Trippin' with Raymond

All the news about Portland City Hall managers getting "severed" from their jobs, some due to expense account abuses and all signing gag orders, reminded me that I have been remiss in my review of the credit card stylings of Portland's $370,000-a-year city administrator, Raymond C. Lee III, in his previous gig as city manager in Greeley, Colorado. Lee's employment in Greeley, at a mere $318,475 a year, terminated before he was formally named as a finalist for the top job in Portland, and both he and the Colorado city signed a formal contract under which no one will say anything negative about each other. And so we continue to ponder, why did he and Greeley part ways?

Amid anonymous tips that he was let go over there due to extravagant spending of taxpayer dollars, I asked for, and got, public expense account records for Lee for the years 2023 through 2025. They're interesting, to say the least. But what jumps out right away is how much out-of-town travel the guy did on the public's dime. Given that Greeley has only about 110,000 residents – think Hillsboro, Oregon – Lee was on the road for an extraordinary chunks of his tenure. And as we've already seen, he was big on taking his office staff out of town for fancy "retreats" as well. You wonder how many days he was actually at his desk.

Speaking of his desk, one complaint that's come over the transom to me is that Lee had the City of Greeley build him a private bathroom at City Hall – a City Hall that's about to be demolished. Although that's a story I wish I knew more about, none of the records I've gotten so far sheds any light on it.

Anyway, to get back to the travel, here are Lee's work-related trips that show up in his Greeley expense account records:

2023

• March: San Francisco
• March: Washington, D.C.
• April: Minneapolis
• May: Coralville, Iowa
• June: Newport News, Virginia
• July: Washington, D.C.
• August: Salt Lake City
• October: Austin
• October: Washington, D.C.
• November: Milwaukee
• November: Atlanta
• November: Mesa, Arizona

2024

• January: Mississippi
• March: Washington, D.C.
• April: Baltimore
• April: Glenwood Springs, Colorado
• June: Palm Desert
• June: Dallas
• July: Grand Prairie, Texas
• September: Washington, D.C.
• September: Pittsburgh
• September: Dallas
• October: Las Vegas
• November: Tampa

2025

• February: San Francisco
• March: Washington, D.C.
• April: San Francisco
• April: Glenwood Springs, Colorado
• May: Atlanta
• June: Tulsa
• July: Austin
• September: Madison, Wisconsin
• September: Washington, D.C.
• October: Tampa
• November: Leaves job

Given the size of Greeley, that is more travel than one might think is necessary. The dude is Premier Platinum on United, and the farmers in Greeley put him there. He attended shindigs thrown by the NLC, the NFBPA, ICMA, the ULI, and the MVVA PRRI, among others. But of course, without these trips, how could he maintain his credentials as an ICMA-CM, a CPM, an MPA, a PMP, and a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt (ICGB)?

Anyway, do the epic travel logs prove that Lee was fired on account of lavish spending? Of course not. But do they suggest that he should have been fired on those grounds? That might be debatable. And does it warn Portland taxpayers to keep an eye on this aspect of Lee's employment? Absolutely.

One particular tidbit from the travel records may raise an eyebrow or two in the Rose City. A credit card bill shows that last September 12, RL3 was scheduled to come to Portland. He was to fly in here from Madison, through Chicago. At that point, Portland was more than a month away from formally identifying finalists in the city administrator search, and the impression the public has been given is that at that point, interviews were being conducted only virtually. Was there an in-person meeting between Lee and someone at the city that the public has not heretofore heard about?

A side note that may turn out to be irrelevant: The public records show that Lee has had some health issues that have put him out of commission at times. A December 2024 reimbursement request, for $179, relating to a course that Lee took on the Las Vegas trip but didn't produce a receipt for, was filed on his behalf by a staffer, Corey Vasquez, rather than by Lee himself. Vasquez wrote: "Raymond is on medical leave." I previously noted that Lee's transition to Portland was briefly interrupted by some sort of health scare late this past December.

That's it for the travel angle, at least for now. But there are other interesting aspects to Lee's expense account, and I'll work on them for a later post. Sneak preview: When he wasn't jet-setting around the country to conferences and "site visits," RL3 was quite fond of holding "meetings" at Greeley restaurants, where the local taxpayers would pay for his and his guests' meals. Many of his free-grub buddies were members of the City Council. There was a lot of bacon involved. Nom nom.

Thanks to readers who have funded my ongoing expedition on the seas of pubic records. I still have some money in the community chest, and as I get done with Greeley, I'll get back to Portland.