Another Notch on Portland’s Secret Government Belt

Portland City Council’s recent vote to remove me as an alternate member of the Community Board for Police Accountability (CBPA) did not occur in isolation. It reflects a deeper moral inversion at City Hall: secrecy treated as a governing norm, transparency treated as a risk.

As I wrote earlier, the formal explanation for my removal was procedural—failure to complete paperwork. The real issue was substantive. I declined to sign a blanket nondisclosure agreement that would have required me to treat routine governance materials—public records by law—as confidential by default. That demand would have shifted power away from the public and toward bureaucracy—an act of institutional self-protection, not lawful governance. Rather than confront whether that demand exceeded state law and Council’s own intent, a majority of Council chose removal. Authority was enforced, but accountability was avoided.

Secrecy in Oversight, Silence in Finance

This vote comes amid a cascade of revelations that should have prompted exactly the opposite instinct. In recent weeks, Portlanders learned that the City was sitting on more than $100 million in previously undisclosed housing and arts funds—money not disclosed to the public even as officials warned of scarcity and looming cuts. It is not a harmless oversight when residents and taxpayers are told that resources did not exist.

Apparently for some time has City Hall shown little urgency about ensuring full public awareness of available resources, yet had no problem showing remarkable urgency in disciplining a volunteer oversight board member for refusing to agree to hide public information. Silence was tolerated when it protected the institution; dissent was punished when it threatened it.

The contrast speaks for itself. When secrecy shields power, it is excused. When openness challenges power, it is sanctioned.

What Oversight Was Supposed to Be

The CBPA exists because Portlanders demanded transparency and accountability in policing—an area where misuse of authority causes real harm and where public trust is fragile. Civilian oversight was intended to function as a public trust, grounded in openness and credibility. Its legitimacy depends on loyalty to the public, not obedience to internal convenience.

Instead, staff imposed a sweeping confidentiality regime that erases essential distinctions:

· between investigative files and training materials

· between attorney‑client privilege and general legal education

· between information that must be protected and information the public has every right to understand.

By collapsing these distinctions, City Hall replaced lawful restraint with blanket control. Rather than narrowing secrecy to what the law actually requires, City Hall expanded it—and then enforced that expansion through removal. That is authority untethered from fairness.

The Vote Breakdown

To the Council’s credit, the vote was not unanimous. Five council members voted against removal, recognizing that lawful transparency represents a sacred democratic obligation, a matter of fair treatment, and protection against institutional overreach. Their dissent mattered, even if it was not enough to change the outcome.

In District 4, Councilors Clark and Zimmerman voted against removal—choosing restraint over coercion, and trust over control. Their votes reflected a basic but increasingly rare principle: that oversight bodies cannot function if secrecy is imposed by default and dissent is punished.

By contrast, Councilor Green unsurprisingly- given his Peacock/DSA affiliation with its record of secret meetings- voted to support removal, prioritizing loyalty to institutional authority and in-group cohesion over fairness and democratic accountability. That choice aligns neatly with a broader pattern at City Hall, where secrecy has too often been defended as administrative necessity rather than acknowledged as a betrayal of public trust.

I also thank Councilors Smith, Kanal, and Ryan for their support of open government. Their votes affirmed that authority must answer to the people it serves.

The Message to Portlanders

Taken together, the message is unmistakable. City Hall appears more concerned about enforcing silence around public information than about ensuring the public has a full and honest accounting of city operations and finances. Liberty is narrowed, accountability is deferred, and power is insulated. Transparency is applied selectively; secrecy is tolerated—and even rewarded—when it shields bureaucracy from scrutiny.

The consequences extend beyond one vote or one board member. By choosing removal over restraint, the Council has not only added another notch to Portland’s secret government belt—it has eroded trust in the CBPA itself, just as the board is getting off the ground. An accountability body cannot earn public confidence when its members are punished for insisting on lawful openness.

If Portland is serious about police accountability, secrecy cannot be the price of participation—and authority cannot demand loyalty at the expense of fairness and public trust.