Salem Mayor Julie Hoy refuses to admit to her ethics violation, while five councilors victimized by Hoy did

The title of a Salem Reporter story by Joe Siess pretty much says it all: “Mayor Julie Hoy stands alone as all councilors concede ethics violation.” Excerpt:

Three more Salem City councilors who participated in an illegal serial meeting orchestrated by the mayor in February have accepted responsibility for their actions and signed agreements with the state ethics commission.

Salem Mayor Julie Hoy stands alone as the only person accused by the Oregon Government Ethics Commission of unethical conduct who has not closed out the matter. She has not responded to the commission to indicate whether she will accept wrongdoing for breaking public meetings law or instead fight the decision, according to agency officials.

What’s bizarre, and very Trumpian, is that Hoy was the ringleader of the ethics violation, since she was the one who caused them to violate Oregon’s public meetings law by talking individually with five city councilors about Keith Stahley’s employment status, the City Manager at the time. Yet she refuses to admit she did anything wrong.

Hoy’s action created a prohibited “serial communication” in which a quorum of a governmental body engages in decision-making outside of the view of the citizenry rather than in a public meeting.

The five city councilors seemingly weren’t aware that Hoy was talking not only with them individually, but with a majority of the city council. So Hoy is the first person who should admit to wrongdoing, not the five councilors. Yet each of them has entered into an agreement with the Ethics Commission where they admit to having violated the public meetings law, even though this was inadvertent.

Since I was one of the two people who filed a complaint with the commission, I’ve received the agreements with Councilors Vanessa Nordyke and Linda Nishioka, the first councilors to enter into an agreement that requires them to only receive a letter of education. Here’s the PDF files.

25-167PJS Nordyke, Vanessa Stipulated Final Order.docx
25-164PJS Nishioka, Linda Stipulated Final Order.docx

This part of the agreement shows that it was Hoy who was responsible for the ethics violation, with the five city councilors being unwitting participants in Hoy’s scheme to get rid of Stahley by falsely claiming that a majority of the city council wanted him to resign, even though actually only Mayor Hoy wanted this to happen.

Between February 1, 2025 and February 14, 2025, Respondent participated in a convening of a meeting with a quorum of the Salem City Council, through serial electronic written communications and use of Mayor Julie Hoy as an intermediary. The convening of the meeting occurred outside of public view and without compliance with the Public Meetings Law notice and meeting minutes requirements. The matters discussed at the meeting were within the jurisdiction of the City Council to deliberate or decide and included topics involving the City’s leadership audit, City Manager Keith Stahley’s performance, and whether to terminate City Manager Keith Stahley’s employment with the City.

Today Councilor Nordyke, who is running against Hoy in next year’s mayoral election, said this in a Facebook post:

Statement from Councilor Vanessa Nordyke

Now that the OGEC investigation has concluded, I want to speak directly to you about what happened and why it matters for our city’s future.

Many of you have asked me to address this publicly since the ethics case opened. I’ve wanted to, but I have not given a public statement in order to protect the integrity of the investigation. Now that it’s complete, I want to share the following.

What Actually Happened

The facts are clear and undisputed: I never asked City Manager Keith Stahley to resign. I never wanted him to resign. The OGEC investigation confirms this. As Councilor Nishioka told investigators, Mayor Hoy stated that “all Councilors with the exception of Vanessa wanted him to resign.”

I didn’t speak to a majority of Council before Keith tendered his resignation—I spoke with one person: Mayor Julie Hoy, and only because she initiated the conversation.

On February 3, 2025, I was meeting with Keith in his office to discuss city business. As I walked by, Mayor Hoy saw me and asked me to come to her office. I had no idea what she wanted to discuss.

Once her door closed, the Mayor started talking about wanting Keith to resign, and going on about how she felt personally slighted by him. Forcing a resignation is drastic, permanent, and costly, and I didn’t see justification for it. I pushed back on her pressure. Frankly, I believed her personal feelings were clouding her professional judgment.

My Priority: Serving Salem’s Residents

Here’s what concerned me most: we had a critical livability levy coming up for a vote in May 2025. This levy was essential to protecting services our community depends on: keeping librarians on staff, maintaining our parks, and supporting our senior centers. If the levy failed, 51 jobs would be cut from the city’s budget, with more cuts to follow in subsequent years. The odds of passing it looked slim. Losing our City Manager just months before the vote would create chaos and hurt our chances.

I told the Mayor we needed to present a united front with city staff to pass this levy, or we would fail. I urged her to table any conversation about Keith’s employment until after the May election. Our community’s needs had to come first.

At the end of our meeting, Mayor Hoy asked me to keep our conversation confidential. I agreed. This wasn’t unusual—we’d had private conversations before, and I trusted her discretion.

The Trust That Was Broken

What I didn’t know was that Mayor Hoy would break that agreement. Without telling me, she spoke individually with every single member of Council about Keith. I only learned this after Keith resigned on February 9th. I was shocked, disappointed, and saddened by his resignation.

I fully cooperated with the OGEC investigation. I expected to be cleared since I’d only spoken with the Mayor before he submitted his resignation, and there was no dispute that I opposed his resignation. What surprised me was the OGEC’s interpretation: even though the OGEC investigator found that I didn’t speak to a majority, my conversation added up to a majority, and thereby broke public meetings law. I made my case at an OGEC hearing earlier this year, but I did not change the OGEC’s mind. The only sensible thing to do now is to agree to the OGEC’s letter of education and move on. The work of the city must continue.

My Commitment Moving Forward

Salem deserves better. We deserve a government that operates in the light of day, not in backroom dealings. We deserve leaders who understand that public trust is sacred and transparency isn’t optional—it’s essential.

I believe deeply in collaborative leadership. I believe in bringing people together to solve hard problems. I believe in putting the community’s needs first. That’s what I’ll continue to do every day I have the privilege of serving on this Council.

The challenges facing Salem are real: housing affordability, homelessness, public safety, maintaining city services. These challenges won’t be solved behind closed doors. They’ll be solved when we work together, openly and honestly, with you watching and holding us accountable.

That’s the kind of leadership Salem needs. That’s the kind of leadership I’m committed to providing. That is the type of leadership I want to steward when I’m elected as Salem’s next mayor.

Thank you for your continued trust. I won’t take it for granted.

Hoy is going down a politically stupid path by refusing to admit her wrongdoing. She should have done this early on, which would have put the issue largely behind her prior to the May election for mayor. By failing to take the “lifeboat” of an admission that she participated in a violation of public meetings law, which probably would have earned her the same letter of education the five city councilors will get, Hoy is acting like the captain of an Ethics Violation ship who chooses to go down alone with the vessel.

That’s fitting, I suppose, since Hoy was primarily (or arguably, entirely) responsible for the ethics violations. I just find it really surprising that she is contesting the findings of the Ethics Commission investigation which contradicts Hoy’s assertion in the Salem Reporter story:

“Throughout these OGEC (ethics commission) proceedings, my recollection of events has not changed, as has some of my colleagues,” Hoy said. “I did not speak to councilors to count votes. Because of this, I could not sign a document saying otherwise.”

Hoy is lying about not counting votes. The only question is whether she actually believes her own lie.