There's a kind of hush
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| HAL, from 1968. |
Here's a funny one: The far-left half of the Portland City Council has come out against wheeling and dealing in smoke-filled rooms. At least, if the wheeling and dealing is about data centers:
The Portland City Council's Housing and Permitting Committee considered a resolution sponsored by Councilors Tiffany Koyama Lane and Mitch Green that would urge the city administrator to refrain from signing nondisclosure agreements involving data center companies. The proposal also calls for City Council to be notified about inquiries involving potential data center deals and for the city to use transparent public processes.
The A.I. crowd get no sympathy from me. Data centers are bad for the environment and bad for consumers, and all of a sudden, even the cockiest tech bros are admitting that the bots are going to get us all killed pretty soon. (Although I must say, this weekend's chorus of true confessions on this point is mighty suspicious.)
But it cracks me up that this issue is what's being singled out as the Rose City Brat Pack preaches about open government. What about severance arrangements with fired bureaucrats? Why are nondisclosre agreements okay there? For City Hall, they sure are convenient. The agreements hush up the honchos who are being shown the door, so that no one tells any of the horror stories on either side of the employment relationship. And Lord knows, enough Portland bureaucrats have gotten fat severances lately after signing these things. According to one chatbot, the list includes:
| Official | Role | Departure date | Severance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Adena Long | Director, Portland Parks & Recreation | July 2025 | $142,594 |
| Helmi Hisserich | Director, Portland Housing Bureau | Nov. 2025 | $240,880 |
| Shad Ahmed | Director, Portland Bureau of Emergency Mgmt. | Feb. 2026 | ~$115,000 |
| Shea Flaherty Betin | Executive Director, Prosper Portland | June 2025 | $212,992 |
| Ivory Mathews | CEO, Home Forward | May 2026 | $171,424.80 |
| Bob Cozzie | Deputy City Administrator, Public Safety | May 2026 | $275,808 |
| Priya Dhanapal | Deputy City Administrator, Public Works | Sept. 2026 | $221,769.63 |
| TOTAL | $1,380,468.43 |
I'll bet you they all signed secrecy agreements. But they're not data centers, of course. And they aren't artificially intelligent, nor perhaps even genuinely so.
Somebody should ask the socialistas on the council whether sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Let's outlaw NDAs in city government entirely.
UPDATE, Tuesday: Reaction here.
Amen to that, BoJack.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't that long ago, that when activists, journalists, etc. sought public information from local govts in Oregon, the only thing they were able to hold-back were things like a pending real estate deal, something that would be impacted by it going-public. But even then, they'd have to provide that info once the deal is done (there's usually a bit of a fight involved, but that's how it's played-out in the past).
There is so-little transparency in City govt lately, it all ties-in with the amount of open political corruption we allow in this state.
Speaking of which...I don't know if you saw this, from yesterday - https://www.oregonlive.com/watchdog/2026/09/portland-councilors-directed-funds-to-favored-groups-and-projects-even-as-budget-woes-deepened.html
Thanks for the reminder to send in testimony about it. Here's what I wrote;
ReplyDelete"...So, now that you have specifically identified that NDAs, when used by a public body, are not transparent & go-against The Peoples' interests - will you now be cancelling all NDAs that City employees (current & former) have signed-?
What about contracts with non-profits that receive City funding-??
Will you stop having new hires, and new recipients of City funds, sign them-?
I'm thrilled you're finally acknowledging the NDA problem, but applying it only to this one industry is not nearly enough."
(they kinda stepped in it, eh-? I guess they never considered that people would demand an end to all NDAs, now that they brought it up, ha ha.)
Do testimony, here, folks - https://www.portland.gov/council-clerk/testimony-registration?doc_id=62793
The real issue is the government-NGO money-dump. Dollars that are kinda-sorta public go to "nonprofits" who actually administer the bucks, which then disappear. Try asking any government-funded NGO specific questions about how the dollars are spent and you will be invited to go pound sand. And then wait over a yearr to peruse their form 990s, which are opaque, That's the real non-disclosure story.
ReplyDeleteExactly. And sometimes those public dollars are then passed-along from the 'non-profit' that first rec'd them, to others. As you said the money stopped being track-able by any of us once it went from the public source to the private 'non-profits'. And our govts are being extremely negligent about audits, nowadays.
DeleteIt reminds me too much of money laundering, when money goes from one org to others, in the dark.
'Sunlight is the best disinfectant.'
And speaking of data centers, the “friends” of Tina K have been running a TV spot where Tina pretends to be upset about the big, bad data centers potentially helping to increase utility rates.
ReplyDeleteAs if PGE and Pacific Power have been shy about upping our rates every year or more. How much worse can it get Tina?
Tina's just responding to Christine Drazan's ads, which started a while back, decrying tax breaks for "Tina Kotek's data centers." That hit a nerve.
DeleteSpeaking of Drazan's ads, they mix old and new footage of the candidate, and the difference in age is pretty striking. It seems as though they're trying to place Drazan in different age groups at the same time. Or maybe her grandmother is campaigning with her?
I haven’t seen any of Drazan’s commercials yet. At least none that I can remember. I didn’t even know how to spell her name before I read your rebuttal.
DeleteThe scam around the local public trough is so commonplace that the media is only interested in reporting it as though it was “business as usual “.
ReplyDelete