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Oregon state officials today released records to WW that shed some light on the abrupt suspension of the second-ranking official at the Oregon Department of Forestry, deputy state forester Mike Shaw.
WW first reported in August that the agency had placed Shaw on leave at the height of the largest wildfire season in Oregon history. The Department of Forestry takes the lead on fires, and its budget has been overwhelmed by large and long-lasting blazes.
WW filed a public records request seeking emails related to the matter. The emails that the Oregon Department of Administrative Services released today shed only a little light on Shaw’s issue.
On Aug. 6, Shaw’s boss, Cal Mukumoto, the state forester, sent DAS director Berri Leslie an email with the subject line “ODF sensitive issue.”
That same day, Mukumoto sent Shaw a letter telling him he was “duty stationed at home on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of an investigation regarding alleged misconduct.” While he is on leave, Shaw is cut off from state facilities and equipment.
The alleged misconduct is not specified in Mukumoto’s letter, but DAS included other emails that show a series of emails from a former female Department of Forestry diversity, equity and inclusion official expressing frustration that Shaw had excluded her from what the agency calls “leadership team” meetings.
The official, whose name DAS blacked out, sent one of Shaw’s emails to her to others in the agency. In the email, Shaw told the employee the leadership team was “re-focusing on fiscal responsibility, prioritization of core business, and importantly acknowledging the integrity of a leadership meeting intended for managers.”
The woman pushed back in a Feb. 21 email. “Is DEI not part of the core business of ODF?” she wrote to Shaw and other top ODF officials. “Is the goal not to build it into the basics? My job, as I understand it, is to help operationalize DEI into ODF. I cannot do that if I am not actively in the room where conversations are happening, decisions are being made, and connections are occurring.”
Rather than responding to the substance of the DEI official’s concerns, acting ODF HR director Wendy Heckman chastised the woman for the tone of her email. “I’m dismayed by the disrespect and unprofessionalism conveyed in your response,” Heckman wrote.
On Oct. 10, The Oregonian reported a story on ODF that appears related. In that story, reporter Noelle Crombie wrote that “the state has received about a dozen complaints against Oregon Department of Forestry leaders this year, with some employees alleging a hostile culture toward women, a lack of diversity and a fear of retaliation.”
In a March 5 email to a Department of Administrative Services HR official, the DEI official expressed concern that her issue and those expressed by others would be swept under a rug.
“What I fear will happen at this point is DAS/the governor’s office will talk to Cal [Mukumoto] and/or the cabinet, they will echo that this was an emotional reaction blown out of proportion, and they are committed to DEI and that will be the end of the conversation,” she wrote.
Department Forestry spokeswoman Joy Krawczyk declined to comment. Shaw did not respond to a request for comment.