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LAW FIRM SPECIALIZING IN POLICE MISCONDUCT REPRESENTS PEACOCK: The Oregon Government Ethics Commission voted 7–0 on Friday to investigate a private meeting held in August by the six members of the Portland City Council’s progressive caucus. Oregon Justice Resource Center lawyer Ben Haile represented five of the six Peacock councilors at the OGEC hearing. A civil rights law firm founded in 2011 to “improve legal representation for communities that have often been underserved in the past,” OJRC represented protesters during the 2020 unrest who sued the city for excessive use of force by police and received monetary settlements. The firm also represents victims of police misconduct and their families, who are similarly seeking settlements from the city. Settlements over $50,000 require final approval by the City Council. That means Haile is the attorney for five members of a public body that his firm regularly has business in front of. OJRC primarily handles civil rights litigation, police misconduct cases, and inmate rights cases; it does not appear to have previously represented elected officials in ethics cases. Haile tells WW he is representing the councilors pro bono. “I do that as part of my work with the OJRC,” Haile said in a brief phone call. “I’m doing it because I want to work to protect democracy, and I think these people are part of a great new experiment that might get undermined by federal overreach.” City Councilor Tiffany Koyama Lane declined to answer questions about the pro bono arrangement, and other councilors did not respond to questions. OJRC also did not respond to questions about the arrangement.
NONPROFIT CEO TAKES LEAVE: Andy Goebel, chief executive officer at Sunstone Way, a nonprofit that operates homeless shelters for the city of Portland and Multnomah County, is taking a six-week sabbatical to deal with the stress of his job. That’s according to a memo sent to staff by Sunstone Way interim board chair Jaime Dunn and obtained by WW. “Recently, the board met with Andy and had a conversation about the stress that doing this work can bring,” Dunn wrote. “Andy was very honest about his own feelings of fatigue. Andy has been CEO of Sunstone Way for over four years now. He’s led with strength, courage, and unwavering dedication to our growth, and now he’s showing that same strength through vulnerability as he recognizes it’s time to take a needed break.” Goebel, 49, has a master’s degree in divinity and once served as pastor at Portsmouth Union Church, according to his LinkedIn profile. Sunstone Way had revenue of $13.3 million in the fiscal year ended June 2024, according to federal tax filings. Goebel was paid $131,711 that year, the filing shows. In April, Sunstone Way lost a contract to run one of the city’s tiny pod villages in Southwest Portland to rival provider Urban Alchemy. On the matter of the sabbatical, Sunstone Way spokeswoman Devon Hoyt said: “This arrangement is not unusual. A portion of this time is accrued [personal time off] that Andy earned, and extended leave for senior staff through sabbatical policies is common across many mission-driven nonprofit organizations. Sunstone Way will continue to serve the community and bring people inside throughout the winter shelter season.”
STATE-COUNTY MENTAL HEALTH TALKS BLOW PAST DEADLINES: Major contract negotiations between the Oregon Health Authority and local health departments have been dragging on for months, in part over counties’ concerns that the state is pressuring them to take on far more responsibility—and liability—for people charged with crimes who must be “restored” to competency before they can stand trial. “It really is the state saying to counties, ‘We no longer do behavioral health,’” Multnomah County Commissioner Meghan Moyer tells WW. “Let’s be real. If all we are doing is restoring somebody—which, to be blunt, is forced medication and flash cards on basic court procedures like ‘Who is a judge?’ ‘What does your lawyer do?’—it is not treatment.” With the state’s latest target date for implementation, Jan.1, approaching and various deadlines it once asserted now long past, the parties were in recent days still swapping contract proposals. “Negotiations are ongoing,” OHA spokeswoman Kim Lippert says, “and we have nothing more to share at this time, other than to say that Oregon Health Authority and county partners remain committed to the shared goal of ensuring access to behavioral health care to all people in Oregon.”
DISPUTE OVER BOYS VOLLEYBALL CONTINUES: Since the Oregon School Activities Association sanctioned boys volleyball as an official sport Oct. 6, some of the state’s largest school districts have said they will not participate in the sport’s inaugural OSAA season. That includes the Portland Interscholastic League, which has offered its seven high school boys volleyball teams the option to continue as “club” teams for the upcoming season. But student-athletes and volleyball advocates continue to fight for Portland Public Schools to allow them to opt in with an OSAA designation, arguing that without it they will be limited in who they can compete against, and barred from the state tournament. So far, the district has said that’s not financially feasible. (The latest cost estimate to offer boys volleyball across the district’s nine high schools is about $280,000 per year). PPS also says adding boys volleyball as an OSAA sport would create an imbalance between boys and girls athletics. At a Nov. 4 meeting of the Portland School Board, senior chief of operations Dr. Jon Franco said the decision was not about wanting to offer boys volleyball, but whether it was financially responsible. The School Board was scheduled to hear more on Dec. 16, after WW’s press deadline. Patrick Gibson, director of the Oregon High School Boys Volleyball Association, is not pleased. “They dropped the ball on our kids,” Gibson says, “and they’re teaching them that their advocacy does not matter.”
