Murmurs: TriMet Weighs Raise for General Manager

TRIMET WEIGHS RAISE FOR GENERAL MANAGER: The staffing crunch at Portland’s transit agency goes all the way to the top. A “silver tsunami” has accelerated during the pandemic as top transit CEOs have retired, says TriMet board president Ozzie Gonzalez. The result: “a smaller pool of experienced chief executives.” That means pressure to raise salaries. TriMet’s current general manager, Sam Desue Jr., has been in the job only two years, but he’s impressed the board, and members badly want to keep him around. He’s performed “extremely well,” Gonzalez says in a memo distributed to the board, citing Desue’s spearheading of recent fare hikes and successful recruitment of nearly 300 new bus and train operators (thanks partly to an $8-an-hour increase in starting wages). According to a compensation study conducted by consulting firm Mercer and presented to the TriMet board late last month, Desue likely deserves a raise too. The firm recommended that TriMet lift Desue’s pay grade, from 30 to 31, putting his annual salary somewhere in the range of $330,000 to $494,000. That’s a hefty bump from the previous compensation study performed only a few years earlier, which set a range of $289,000 to $433,000. Desue currently earns $365,000 a year and is negotiating with Gonzalez for his next contract. TriMet ridership, a significant source of revenue for the agency, is down 30% from prior to the pandemic.

CHLOE EUDALY WON’T RUN FOR CITY COUNCIL: Former City Commissioner Chloe Eudaly, who held office from 2017 to 2021, wrote last month on her Substack that she will not run for the new 12-member City Council next year. “I’ve got other life priorities right now—family obligations, finishing up a book, going back to school, and continuing to write Street Wonk—and I’d rather devote my free time to ensuring we elect as many progressive candidates to our newly expanded Council as possible in 2024!” she wrote. Eudaly did say she hasn’t ruled out a run in the future, however. But on Street Wonk, Eudaly offered her two cents on two rumored candidates: former Portland Mayor Sam Adams and former City Commissioner Steve Novick, who Eudaly defeated in 2016. Novick, she wrote, is a “rare breed of politician who can put their ego aside for the greater good.” Adams, she wrote in contrast, is a “man who apparently has no shame and can’t take no for an answer.” Meanwhile, another former city commissioner rumored to be mulling a return, Jo Ann Hardesty, has given no indication she plans to run in 2024. Hardesty just last week agreed to a $670,000 settlement with Portland’s police union after being wrongly implicated by several cops in a 2021 hit-and-run that she had nothing to do with.

LEGACY DOCTORS AND NURSES START UNION DRIVE AHEAD OF MERGER: In response to an organizing push by doctors, nurses and physician assistants first reported by WW last week, Legacy Health will ask the National Labor Relations Board to hold a “secret ballot” to see if there is enough support for union representation at the hospital system. “We respect our providers’ rights to decide whether or not they want union representation,” Legacy president Don Tran and chief medical officer Lori Farrell said in a letter to employees last week. “It is important that everyone’s voices be heard—and that their views are accurately reflected.” A group of Legacy staffers working with the Pacific Northwest Hospital Medicine Association, an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers, sent a demand letter last week, seeking union representation in part because of “grave concerns” about how Legacy will operate after a proposed buyout by Oregon Health & Science University. Nor are things great at Legacy as it is, they said. “Over the last few years, we have seen Legacy make unilateral decisions that affect our ability to provide safe and effective patient care,” Legacy staff wrote. “A pervasive emphasis on revenue over patient safety and staff well-being permeates our work environment.”

POTLUCK IN THE PARK DRAWS NEIGHBOR’S IRE: For more than 23 years, volunteers for the social services organization Potluck in the Park have offered hot lunches to homeless Portlanders every Sunday. But in recent months, the event has drawn particularly vocal opposition from Sarah Clymer, who lives near the North Park Blocks, where the meals are now served. She’s reached out to the city and event organizers in recent days to tell them she believes the event is not complying with the rules of its city permit; she complained that it doesn’t provide adequate toilets and trash disposal, which she claims has resulted in “large quantities of trash, human waste, and negative interactions between the local residents and the Potluck stakeholders.” Clymer appears intent on kicking the potluck out of her neighborhood. She wrote in an Oct. 1 email that she has been “banging on doors with the city to see about finding your event a new home better suited to your needs.” Potluck board chair Steve DeAngelo wrote to Clymer on Oct. 3 that he found a single fork left behind from Sunday’s meal, but that he was “working with the city to address your concerns.” A parks spokesperson says event organizers have “always proven to be quite responsive to any issues” but that the bureau needs to catch up on the situation.