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Last week, Portland City Auditor Simone Rede was set to present the City Council with a slate of tweaks to lobbying requirements for parties interested in doing business with the city. But at the request of City Commissioner Rene Gonzalez, Mayor Ted Wheeler’s office instructed Rede to pull the item from the agenda.
Gonzalez’s contention: One of the tweaks, he says, was an attempt by the City Auditor’s Office to “justify retroactively” a recent judgment by the office against Urban Alchemy.
The office found that the California nonprofit, which runs the city’s mass encampment at Clinton Triangle, had failed to disclose meetings and visits with the mayor’s office in 2022 as it sought the contract. Urban Alchemy argued that those meetings, held in response to a request for proposal by the city, did not count as lobbying.
Gonzalez said the change in language by the auditor was “unfair to both Urban Alchemy and City Council.”
Rede says her proposed changes are “meant to ensure transparency in the new form of government” and that “they codify long-standing interpretations” of existing administrative rules.