Following the money

Politics and ethics seem to be two concepts most people, sadly, don’t associate with eachother. Though as citizens, it is something we must demand in order to maintain a functional government for the people.

On April 7, Rudy Soto, one of the seven candidates for Dan Saltzman’s position as commisioner, filed a complaint asking the state Attorney General, John Kroger, to investigate the wrongdoing by the current Portland City Commissioner.

The misconduct that raised questions for Soto was in regards to the allocation committee of the Portland Children’s Levy—a committee on which Saltzman sits and which last year awarded a $600,000 grant to Cares Northwest, a nonprofit group that employs Saltzman’s girlfriend.

Although the organization is for a good cause, there are issues of conflict of interest because Saltzman never disclosed his relationship nor did he recuse himself from the vote. Whatever happened to being ethical and having integrity?

Unfortunately, the attorney general’s office denied the investigation because “the city attorney and state ethics director both said ethics law does not cover financially independent girlfriends of public office,” Soto said.

Soto believes that “Dan’s excuse as being shy for lying by omission is an example of why we need to replace career politicians with public servants who value the importance of honesty and integrity.”

And this is exactly the point. Regardless of whether the ethics law does not cover financially independent girlfriends of public office does not justify the dishonesty. Not saying something is considered being dishonest.

The disregard of Soto’s complaint by the attorney general is questionable. If this was not a big deal then there would not be so many complaints and curiosity from the public. More so, spending that much money on his forgot-to-mention girlfriend’s charity is dishonest. If you want to give money to a cause maybe you should consider filling potholes, preventing police shootings and getting the water rates lowered in Portland instead.

According to Willamette Week, “the charity has been running successfully for over 20 years without any city money as collaboration between local hospitals, before Saltzman voted for the allocation of the money to it last year.” Yet the filling of potholes in Portland aren’t very successful at all.

Furthermore, Saltzman’s accomplishments page on the campaign website states, “As part of his tireless advocacy for children, Dan delivered more resources to preventing, investigating and arresting more child abusers and added positions in the Portland Police Bureau’s Child Abuse Team.”

Yes, this may be very admirable, but the only problem is that he includes Matt Hennessee, known for his scandal involving the sexual abuse of a teenager, on his list of endorsements. Great campaign contribution, right?

His girlfriend’s charity just looks like a carefully planned out “support” that will get him the maximum election benefit. Sorry, but the “it’s good for children” speech where Saltzman mentioned Children’s Levy 12 times in an hour at his city club appearance a couple weeks ago only sounds good during election time. He should be more concerned with the city’s debt, but since he is not then maybe he should have a career change and run for a post at Portland Public Schools or with Multnomah County.