Talk about recieving a cold glass of water in the face, this information stings. Is Portland so disfunctional that our mayor-city council format requires ignoring, if not breaking, our charter? Let me say this very clearly, we are overweight with bureaucrats. We thought we elected individuals who respected us but discover obfuscation and personal ambition along the way. Without economic growth our slide will continue. Our office buildings will remain empty. Struggling entrepreneurs will go elsewhere. Out hierarchy of needs begins with addressing our safety and quality of life. We do not need prima donnas. We need dedicated officials who already know what we want.
We have lost the concept of public service while working for government and have replaced it firmly with workers rights. At a time we need more government to solve problems the private sector is not ideally suited for-issues of social equity-we have made operation of government less efficient and more “selfish”. Government is not an employer motivated by profit and funded by capitalist investors. It should be motivated to solve problems to allow society to function equitably for all and funded by those who can. We have lost our way in government. We are more concerned with protecting its workers than solving society’s most difficult problems.
This article reads more like an opinion column than objective reporting. From the opening paragraphs, the author presents Raymond Lee in a negative light, describing his public remarks as “platitudes” and “clichés” rather than allowing readers to judge his speaking style for themselves. While it is fair to criticize Lee for relying on management jargon, the article gives little consideration to the fact that a City Administrator is not an elected policymaker. His role is to implement the policies adopted by the Mayor and City Council, not publicly advocate for them. That said, Lee could communicate more effectively by focusing less on management process and more on implementation—how the City is progressing toward the Council’s goals, how success will be measured, and what residents should expect to see.
The article’s treatment of Lee’s severance agreement follows a similar pattern. Rather than focusing on the final contract or comparing it with the employment agreements of city administrators in peer cities, it leans heavily on commentary suggesting Lee aggressively negotiated generous protections. It gives little consideration to the fact that a City Administrator serves at the pleasure of elected officials, meaning a change in mayor or council priorities can place the position at risk regardless of performance. That context would have helped readers evaluate whether Lee’s contract was unusual or simply reflected the realities of the job.
While expert commentary can add valuable perspective, Jack Bogdanski’s remarks largely reinforce the article’s conclusions rather than introducing new facts or analysis. The space might have been better used comparing Lee’s contract with those of peer cities or explaining why severance protections are common for politically appointed executives.
Overall, the piece raises legitimate questions about Lee’s communication style and employment contract, but it is written in a way that encourages readers to adopt a negative view of Lee before fully considering the broader context. A more balanced analysis would have presented the same facts while providing the context needed for readers to reach their own conclusions.
As we are seeing at the Federal level, the accumulation of knowledge and expertise from a non partisan professional implementation group is necessary, but not sufficient, for effective implementation of policy. We need to make it hard to fire people without cause, but we need to create clear and measurable goals for them to be evaluated by. We have put ourselves in a place where nobody will come here unless they are paid well to leave
Lee is a sharp guy, tough negotiator, and a survivor. Exactly the kind of thing I want in a city administrator. If I were taking a job in such a den of ideological hallucination and ineptitude as Portland I would have done the same thing. Nothing in this article reduces my opinion of him in any way.
“I think you will see things along the way. You’re gonna see changes. You’re gonna see a strategic plan. You’re gonna see dashboards. You’re gonna see things. You’re gonna see more town halls,” he said.
What else you're going to see:
More homeless
More dug addictions
More crime
More businesses closing
More people leaving
More taxes
More damaged infrastructure
More graffiti and public deterioration
More overpaid paid consultants
More F grade auditor reports
More failing public schools (Thanks Julia Brim Edwards)
The model for this is the dumpster fire aka MCAS (county animal control). A final auditor's report threw in the towel. Too dysfunctional to fix. The county's response: A new strategic plan, hundreds of meetings, expensive out of state consultants, nonsensical dashboards that read more like the Mad Hatter wrote them in pig Latin....backwards....and yeah, more town halls exclusive to hand selected "stakeholders". Result: who cares? LOOKS like they're doing something.
The biggest problem is not the outlandish severance. (which should never be paid or negotiated. Hire better. Expect better. Pay for that). The bigger problem is they never go away. They take their insider culture with them to another fat do nothing "public service" job that involves, you guessed it, more meetings, consultations, town halls,strategy sessions.....blah, blah, blah.
Local public officials have worked for over 20 years to create a culture of performative inaction that costs the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. They have finally perfected the scam, and the results are now tangible, seen throughout our deteriorating city.
There is only one fix: stop voting for this bullshit.
If Lee's role is to implement the policy of the Council and Mayor, how do you explain his recent directive to restart the PGE power-line project through Forest Park that was voted down by the Council 12-0 a year ago?
I heard Lee speak months ago when the Mayor introduced him to our City Council District's meeting alongside our City Councilors. He'd barely been in his office a month and he was pontificating about the City's need to fulfill the DEI mandate of the former City Council, blah, blah, blah. I was dumbfounded that he would start talking about policy when from the Mayor's own admission Lee "was just learning the ropes". My impression then was that Lee's hiring would be among the Mayor's bigger mistakes. Time will tell, but I smell a golden parachute coming down the pike.
And no one on the council had the stones to dig into this guy from a rural Colorado town who was an obvious DEI hire (the giveaway was in the other two candidates for the position). No one asked about LeeIII's junkets, his weird resignation, his expense account shenanigans; no one contrasted his administering a tiny-town's itty-bitty bureaucracy with Portland's bloat; no one questioned his inability to rise above cliches and happytalk; no one put the mayor through the wringer on how he managed to find this dude out in the windswept Colorado sugarbeet fields; no one wondered about the looney contract or the excessive pay--a half-million for a guy with no real record...it took a blogger to do this town's media digging.
Talk about recieving a cold glass of water in the face, this information stings. Is Portland so disfunctional that our mayor-city council format requires ignoring, if not breaking, our charter? Let me say this very clearly, we are overweight with bureaucrats. We thought we elected individuals who respected us but discover obfuscation and personal ambition along the way. Without economic growth our slide will continue. Our office buildings will remain empty. Struggling entrepreneurs will go elsewhere. Out hierarchy of needs begins with addressing our safety and quality of life. We do not need prima donnas. We need dedicated officials who already know what we want.
We have lost the concept of public service while working for government and have replaced it firmly with workers rights. At a time we need more government to solve problems the private sector is not ideally suited for-issues of social equity-we have made operation of government less efficient and more “selfish”. Government is not an employer motivated by profit and funded by capitalist investors. It should be motivated to solve problems to allow society to function equitably for all and funded by those who can. We have lost our way in government. We are more concerned with protecting its workers than solving society’s most difficult problems.
This article reads more like an opinion column than objective reporting. From the opening paragraphs, the author presents Raymond Lee in a negative light, describing his public remarks as “platitudes” and “clichés” rather than allowing readers to judge his speaking style for themselves. While it is fair to criticize Lee for relying on management jargon, the article gives little consideration to the fact that a City Administrator is not an elected policymaker. His role is to implement the policies adopted by the Mayor and City Council, not publicly advocate for them. That said, Lee could communicate more effectively by focusing less on management process and more on implementation—how the City is progressing toward the Council’s goals, how success will be measured, and what residents should expect to see.
The article’s treatment of Lee’s severance agreement follows a similar pattern. Rather than focusing on the final contract or comparing it with the employment agreements of city administrators in peer cities, it leans heavily on commentary suggesting Lee aggressively negotiated generous protections. It gives little consideration to the fact that a City Administrator serves at the pleasure of elected officials, meaning a change in mayor or council priorities can place the position at risk regardless of performance. That context would have helped readers evaluate whether Lee’s contract was unusual or simply reflected the realities of the job.
While expert commentary can add valuable perspective, Jack Bogdanski’s remarks largely reinforce the article’s conclusions rather than introducing new facts or analysis. The space might have been better used comparing Lee’s contract with those of peer cities or explaining why severance protections are common for politically appointed executives.
Overall, the piece raises legitimate questions about Lee’s communication style and employment contract, but it is written in a way that encourages readers to adopt a negative view of Lee before fully considering the broader context. A more balanced analysis would have presented the same facts while providing the context needed for readers to reach their own conclusions.
As we are seeing at the Federal level, the accumulation of knowledge and expertise from a non partisan professional implementation group is necessary, but not sufficient, for effective implementation of policy. We need to make it hard to fire people without cause, but we need to create clear and measurable goals for them to be evaluated by. We have put ourselves in a place where nobody will come here unless they are paid well to leave
Lee is a sharp guy, tough negotiator, and a survivor. Exactly the kind of thing I want in a city administrator. If I were taking a job in such a den of ideological hallucination and ineptitude as Portland I would have done the same thing. Nothing in this article reduces my opinion of him in any way.
Hmmm. Lee sounds like Trump.
“I think you will see things along the way. You’re gonna see changes. You’re gonna see a strategic plan. You’re gonna see dashboards. You’re gonna see things. You’re gonna see more town halls,” he said.
What else you're going to see:
More homeless
More dug addictions
More crime
More businesses closing
More people leaving
More taxes
More damaged infrastructure
More graffiti and public deterioration
More overpaid paid consultants
More F grade auditor reports
More failing public schools (Thanks Julia Brim Edwards)
The model for this is the dumpster fire aka MCAS (county animal control). A final auditor's report threw in the towel. Too dysfunctional to fix. The county's response: A new strategic plan, hundreds of meetings, expensive out of state consultants, nonsensical dashboards that read more like the Mad Hatter wrote them in pig Latin....backwards....and yeah, more town halls exclusive to hand selected "stakeholders". Result: who cares? LOOKS like they're doing something.
The biggest problem is not the outlandish severance. (which should never be paid or negotiated. Hire better. Expect better. Pay for that). The bigger problem is they never go away. They take their insider culture with them to another fat do nothing "public service" job that involves, you guessed it, more meetings, consultations, town halls,strategy sessions.....blah, blah, blah.
Local public officials have worked for over 20 years to create a culture of performative inaction that costs the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. They have finally perfected the scam, and the results are now tangible, seen throughout our deteriorating city.
There is only one fix: stop voting for this bullshit.
If Lee's role is to implement the policy of the Council and Mayor, how do you explain his recent directive to restart the PGE power-line project through Forest Park that was voted down by the Council 12-0 a year ago?
I heard Lee speak months ago when the Mayor introduced him to our City Council District's meeting alongside our City Councilors. He'd barely been in his office a month and he was pontificating about the City's need to fulfill the DEI mandate of the former City Council, blah, blah, blah. I was dumbfounded that he would start talking about policy when from the Mayor's own admission Lee "was just learning the ropes". My impression then was that Lee's hiring would be among the Mayor's bigger mistakes. Time will tell, but I smell a golden parachute coming down the pike.
And no one on the council had the stones to dig into this guy from a rural Colorado town who was an obvious DEI hire (the giveaway was in the other two candidates for the position). No one asked about LeeIII's junkets, his weird resignation, his expense account shenanigans; no one contrasted his administering a tiny-town's itty-bitty bureaucracy with Portland's bloat; no one questioned his inability to rise above cliches and happytalk; no one put the mayor through the wringer on how he managed to find this dude out in the windswept Colorado sugarbeet fields; no one wondered about the looney contract or the excessive pay--a half-million for a guy with no real record...it took a blogger to do this town's media digging.