Cylvia Hayes 2.0 and a short list of Kotek's least favorite people.
Is now a good time to criticize the Governor for a moment?
It’s a very interesting time for Ms. & Ms. Kotek. Three aids resign potentially due to a toxic spouse.
Oh, and this same spouse is potentially involved in business meetings?
And this same spouse is an alcoholic with a history of mental illness?
An ethnics complaint about the same spouse?
Dang, rough. All this rough news in just 1 week.
I’ve read a couple stories about the situation unfolding in Salem and it was interesting that only a few publications, like The Oregonian, provided some vital context to readers about the political history of spouses influencing policy in Oregon (and of course, it was the bottom of their article):
possibly fraught in light of former Gov. John Kitzhaber’s and his fiancée Cylvia Hayes’ ethics problems.
In Kitzhaber’s third term, he allowed Hayes to play a powerful role in influencing some policies and recommending some personnel choices. They both got into serious ethical trouble – not because of Hayes’ policy work per se but because she accepted paid contracts from parties with a specific interest in policies she tried to promote.
Hayes eventually agreed to pay $44,000 for ethics violations arising from her use of public office for personal profit. She acknowledged securing work as a paid consultant by playing off her role as unpaid adviser to Kitzhaber. He resigned over the scandal.
This reminds me, Nkenge Harmon Johnson was fired for complaining about Kitzhaber and Hayes:
“[Harmon Johnson] witnessed what she reasonably believed to be myriad improprieties involving the Governor’s re-election campaign team and his official staff, including, but not limited to, directing or permitting of political activities by public employees while on the job, in violation of ORS 260.432
….
The lawsuit alleges that former Kitzhaber chief of staff Mike Bonetto, who is also named as a defendant, fired Harmon Johnson on July 18, 2014 after she raised concerns about being told to work on Kitzhaber’s re-election campaign rather than state business, and after criticizing Hayes in a July 15, 2014 staff meeting.
The lawsuit happened in 2016. Funny enough, between when she fired and before the lawsuit, on September 30, 2015, a criminal intelligence analyst in Salem working for a small clandestine counter-terrorism team called TITAN just started to randomly dig up dirt on Harmon Johnson’s husband: Erious Johnson.
Well, technically, according the investigators they weren’t digging up dirt randomly, it was all and above board investigation they claim. Because, surely, no government has used their vast secret policing apparatus to target political foes! Rest assured my fellow Oregonian, the fine folks at Stoel Rives investigated the State and found no wrong doing, and not once has the integrity of a Stole Rives investigation been called into question. Nor would they ever find evidence of an Oregon politician using political influence to target political foes.
Does Ms. or Ms. Kotek have any enemies in Salem who should be watching their back?
After the election of Governor Kotek there was exactly one person within the cross hairs of the newly elected Governor: the Secretary of State, a woman named Shemia Fagan. The Secretary of State can get the Governor’s job, if they can force the Governor to resign, and this is how our former Kate Brown got into office and held it over a decade. If Ms. Fagan could find evidence that Ms. Kotek was corrupt, she could get the governor unseated and Ms. Fagan would be propelled into the big chair.
Unfortunately for Ms. Fagan, just about a month after the election concluded an intrepid journalist at a “news” outlet owned by the husband to our Attorney General began poking around a little weed business in Portland called La Mota. A small secret was revealed: the owners of La Mota are extravagantly corrupt, defrauding local businesses, and bribing any politician they can. So who was on the La Mota naughty list? Ms. Fagan, of course - but oh, also Ms. Kotek, but the media exclusively set their sights on Ms. Fagan and she alone had to atone for the sins of Salem’s political class. Ms Fagan was the only one to resign during this crisis, which was just serendipitous for Ms. Kotek.
Though the story of Ms. Fagan and Ms. Kotek isn’t yet over - because a federal investigation by the FBI was launched - it’s secret and ongoing - however it’s very likely that Fagan or the La Mota clan are more than happy to be witnesses in exchange for reduced jail time. You see the FBI and federal prosecutors are more than happy to cut a deal, if you can get them a bigger fish. Whose the biggest fishyist smelling person in Salem? That would be Governor Kotek. This is the type of bust that elevates the career of a Federal investigator right out of the Field Office and into upper management.
Is there anyone else with a grudge looking to take down Ms. Kotek? Or how about a weak link in the corrupt chain?
Why yes, Mr. Diego Hernandez might have a few things to say.
Or how about Senator Mark Meek (D-Clackamas County) who said he was considering leaving The Party over how Kotek was treating Hernandez? In fact the entire cast of characters within that ordeal may not have been sufficiently bribed to keep their mouth shut to federal interrogators, or they may be caught up in the La Mota money as well: Jenn Baker, or Portland’s version of I-Wish-I-Was-AOC and fucked my sister’s boyfriend Andrea Valderrama, or the hapless con-artist cucked-by-her-sister Ana del Rocio, aka Rosa Valderrama.
And Andrea Valderrama is a rotten cesspool, she got multiple politically connected jobs in the span of about 9 months, before being awarded her ex-boyfriend’s seat in Salem as a “thank you” from Kotek and the DPO for making up sexual abuse claims. The more you read about Valderrama’s personal life and the more obvious it is that she has inescapable vices and instability that would make her super easy to flip on the Governor if she thought it would help her in a pinch. Why, I bet a federal prosecutor could bluff her into wearing a wire.
Though, if I was itching to get at the heart of Tina Kotek’s corrupt empire, one of the important stops I’d make is an interview with Nate Monson. You see, Nate Monson was hired to be a political hitman for Kotek: his job was going to be weaponizing false claims of sexual harassment in Salem to toss out Kotek’s foes, while ignoring legitimate ethics complaints as they came up. Monson is certainly an unimaginably corrupt character himself: I started writing a piece on him about his corrupt dealings in Iowa all the way to Oregon, but it got too long (even for my tastes!), it takes 5,000 words to scratch the surface. The dirt he claims to have on Kotek is enough to end her career, especially if the accusations are accurate about Jackie Sandmeyer covering for Kotek.
And Jackie Sandmeyer? They/them is not going to handle the stress of a competent federal interrogation.
And another? Brad Avakian. When Mr. Avakian was Oregon Labor Commissioner he decided to go full-nuclear and write a 52-page report on the allegations against Kotek, Courtney, et al. I’m sure there are rumors that weren’t published in his 2019 report.
Those are just a few that come to the top of my head.
I suspect that if we poked around Salem, had a few beers with folks, we would rapidly find that Kotek is one of the biggest assholes that our State has ever dealt with, being nearly universally despised thanks to her corrosive cut-throat behavior. She’s got skeletons in her closet, she’s got enemies around every corner. For those who are unaware, the reason Kotek has remained in power is thanks to a vast apparatus of money laundering through PACs (specifically her unilateral control of FuturePAC) and blackmail on opposition. She made her name as a ruthless unforgiving bully.
How is the media feeling about our Governor?
Say, do you like Fentanyl? I think it’s severely unpopular these days, even less popular then the smell of a fresh shit running down the side of a building. Yet Fentanyl and fresh shit can be found plentiful in my home town.
Ms. Kotek’s government has hemmed and hawed for going on over 1 year about how they’re going to solve it.
First, they put together a task force. The finest 4-dozen people representing the whole spectrum of Government from the kleptocracy to the bureaucracy.
They declared an Emergency! on January 30th, 2024. It only took 6 weeks from the time they said “we recommend you declare an emergency” to when they actually did it.
Here I am writing this, March 27th. And what have they actually done in the last nearly 60 days? Shuffled the deck chairs a little bit, they announced they have a United Command! And what of this Command? It was given over to hapless con-artist Mike Meyer, best known for “retiring” from Las Vegas Fire Department right before a massive investigation into time card fraud that he would have been at the center of. They’ve taken BIG action, they’ve shut off the bottle returns downtown! …and that’s it. If there’s other actions from Unified Command I’m not seeing it reported and I’m not seeing it with my own eyes. In fact in the last two days I’ve seen more tweakers in my neighborhood than the last 2 months. Is the city just going to play the shuffle game where the Tweakers get booted out of central downtown and migrate out to the East Side burbs long enough to declare victory? Yes.
Meanwhile, it’s kicking around in the newspapers that Portland has the highest downtown office vacancy in the country. And we all know exactly why. There isn’t a real sense of urgency coming from Salem, Multnomah County, or City of Portland to resolve any of this. Resolving it is simple, just unpopular with milquetoast progressives.
But Legislature took “important” actions….and those will go into effect, umm… 6 months from now. I’m dubious it will have any impact at all. Of course Kotek didn’t think it was important to call a special session to do anything further, there’s no issues to be taken up related to this crisis beyond some administrative tweaks of the law. Mission Accomplished.
It does make me wonder how long the media will keep up the ruse that everything is going well, when we’re hit with data points and headlines that we’re #1 on all the wrong lists. The city and state are in existential peril, and great news or swift action isn’t exactly pouring out of any executive leaders. Last time I counted Wheeler had at least 6 different emergency declarations, all of which were useless. JVP either doesn’t know her ass from her elbow, or she’s taking money for a foreign adversary to accelerate the downfall of western society through what appears to be incompetence.
I’m interested to see if news about the First Spouse continues to roll out. It sure would be interesting to see what her professional resume looks like, to see what organizations give her money - but funny enough she doesn’t have a LinkedIn. Wonder why. Even just poking around on LinkedIn, there’s dozens of politically connected nonprofits tagging Aimee Kotek Wilson: Central City Concern, Swan Lake Energy Storage, Leading Age Oregon, Latino Community Association, Philippine American Chamber of Commerce of Oregon, Rose Haven, etc. They’re all so happy to connect with her!
If you might be wondering what inspired Kotek & Kotek to get into this First Spouse game:
Gosh, would be interesting if Aimee Kotek Wilson was being paid by groups that are concerned with Measure 110 and using her position and advocacy for a quid pro quo that benefits the people she contracts for. Just need to figure out where she gets her money.
Thanks for mentioning Diego Hernandez. His case never received the media attention it deserved. Andrea Valderrama, her sister Ana del Rocio (or whatever name she is using these days) and Jenn Baker came out of this tawdry affair just fine. (Evidence that if you give women power, they don’t behave any better than men. Maybe even worse.)
But then there were the other two complainants who ganged up on Hernandez at the House Conduct Committee hearings —Shaina Pomerantz, who served briefly as Hernandez’s chief of staff, and Portland race activist Teressa Raiford, who had the decency to at least use her name and testify on her own behalf.
The committee did not substantiate the complaints by Pomerantz and Raiford. It didn’t slow either of them down.
Pomerantz went to work for the state Bureau of Labor and Industries. In short order, she filed a discrimination suit after her probation period was extended. (She alleged the only reason her probation period was extended was because she was black.)
Unfortunately, BOLI handed Pomerantz $425,000 to settle rather than go to court. It’s too bad. Pomerantz is an unsympathetic character.
She later briefly served on Portland’s Citizen Review Committee, which reviews complaints filed against police. Her brief tenure was marked by demanding another committee member, Vadim Mozyrsky, resign. Why? Because he committed “aggressions” and “micro-aggressions,” and Pomerantz didn’t like the “tone” of his emails.
Now she is running for AG in the Democratic primary, for which she has little chance. Probably she’s looking for somebody to throw her a large piece of meat, preferably with a nice title. That $425,000 settlement was just an appetizer.
A marvel of invective....keep at it!
One isn't allowed to say these things, but the upper levels of the state are being run by, well..women. Weren't they supposed to save us from, as GuvTina says, "the good old boy network?" It's so disappointing that they're just as capable of cupidity as the old-school cigar choppers.