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HOME FORWARD UNION LOSES FAITH IN CEO: The labor union that represents 205 staffers at Home Forward, the city of Portland’s housing authority, says it has “no confidence or trust in leadership” after WW reported on CEO Ivory Mathews’ travel spending over the past three years. AFSCME Local 3135 president Jennifer McMillan says most of the union’s members were “completely blindsided” by Mathews’ travel—and her annual salary, which is $342,000 this year. “Employees are too busy trying to pay basic bills just to survive to even dream of using company funds to go to Hawaii with our families and play on the beach,” McMillan says. The union’s sharp remarks come in response to WW’s discovery that Mathews spent more than $100,000 on travel to housing conferences and networking events between 2023 and 2025 (“Frequent Flyer,” April 15), including a seven-day trip to Hawaii in 2024 during which Mathews rode horseback, took local tours of farms, and visited canyons. During much of 2024 and 2025, Mathews also campaigned for a leadership position at the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials, the group putting on most of the conferences she attended across the country. Home Forward owns 7,000 affordable apartment units across Multnomah County and provides rent assistance vouchers to more than 12,000 low-income Portlanders. But as WW has detailed in recent months, it’s struggled to fill empty units in a timely manner and failed to keep drug markets out of apartment buildings, all while its housing portfolio has inched closer and closer to financial distress.
DA CRUSADES AGAINST PROPOSED BUDGET, AGAIN: For the second year in a row, Multnomah County District Attorney Nathan Vasquez ripped into County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson’s proposed budget, as his “wildly underfunded” agency faces the prospect of losing roughly 10% of its deputy district attorneys, plus other investigators and staff. Acknowledging that complaints about the “crushing workload” and declining average age of his staff might not stir the public to action, Vasquez emphasized in an April 20 interview with WW that he foresees an array of more tangible impacts: “massive delays” in cases, misdemeanors going unpunished, and a deemphasis on promising but labor-intensive systems designed to give some criminal offenders an alternative to jail. “I go to all the graduations for the various treatment courts we have because it gives me hope,” Vasquez says, “but that takes investment.” Still, county budget data indicates the proposed cuts, far from radically remaking the DA’s office, would simply return it to 2024 staffing levels (which, to be clear, Vazquez believes were woefully insufficient). And Vasquez is hardly the only agency chief displeased with Vega Pederson’s proposed budget cuts, which would hit nearly every county department amid a deficit in the county general fund (the main source of revenue for the DA’s office) and homeless services funding too. (Among other things, Vega Pederson proposes to close hundreds of shelter beds.) “I made tough choices to prioritize vulnerable neighbors and improve how our government works,” Vega Pederson said in her letter announcing the budget. “These are necessary to produce a sustainable budget.” The two county commissioners seeking to succeed Vega Pederson, Julia Brim-Edwards and Shannon Singleton, produced alternative proposed budgets within 48 hours of the chair releasing hers.
MAYOR SEEKS CUTS TO PARKS, FIRE AND POLICE: Across the river at City Hall, it’s police and firefighters who are steaming over proposed cuts. Mayor Keith Wilson released his $8.5 billion proposed city budget for the upcoming fiscal year on Monday afternoon. To close a $160 million gap in the general fund, Wilson seeks to cut 145 jobs and make substantial cuts to police, fire and parks. He also seeks to use $44 million in reserve and contingency funds, $27 million in interest from the Portland Clean Energy Fund, and increased fees and charges to raise $7.4 million. He wants to withhold $30 million generally transferred to Multnomah County for homeless services and spend it on the city’s own homelessness initiatives instead. Even with this infusion, his shelter system would still see $16 million in cuts. He says the cuts would preserve all sworn police officer and firefighter jobs, but public safety unions hollered anyway. “Portlanders will be less safe under this budget proposal. Plain and simple,” said Portland Fire Fighters’ Association president Isaac McLennan. Under Wilson’s proposal, $21.7 million would be cut from the Police Bureau for items like technology, administrative support, and external materials and services. One of the bigger cuts would slash $4.5 million from the police’s public safety support specialist program, which allows nonsworn, unarmed staff to help with police work and respond to low-priority 911 calls. The fire bureau would see $7.1 million in cuts, and parks stand to lose $13 million.
CHAVEZ-DEREMER OUT AT LABOR: U.S. Department of Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer resigned her position April 20, amid an investigation into various allegations of professional misconduct. Chavez-DeRemer, a Republican who got her start in politics on the Happy Valley City Council, represented Oregon’s 5th Congressional District from 2023 to 2025. With strong support from the Teamsters union, Chavez-DeRemer won Senate confirmation in March 2025, becoming the first Cabinet secretary from Oregon since the late Neil Goldschmidt. The New York Post first broke news of an internal investigation into Chavez-DeRemer’s workplace behavior in January. As other media outlets joined the story, allegations of workplace drinking, an affair with a security staffer, and using public resources for personal travel swirled around the secretary. Chavez-DeRemer has denied any wrongdoing. Of continuing interest to many in Oregon politics is the fate of former Senate Minority Leader Daniel Bonham (R-The Dalles), who resigned his position and moved to Washington, D.C., last fall to become an assistant secretary of labor. Bonham’s appointment still awaits Senate confirmation. In a text message after Chavez-DeRemer’s resignation, Bonham said he is “just trying to get through the process and hoping to serve.”
