Skip to main contentHand it to Lee Moore--the guy knows how to stay on the winning side of the Lottery.
Last winter, the state shelled out $100,000 to oust Moore from his post as the Oregon Lottery's deputy director. After quitting his $112,000-a-year state job in the wake of a spending uproar, Moore moved to another side of the lotto biz. This summer, property records show, he bought a bar/restaurant on Northeast 82nd Avenue called Springwater Station for $578,000.
"I just decided I wanted to get away from government and into private business," Moore says. "I left the whole state thing behind me."
Well, not completely behind him. Moore's new business makes a fair chunk of Lottery change--over $192,000 in gambling commissions in 2002, according to state records.
Moore says he's more interested in improving Springwater's family-style restaurant than any possible mild ironies regarding Lottery income.
Moore left the Lottery commission in the wake of a 2002 audit that identified $800,000 in "questionable" expenditures authorized by commission staff. He signed off on gifts for employees, high-dollar consulting contracts and regular first-class airfare. He dropped unfair-discharge claims after the state agreed to the six-figure settlement.
A Lottery spokesperson says former commission employees are treated like anyone else when they apply to run state-sanctioned gambling machines.
WWeek 2015