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EMILIE BOYLES
AGE: 58
BEST KNOWN FOR: Setting back public campaign finance by a decade by spending the money on her teenage daughter.
Next year’s supersized race for 12 City Council seats is expected to strain Portland’s public campaign finance system, which provides candidates with up to a 9-to-1 match of tax dollars for small campaign contributions. The program, called “Small Donor Elections,” is the city’s second foray into the use of public money to fund election campaigns.
The first was called “Voter Owned Elections,” and it was torpedoed by Emilie Boyles.
In 2006, Boyles ran for Portland City Council. She received $145,000 from the Voter Owned Elections program, and promptly spent half of it on questionable expenses, including paying her then-16-year old daughter $12,500 for internet searches. She also hired a campaign consultant, Vladimir Golovan, who faked the voter signatures that qualified Boyles for the money.
Golovan was convicted of 10 felony charges for his fraud. “Golovan’s well-publicized trial, which included testimony from Boyles and other would-be candidates, essentially put voter-owned elections on trial,” writes Paul Diller, a professor at Willamette University School of Law. Indeed, voters repealed the program in 2010, and its sequel didn’t debut until 2018.
The city of Portland demanded that Boyles pay back the unspent funds and a $14,000 fine. As of 2012, she still owed the city upwards of $90,000. According to the City Attorney’s Office, Boyles now owes $283,000 (thanks to a 12% annual interest rate).
Shortly after she dropped out of the City Council race, Boyles moved to a small town in rural Montana. Boyles’ LinkedIn claims that after 2006 she worked as a news director, then as an “energy and economy examiner,” a consultant and a traveling radio host. She ran a radio station for a time called Treasure State Radio Network. It’s not entirely clear if it’s still operational.
According to its website, the station had slots for sports radio, weather, a show called the “Military Minute” and a daily reading of the Pledge of Allegiance at noon. If you click the button “Listen Live,” you’ll go to a still screen of “Evening Weather by John,” but no audio plays. A post by the station’s Facebook account on March 9 said the station was temporarily moving to Augusta, Mont. “We will be building a new radio AND TV studio starting this fall,” the post reads. The website says Boyles is still CEO.
For a short time she hosted a relationship podcast, Wise Old Women. In the last episode available, dated July 2018, Boyles talks to Shawn—a 44-year-old man who wants to find a woman that will hunt, fish and camp with him. Boyles offers him sage advice: List your favorite restaurant on your online dating profile. Be clear about your wants and needs. Don’t send women money because if they ask for it, that probably means they’re looking for a sugar daddy. (Shawn had fallen for this trap once before.)
In 2020, Boyles wrote on LinkedIn that she was searching for work—but still running her radio station. The last trace of her activity on social media accounts is in a series of sporadic posts in 2021. She talks about her radio station and how big it will get; she asks to borrow food dryers over the weekend; she posts inspirational messages about avoiding criticism of others; and she posts a YouTube video demonstrating five neck and back stretches.
With that, she vanished. Messages to Boyles’ social media profiles, phone number, email addresses and radio station went unanswered.