It's called "networking"

Regular readers here know about a couple of threads I've been following over the last year or so.  One is the strange hiring of Portland's first permanent city manager, Raymond Lee, who resigned from the same gig in Greeley, Colorado under circumstances that suggest that his departure may not have been amicable. When he left Greeley, his two top deputies left with him, and one of them has coincidentally surfaced as a manager in the Albany, Oregon city government, perhaps hoping to be reunited with Lee on the Portland payroll soon.

The other, more recent story is that Cornell Wesley, the head of city's "urban renewal" agency, Prosper Portland, has been hiring his old college buddies as consultants under six-figure no-bid contracts, and their work product is being concealed under a dubious claim of attorney-client privilege. 

To some, the stories are at least loosely related. Lee, Wesley, and Wesley's college pals were all brought in from far-away places, they're all around the same age, early 40s, and at the risk of being branded a racist (which I have been over this), I will note that they're all Black males. Until now, though, I haven't seen the Lee and Wesley tales as being closely intertwined. 

A tip I just got from an alert reader has me thinking that the connection is likely stronger than has previously appeared.

Here's the tip: Prosper Portland just hired a new "resource development manager," whatever that is. And surprise, surprise, he's coming here from the Greeley, Colorado economic development agency! His name is Robert Thompson, he's in his late 30s, and of course:

In Greeley, Thompson was the urban renewal agency's "workforce development manager," whatever that is. But now he's moved his Rotary Club membership to Portland to work with Uncle Cornell. Did Thompson's connection to Lee have anything to do with Thompson's getting hired at Prosper? Or is this just another in the long string of coincidences that keep popping up around Raymond and his entourage?

Speaking of economic development in Greeley, the citizens there are currently voting on a sales tax increase, necessitated by the city's headlong rush into building an "entertainment district" in a cow pasture without enough public input or support. The voters have stopped the "public-private" development project, at least temporarily, but the city's on the hook for all sorts of expenses for preliminary work. The local government's facilities have been mortgaged to pay for them. Some of the residents are circulating recall petitions for members of the city council over that mess, and some other issues. The colossal real estate boondoggle was Raymond's big résumé item when Portland Mayor Keith Wilson adopted him last year about this time.

And now, from the dodgy Greeley economic development bureaucracy to the dodgy Portland economic development bureaucracy comes Thompson. Welcome, Robert!