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This story was produced by the Oregon Journalism Project, a nonprofit newsroom covering the state.
The Oregon Department of Transportation has produced a withering review of management and financial practices at the Umpqua Public Transportation District in Douglas County.
The 39-page report, dated Nov. 25, takes a look at how well the district, which serves 110,000 county residents, complied with state and federal regulations regarding grant funds. The short answer: not well. Investigators found numerous problems, termed “compliance observations.”
Most of the problems involved the transit district’s unusual decision to hire Ben Edtl, a Republican political consultant from Tualatin, as CEO and the subsequent alleged misuse of grant funds and refusal to provide requested documents to the conduit for those funds, the Oregon Department of Transportation.
“Continued failure to address compliance issues places this organization at risk for loss of federal grant funding,” the report says.
The district’s former board chair, Michaela Hammerson, and Edtl, its now-former CEO, deny any wrongdoing.
“Many of the conclusions in the document are based on incomplete information, misquoted statements, or assumptions that were not fact-checked with the board or staff before publication,” Hammerson tells the Oregon Journalism Project.
“The items in the report are absolutely untrue,” Edtl adds. An ODOT spokesperson said the agency stands by the report. The transit district’s chief operations officer, George Carrillo, declined to address the report. “I think it is inappropriate for me to comment,” Carrillo says. “I am still an employee of the district and I did what I was directed to do.”
The Umpqua Public Transportation District gets no money from Douglas County or its largest city, Roseburg, and instead relies on state and federal grants for funding. That reliance makes the ODOT report a big deal. The report also opens a window into Initiative Petition 37, an effort spearheaded by Edtl and Hammerson to overturn Oregon’s first-in-the-nation system of voting by mail.
Many issues the new report examines concern the decision of the district’s publicly elected seven-member board to hire Edtl, whom the report notes had “no transit or grant management experience, but who happened to be a friend of several board members.”
Investigators faulted the board for ignoring ODOT’s suggestion that it hire an experienced transit manager and instead selecting Edtl without a normal hiring process. They also faulted the board for giving Edtl and COO Carrillo employment contracts—something no other district employee has—that included severance payments ($65,000 for Edtl). The report also alleges the two men refused to provide ODOT with district investigatory documents, despite repeated requests. (Edtl says the documents in question came from an executive session of the board and he doesn’t believe ODOT was entitled to them. Hammerson echoed that explanation.)
The “board’s lack of knowledge of its fiduciary responsibilities or indifference to state and federal grant regulations, combined with an apparent disregard for readily apparent conflicts of interest, has led to problematic issues,” the report says. “Receiving a contract was unprecedented for UPTD employees, who have always been hired as at-will employees. These contracts also included another unprecedented benefit—a severance package.”
Edtl’s management of the transit district was a key issue in the May 2025 election to fill four contested seats on the district’s board. A slate of candidates opposed to his leadership won their races, leading Edtl to predict he would be fired soon after they took office. Before the board could do that, however, one of the outgoing board members, Todd Vaughn, filed for judicial review of the May election result in his race, alleging he’d been cheated out of victory.
Vaughn held a slim lead over challenger Natasha Atkinson on election night. But when Douglas County Clerk Dan Loomis finished counting the remaining ballots eight days later, Atkinson won by a margin of 2.36%. For his part, CEO Edtl convinced the outgoing board to refuse to certify the election result.
Vaughn’s litigation has become a test case for Edtl’s contention that voting by mail cannot be trusted. The case has also taken on outsized importance at the Douglas County Circuit Court.
After Vaughn alleged in court filings that he was the victim of a “cabal” of local politicos, all five of Douglas County’s circuit judges recused themselves from the case. The county hired high-profile Portland lawyer John DiLorenzo to defend the election result, while Vaughn hired Damascus lawyer Stephen Joncus, who, along with Edtl and Hammerson, is a co-chief petitioner on IP 37, which seeks to end voting by mail in Oregon.
Edtl, who says he’s serving as an unpaid paralegal to Joncus in Vaughn’s case, says the goal of Vaughn’s lawsuit is to show that Oregon’s vote-by-mail system can be manipulated.
The new transit district report also accuses Edtl and Carrillo of improperly using grant money for travel to Congress—and using a trip for prohibited purposes. (The report doesn’t specify those purposes, but Edtl says the accusation, which he denies, is that he traveled to the nation’s capital to connect with national opponents of voting by mail.)
“In March of 2025, the Board improperly authorized funding for Edtl and [Carrillo] to travel to Washington, D.C., in July of 2025 for the purpose of lobbying members of Congress on transit issues. These costs are unallowable, and unwise for an agency carrying debt, cutting service and requiring furlough days.”
Furthermore, the report says, “The two executive employees cancelled all scheduled meetings with Congressional members, and instead lobbied other Congress members on an unrelated political issue while spending on high travel and meal costs.”
Transportation grant monies by law may not be used for political purposes, but the report says Edtl violated that prohibition.
“There is evidence, including social media posts, geographical location during work hours, payroll data, and information gathered in the interviews held during this review, that [Edtl] spent working hours for UPTD on other personal or political activities.”
The consequences could be serious. “Collectively, these issues represent potential false claims and/or fraud that warrant referral to appropriate local enforcement authorities for investigation and potential restitution,” the report says.
Edtl says he and his attorney have provided explanations and receipts for his travel and that the report constitutes retaliation by the district’s current board, whose members wanted him gone, and an ODOT official with whom he clashed.
“They are lying about me,” Edtl says. “The accusations that I have done anything wrong or illegal [are] absolutely untrue.”
ODOT’s report now requires that the transit district ensure all current staff and board members are trained in the proper use of grant funds; that it repay any monies determined to have been spent improperly; and that it turn over all documents the department had previously requested.
“After UPTD completes its review and analysis of Edtl’s employment activities since April of 2025, a report detailing the results, along with all relevant evidence, must be forwarded to ODOT for review,” the report concludes.
Meanwhile, Edtl says he sat for a full-day deposition on Dec. 1 in Vaughn’s election results case. No trial date has been set.
