Michael Jordan, Oregon's Former Chief Operating Officer, Hired to Run City's Bureau of Environmental Services

Former DAS Director Michael Jordan

City Commissioner Nick Fish this morning said he's hired Michael Jordan, the state of Oregon's former chief operating officer, to head the Bureau of Environmental Services.

Fish announced the hire in email to all BES employees.

Jordan replaces Dean Marriott, the longtime BES chief whom Fish forced out earlier this year after cost overruns on a a BES construction project.

Jordan brings his own baggage to BES. As head of the state's Department of Administrative Services under former Gov. John Kitzhaber, Jordan was asked to streamline the state's bureaucracy.

But his state career abruptly after Kitzhaber resigned on Feb. 18. That same day, Jordan ordered an Oregon State Police criminal investigation into who gave WW emails that Kitzhaber's assistant earlier asked to be deleted from state servers.

Jordan ordered that criminal investigation without first consulting his new boss, Gov. Kate Brown and it is widely believed in Salem that decision cost him his job.  

The state's criminal investigation into the release of Kitzhaber's emails—which were stored on a state server and concerned many aspects of state business and are therefore public records—is continuing.

And now, Jordan has a new job, which he begins June 1.

Here's Fish's statement about his new bureau director.


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