Ethics investigation concludes Mayor Julie Hoy and five city councilors violated Public Meetings Law

Today I received the results of an investigation by the Oregon Government Ethics Commission into whether Mayor Julie Hoy and seven city councilors violated various provisions of Oregon’s Public Meetings Law.

I got those results because I was one of two people who filed a complaint about the actions of Hoy and city councilors that resulted in the resignation of then City Manager Keith Stahley earlier this year. Elliott Lapinel was the other complainant. My complaint was in the form of a blog post, appropriately titled “Here’s my Oregon Government Ethics Commission complaint about Keith Stahley’s forced resignation.”

Josh Sullivan, the commission’s investigator, said in his email that these matters will be heard at the Commission’s upcoming meeting on October 10, 2025. Meaning, at that time his recommendations will be discussed by the Oregon Government Ethics Commission, including, I assume, what penalties will be assessed against Hoy and the five city councilors who were found to have violated our state’s Public Meetings Law.

Two councilors were determined to have not done anything wrong. The investigation found that Councilor Irvin Brown didn’t take part in the private discussions about Stahley that violated the Public Meetings Law. Councilor Shane Matthews was exonerated on the basis of “not preponderance of evidence.”

But Mayor Julie Hoy, and councilors Paul Tigan, Linda Nishioka, Deanna Gwyn, Vanessa Nordyke, and Micki Varney were found to have violated these six provisions of the Public Meetings Law (I’ve included the Oregon Revised Statutes and Oregon Administrative Rules citations):

(1) Prohibited serial communication ORS 192.630 (1)
(2) May not meet in private ORS 192.630 (2)
(3) No public notice ORS 192.640 (1)
(4) No written minutes ORS 192.650 (1)
(5) Prohibited serial communication OAR 199-050-0020 (1) (2)
(6) May not meet in private OAR 199-050-0015 (4)

While there are six violations, they all flow from a single source: the prohibited serial communications between Mayor Hoy and a majority of city councilors (one seat was vacant at the time) in which the employment status of City Manager Stahley was discussed in private, rather than in a public meeting as required by law. Since there was no public meeting, there was no public notice of the non-meeting, nor any written minutes of the non-meeting.

All of this is laid out clearly in the PDF files of the investigation into Hoy and the seven city councilors. Here they are. There’s considerable common material in the files pertaining to the history and background of what transpired here. [NOTE: initially I only shared the PDF files of Hoy and the five councilors who were found to have violated the Public Meetings Law. I’ve now added the files for Matthews and Brown.]

Mayor Julie Hoy
25-159PJS Hoy Julie IR Final

Councilor Paul Tigan
25-163PJS Tigan, Paul IR Final

Councilor Linda Nishioka
25-164PJS Nishioka, Linda IR Final

Councilor Deanna Gwyn
25-166PJS Gwyn, Deanna IR Final

Councilor Vanessa Nordyke
25-167PJS Nordyke, Vanessa IR Final

Councilor Micki Varney
25-168PJS Varney, Micki IR Final

Councilor Shane Matthews
25-165PJS Matthews, Shane IR Final

Councilor Irvin Brown
25-162PJS Brown Irvin IR Final

I haven’t had time to closely read the investigative reports. Here’s my initial impression.

Josh Sullivan did an excellent job. He used a wide variety of information — news releases, emails, texts, the complaints, responses to the complaints, interviews — to present a clear and compelling description of what went wrong in the private discussions of whether Stahley should resign. Sullivan did what a good investigator should: collect facts and compare them to what the law demands.

However, in my decidedly personal, yet well informed opinion (I spent a lot of time researching and writing my complaint), the real ringleader here is Mayor Julie Hoy.

She deserves to have a greater punishment than the five city councilors because Hoy was the one who instigated the private serial communications. It seems clear to me that Hoy wanted Stahley removed as City Manager. Rather than try to accomplish this through open public meetings, Hoy chose to talk with a majority of the city council privately, hoping to pressure Stahley into resigning by telling him (via Linda Nishioka) that a majority of the city council wanted him gone.

This isn’t to excuse the actions of the five city councilors. Again, I need to read the investigative reports more closely before coming to any firm conclusions about who acted most appropriately, and who acted least appropriately.

In my complaint, I singled out Councilor Varney for praise, since her public statement decrying how the city council went about Stahley’s resignation struck me as a profile in courage. So it seems unfair that Varney is accused of violating the same Public Meeting Law requirements that Hoy violated, since the Mayor acted much more badly.

Anyway, the Oregon Government Ethics Commission will have the last word on this. More accurately, the next word, since whatever they propose as a punishment can be appealed. A negotiated settlement between the commission and an ethics violator also is a distinct possibility.