Drifting Off Course

[August 29th, 2001] On Sept. 4, if all goes according to plan, the Port of Portland Commission will select a new executive director. But as Bill Wyatt recently found out, even the most carefully laid plans don't always work out.

The commission's Aug. 7 executive session was supposed to be the culmination of a carefully choreographed process that would lift Wyatt, chief of staff to Gov. John Kitzhaber, to the state's second-highest-salaried public-sector post. Instead, commissioners postponed the vote until Sept. 4, inexplicably claiming they needed more time to consider the two well-vetted finalists for the job.

Because that meeting was held behind closed doors, few of the details have been made public. But after interviewing several sources, WW has learned that the session was a contentious political drama featuring a straw poll that unexpectedly left Wyatt the underdog and the non-introduction of a mysterious, last-minute memo concerning Wyatt's rival.

Wyatt once seemed to have a lock on the job. After a three-month nationwide search to replace former executive director Mike Thorne, the port commission narrowed its candidates to Wyatt and local businessman Matt Chapman. Wyatt was the heavy favorite. His boss, after all, had either appointed or reappointed every commissioner. And just days before the scheduled Aug. 7 vote, The Oregonian endorsed Wyatt.

Chapman, the former CEO of Concentrex, is well-respected in the business community but--unlike Wyatt--lacks ties to unions, environmentalists or local politicians. Still, if a vote had been taken Aug. 7, Chapman might have won: Three sources told WW that, after much deliberation at the executive session, an informal poll showed Chapman had at least the tentative support of five commissioners.

One commissioner reportedly pushed for a vote, but commission president Jay Waldron decided instead to delay the decision. "There were questions raised that commissioners still didn't have answered, and we wanted another opportunity to talk to the candidates face to face," he told WW last week.

Some of those questions may stem from a memo mentioned but not introduced during the Aug. 7 session. As commissioners discussed the two finalists, sources say, they were informed that the port's headhunter, Gail Woodworth, possessed a memo containing new information about one of the candidates.

After hurried conversation, however, the memo was neither read to commissioners nor introduced into the public record. The document reportedly concerned a dispute between Chapman and Louis Dreyfus Property Group, the landlord of Concentrex and of another company Chapman later ran. Why the memo surfaced at such a late stage remains puzzling, though some observers note that Waldron, viewed as a Wyatt supporter, works for the law firm that represents Louis Dreyfus.

Neither Waldron nor Woodworth would discuss details of the executive session, but Waldron denied that he or anyone else had done anything to quash a Chapman appointment. "You're barking up the wrong tree," he says.

Questions about the selection process go back to last fall, when former port executive director Mike Thorne first announced his resignation. At that time, then-commission president Bob Walsh and commissioners Gerry Drummond and Keith Thomson blocked Wyatt's appointment, and Thorne returned on an interim basis.

This year, obstacles to Wyatt's accession began disappearing. Walsh unexpectedly resigned his post in April. Next, Kitzhaber offered Drummond the chairmanship of the Oregon Investment Council, which meant giving up his port commission post. Drummond was replaced by Mary Olson, who is seen as a Wyatt supporter.

Wyatt, however, had formidable competition in the early stages of the selection process, when city commissioners Charlie Hales and Erik Sten, encouraged by port insiders, applied for the job. Despite Hales' experience with transportation projects and Sten's backing from the environmental community, neither made the first cut.

Instead, as the field narrowed to four, Wyatt faced Chapman and two out-of-state port professionals: Ken Krauter of Jacksonville, Fla., and Californian Tay Yoshitani, who later withdrew his application in Portland to head the Port of Oakland.

Krauter was quickly eliminated, which left Wyatt and Chapman. In the wake of the Aug. 7 session, Wyatt's supporters on the commission are reportedly lobbying Chapman's less committed backers. But some port watchers wonder if either candidate can come through the scheduled final vote on Sept. 4 with a solid mandate.

"If they're not careful they're going to wind up with a lame duck," says former port commission president Bob Ames. "What they should do is bag the process and start over again."

Whatever the commission decides, it will be hard to claim that success in one of its goals: to use the selection process to reform the port's image as a secretive club where connections often trump qualifications.