one of Clatsop Citizens for Open Government’s organizers, Marc Auerbach, said the Jill Goldsmith report was clear about Lee’s misconduct.
In the second case, the February “investigation” allegedly being led by the Oregon Department of Justice (DOJ), an “investigation of the investigation” revealed it was merely an inquiry. What captured people’s attention was the fact that no one came forward to acknowledge who had asked the DOJ to become involved. The DOJ stated that they usually get requests from either the Sheriff or the District Attorney to initiate an investigation and they would not comment where the request had come from for Commissioner Lee to be investigated.
When asked, Sheriff Bergin confirmed that he had been contacted by an investigator, “I was contacted by the DOJ. The first time was last summer. The next time was a couple of months ago.” He stated to reporters for NorthCoastOregon and The Daily Astorian that the Clatsop County Sheriff’s Office did not file the complaint with the Department of Justice. When NCO asked who had leaked the story of an investigator being in town to the press the sheriff replied, “I am not a journalist but just a Sheriff who is trying to keep this county safe and what Richard Lee does as a citizen does not concern me.” Yet, just recently Patrick Webb, of the Daily Astorian, again asserted, “Clatsop County Sheriff Tom Bergin informed The Daily Astorian that Richard Lee was the object of an investigation by the Oregon Department of Justice.”
Sheriff Bergin also stated, “The SO [Sheriff’s Office] did not interview or drive anyone around or conduct any investigation because it was not our place.” When asked if his office asked for the investigation District Attorney Josh Marquis responded, “I have no comment to make regarding this issue.” In the past Bergin has stated that, “I don’t ‘have it out’ for Richard Lee – I never have.“ Bergin goes on to clarify, “All I want is to do my job, and that’s to keep the county safe.”
The advocates for the recall used the Goldsmith Report as a clarion call to action for recall and even though at the conclusion the attorney didn’t find that Lee had used his office for his own benefit she did find that others were justified in being fearful for their jobs. In at three instances Goldsmith reported people in planning “afraid for their jobs” and, according to the Goldsmith Report, no county employee was reported to have directly contradicted these three’s assessment of the Lees’ intimidating behavior. For those who wanted to shoot Lee down, this lawyer’s report seemed to be the silver bullet with which to do it.
Oregon recall law does not require any specific grounds to launch a recall petition. Recall is allowed in thirty-six states and specific grounds for recall are required in only seven states:
- Alaska: lack of fitness, incompetence, neglect of duties or corruption (AS §15.45.510)
- Georgia: act of malfeasance or misconduct while in office; violation of oath of office; failure to perform duties prescribed by law; willfully misused, converted, or misappropriated, without authority, public property or public funds entrusted to or associated with the elective office to which the official has been elected or appointed. Discretionary performance of a lawful act or a prescribed duty shall not constitute a ground for recall of an elected public official. (Ga. Code §21-4-3(7) and 21-4-4©)
- Kansas: conviction for a felony, misconduct in office, incompetence, or failure to perform duties prescribed by law. No recall submitted to the voters shall be held void because of the insufficiency of the grounds, application, or petition by which the submission was procured. (KS Stat. §25-4301)
- Minnesota: serious malfeasance or nonfeasance during the term of office in the performance of the duties of the office or conviction during the term of office of a serious crime (Const. Art. VIII §6)
- Montana: physical or mental lack of fitness, incompetence, violation of oath of office, official misconduct, conviction of certain felony offenses (enumerated in Title 45). No person may be recalled for performing a mandatory duty of the office he holds or for not performing any act that, if performed, would subject him to prosecution for official misconduct. (Mont. Code §2-16-603)
- Rhode Island: authorized in the case of a general officer who has been indicted or informed against for a felony, convicted of a misdemeanor, or against whom a finding of probable cause of violation of the code of ethics has been made by the ethics commission (Const. Art. IV §1)
- Washington: commission of some act or acts of malfeasance or misfeasance while in office, or who has violation of oath of office (Const. Art. I §33)
Repeatedly, Richard Lee told people in interviews in news media and on the radio that his recall was politically motivated. His opposition, however, challenged that with the assertion that two “independent investigations” were conducted on Lee with no proof that either were politically motivated. Lee also alleged that the Daily Astorian was publishing unfounded stories, misquoting him, and slanting its opinion editorials in a decidedly unfriendly manner.
Recall is, most political pundits would resoundly agree, a political device deployed best at the local level. Arguably, it can provide a way for citizens to retain control over elected officials who are not representing the best interests of their constituents, or who are unresponsive or incompetent; or lead to an excess of democracy in that the threat of a recall election lessens the independence of elected officials and undermines the principle of electing good officials and giving them a chance to govern until the next election. Recalls, many argue, often lead to abuses by well-financed special interest groups and individuals with ulterior private or political agendas.
It was the hidden agendas and special interests of individuals which ultimately led Richard Lee to file a tort claim against the county in order to bring his side of what had been happening over the last year to the public’s attention. In the meantime, however, the recall moved forward and the public, by and large, never got the chance to fully judge whether or not Richard Lee was guilty of anything more than what he was rumored to have done.
“A recall based on rumor or gossip is wrong,” said Commissioner Ann Samuelson, shortly before her name was added to the recall list. Samuelson has been a vocal advocate for reform of Oregon recall laws. Others have voiced their opinion on the local talk radio, via letters to the editor, and on the local blogs, forums and community internet boards.
The public sat back and read while the Daily Astorian took its readers and Richard Lee on a ride. Conducting the trip, Steve Forrester and his managing editor Patrick Webb wove “news” articles around and through opinion pieces for over a year. Often what developed was a “he said, she said” argument with the Daily Astorian having the final word. Notwithstanding an abundance of physical evidence to the contrary Steve Forrester proclaimed Richard Lee unfit to serve as a county commissioner. Forrester allowed the District Attorney to seal Lee’s fate with opinion editorials. When simple phone calls made by NCO cleared up the discrepancies in several stories that the Daily Astorian was running on Lee it illustrates how recall without substantiated reason is a dangerous weapon wielded by rich and/or politically powerful people to control local politicians and, in effect, the communities they serve.
After five weeks NorthCoastOregon received a reply from the Department of Justice regarding its Public Information Request for the paper trail for the inquiry conducted by their investigators on Richard Lee. The packet of documents that the DOJ sent was woefully incomplete, alluding to phone calls between the DOJ and District Attorney Josh Marquis but not providing the memos of the phone calls, as requested. It also included the original complaint and request for an investigation of Richard Lee, signed by Josh Marquis and dated August 10, 2007. The complaint alleges, “… Mr. Lee is pressuring county employees to benefit his private financial endeavors.” And, although a spokesperson for the Department of Justice confirmed in an email that the inquiry was “concluded” and that the DOJ had, “determined that insufficient facts and evidence exist to warrant a criminal investigation at this time,” the final official disposition of the case was not disclosed even though requested as part of the public records’ request.
In the complaint Marquis names Sirpa Duoos, a current county employee, of reporting her “concerns” to Sheriff Tom Bergin and, “… just most recently an employee of the Building and Grounds department who brought his concerns to a local gunsmith …” Because allegations that the Daily Astorian reported that Lee accused Bergin of being politically against him Sheriff Bergin was asked if he was aware of this letter of complaint that the District Attorney had filed. The Sheriff acknowledged that he was aware that the District Attorney had been working with the Department of Justice on a complaint against Lee. When asked why he had provided the county employee’s name to the District Attorney, Bergin said it was because the DOJ was coming to investigate and the District Attorney had asked Bergin if he knew of anyone who had similar concerns regarding Lee and Bergin remembered this employee so mentioned her.
The problem with that scenario, as Bergin describes it, was according to the August letter of complaint a DOJ investigation was not yet taking place, the letter was asking for one to be initiated. When that was pointed out to the Sheriff he replied that his dates might be off but that didn’t really matter since the employee recanted her story a week after telling it to him. In the phone interview and in emails with NCO, Bergin said that the DOJ had conducted at least two investigations on Lee, one around the beginning of this year (2008) and another last summer (2007). Yet, again, why would Marquis have been asking for an investigation in August of ’07 if an investigation had already been launched?
The letter names only Sirpa Duoos as someone who has “expressed concerns“. It refers to two former county employees that have complained (part of the Goldsmith report) but does not name them and refers to an unnamed maintenance person. who told his complaint to a gunsmith. Most would agree that it is a round about way for a true concern of an elected official’s conduct to make it to the Department of Justice, through griping to a local gunsmith.
When Sirpa Duoos was contacted about her alleged concerns to the Sheriff her reply was angry. She issued the following statement:
“District Attorney Marquis’ August 10, 2007 letter to the Department of Justice claims that I expressed concerns to Sheriff Bergin about Richard Lee pressuring me for his own gain.
I never expressed any concerns to Sheriff Bergin that Richard Lee or his wife intimidated or pressured me in any way. I worked with the Lees in my capacity as a compliance officer for Clatsop County, and had a good working relationship with the Lees. If we disagreed on an issue it was professional, and I never felt threatened or intimidated. If the Lees had ever pressured or intimidated me, I would not report to Sheriff Bergin, but instead would follow the county government’s procedures to report these concerns.
In January of this year, I shared this information with attorney Jill Goldsmith, but was never interviewed by anyone with the Oregon Department of Justice.” Sirpa Duoos
After issuing the statement Duoos said she was unable to discuss the situation further. A public information request has been issued to the county for the full Goldsmith Report, including any interviews that have not been previously released. Duoos’ interview is not included in the copies made public in January, nor does Goldsmith make reference to Duoos in her conclusions. The compliance officer who had worked with the Lees in the past and for the county over the course of a decade would seem to be a very important interview to include, especially when it appears it might counter the words of an employee who worked in county planning for a mere nine months and without meeting Richard Lee, yet still alleges that the Lees have been “running amok” for “too long.”
Repeatedly, those supporting the Lee recall used the Goldsmith report, and in the end, the DOJ “investigation” to cast suspicion on Richard Lee. In the Daily Astorian, Joseph Stevenson feels comfortable calling Richard Lee a “corrupt public official” in an open letter to the Daily Astorian Editor, without any criminal charges having ever been brought against Lee. “Recall is wrong” was Lee’s campaign slogan, and throughout the state local politicians who do not heed the special interest groups desires and carefully watch the alliances of powerful political enemies nod their heads in agreement.
Sheriff Bergin states, “I think we need to move forward and both sides need to quit pointing fingers and work on creating a positive environment for Clatsop County.” Many see that the positive environment the Sheriff asks for is in an unforeseeable future if certain matters are not attended to in the immediate present. One local official, on the condition of anonymity, commented, “Until people can feel safe from being recalled based merely on assertions of wrong doing, on lies, rumors and gossip a positive environment doesn’t seem possible.” With the recall of Karl Meier and Ann Samuelson on the slate next, on allegations that have yet to be reported to or investigated by any agency, the positive environment that Sheriff Bergin hopes for seems to be a speck on the distant horizon.
Part one of a series on Recall Reform in Oregon, appearing Saturdays on NorthCoastOregon.com
Related story: Recall Reform: Past, present and future
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