From a governance perspective, the optics here are striking: an unelected administrator signing an agreement that directs city staff to advocate the opposite of what a unanimously elected Council had previously voted for. Even if legally permissible, that is the sort of action that invites scrutiny under the new charter because it tests where executive administration ends and legislative policymaking begins.
He has barely lived in Portland months--I don't think his mandate is to overturn previous policy approved by the Council. I'd like Raymond Lee to get the budget under control and demonstrate he has the fortitude to make hard choices to reduce the cost of city government. Then let him flex his muscles.
As a resident of Willamette Heights close to Forest Park, i would like to say I don’t have enough expletives to express my dismay and frustration at this decision. PGE has enough corporate funds to run their lines on a safer route without endangering thousands of lives and properties, and it can be done without raising our exorbitant fees. Why, oh why, do city, state, and federal governing bodies continue to bow to corporations and their boards in manners that go directly against the good and safety of the public? Greed!
So much for "good government reform." We were promised a professional City Administrator would fix City Hall's dysfunction. Instead we got the same bureaucratic arrogance with a new org chart.
The Council voted 12-0 to reject this project. Twelve to zero. Neighborhood associations, the Forest Park Conservancy, Bird Alliance of Oregon, and even city staff's own testimony opposed it. Yet now, the City Administrator secretly signs an agreement committing staff to recommend approval of essentially the same project.
The deal is as bad. And the process, which involved the City and PGE cutting the environmental intervenors out of the discussion, may be worse
This is the culture critics have complained about for years: unelected staff deciding they know better than the Council and the public, and simply working around a decision until they get the outcome they wanted all along. If a 12-0 vote isn't "policy direction," what is?
And where were the three dozen public engagement staff this city employs, whose entire job is making sure resident input matters, while this was happening? Or is "engagement" just theater we perform until staff can maneuver around the result?
The fine print about the Hearings Officer and Council retaining final say doesn't change the intent: staff has told PGE, in writing, it will advocate for a project Portlanders' elected representatives unanimously rejected. That's not a neutral process. It's bureaucracy substituting its own judgment and hoping nobody notices before the Hearings Officer signs off.
If the new form of government just means the same insular decision-making with a different name on top, the reform accomplished nothing. Portlanders deserve an on-the-record explanation from Mr. Lee for why this agreement was signed at all, and why clear City Council direction and opposition to the project was ignored.
This email was received five minutes ago from Drew Hanson, communications manager for PGE:
Hi Allan,
Given the urgency of the Harborton Reliability Project, PGE and the City of Portland have agreed that PGE will submit a new land use application that includes additional details and information about the project’s need to maintain reliable electric service to Portland customers, and commitments to additional environmental mitigation and restoration that broadly enhance the park. The updated application will be filed later this week and will go through the established land use review process.
For some reason, PGE's statement leaves out several important facts.
1. The project isn't just about reliability. It is also tied to serving the rapidly expanding data center industry in Hillsboro, a development that has generated growing public concern. Voters recently defeated an incumbent state senator whose support for data center tax breaks became a major campaign issue.
2. There is a reasonable alternative. PGE's own consultants identified another route, but PGE chose not to pursue it. Instead, the company has increased its mitigation package by another $3 million (bringing the total to $5 million), apparently hoping that additional funding will resolve the controversy.
The problem is that mitigation for impacts to wetlands and other environmentally sensitive areas is extraordinarily expensive, and $5 million is inadequate to fully address those impacts. Moreover, under the proposed agreement (see Sections 4.A and 4.B), PGE retains broad discretion over what restoration work is ultimately undertaken. The public should not assume sufficient mitigation will automatically occur. Because it won't.
3. This is only the first phase of a much larger project. PGE acknowledges that additional phases are planned, yet continues to characterize them as separate projects that need not be fully disclosed now. That approach prevents the public from evaluating the cumulative impacts on Forest Park and surrounding natural resources. Before any approvals are granted, PGE should present the full scope of its long-term plans. Not just the first piece (see previous OPB reporting below).
The bottom line is that the proposed agreement is heavily weighted in PGE's favor while asking the public to accept significant environmental impacts without a complete picture of what lies ahead. It is difficult to understand why the City administration would agree to recommend approval under those circumstances.
*****************************************
As OPB previously reported:
Fogarty said opponents to the Harborton project are also concerned about what PGE might do next. Future phases of the project could involve another 15 acres of the park to provide electricity to data centers in Hillsboro.
“Those phases are separate projects” from what’s presently in the works, said PGE’s Franks. The company has identified a need and is working through its options, he said. But he was not able to say when PGE might proceed with more work in Forest Park. “They are very early in planning stages and so those time frames are well out into the future,” he said.
That vagueness has worried conservationists, and bolstered opposition to the current effort.
“We’ve reached out to PGE many times to see what their future plans are, and we haven’t really gotten a response,” said Fogarty with the Forest Park Conservancy. “That is the crux of the issue. We don’t know."
It looks uncomfortably like a veto, coming while the ink is still wet on a unanimous, widely supported city council referendum. I thought that he was looking at making recommendations to council re. City code which is increasingly set aside in ordinances and emergency proclamations. Promulgating yet another work around that excludes residents from opportunities for input is not a good look and moving in the wrong direction. It’s “Settle in the back seat and enjoy the scenery; father knows best.”
In 2024, the Sierra Club argued that the new transmission lines likely have nothing to do with "keeping the lights on" and everything to do with the needs of data centers. "...data centers consume 10% of Oregon's electricity and that could double in the next five years. Meanwhile, energy efficiency measures have mostly stabilized residential energy demand." Not coincidentally, I imagine, the Oregon Public Utility Commission just approved a 29% rate increase on data centers and a 1.3% decrease in residential rates, along with slightly lower rates on small business. Linking clear cuts with lower rates for the general public?
One possible explanation is that the City Attorney concluded there was a meaningful risk that the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals would overturn or remand the City Council’s denial. Rather than risk losing outright, the City may have determined that negotiating a settlement was the better outcome because it secured additional environmental protections, $5.5 million in funding from PGE, and avoided further litigation. Since the appeal was settled before LUBA issued a decision, the public does not know how the City Attorney assessed the City’s chances of prevailing. I find it hard to believe the City Administrator would effectively bypass the unanimous City Council unless the City’s legal advisers concluded there was a compelling legal reason to change course.
I would assume the City Attorney advised the Council before its unanimous vote. However, the situation may have changed after PGE filed its appeal with LUBA, which occurred after the Council’s vote. The parties then spent months in mediation, during which PGE submitted additional technical and environmental information and agreed to enhanced mitigation. It’s possible that this new information, combined with the City’s assessment of its litigation risk, led the City to change course. Just because the City Council took a strong vote in opposition does not mean state land use law couldn’t require the City to reconsider its decision.
My point is that it’s unrealistic to assume the City Administrator simply went rogue. I find it hard to believe he would have signed this agreement without the concurrence of the City Attorney and the Mayor. It could also be that, after reviewing the additional information developed during mediation, the City concluded PGE had made a stronger case for the need to upgrade the transmission system and that the project should proceed with enhanced environmental protections. I suspect we’re missing part of the story.
It will be interesting to see what happens if this makes its way back to the Council. I’m not claiming to know what happened; I’m simply suggesting there are plausible explanations, and that the City Administrator was likely acting based on legal advice and what he believed to be in the City’s best interests.
Thanks. Regarding mediation, it essentially failed, and then excluding the intervenors (Forest Park Conservancy etc, who were involved in mediation), the city and PGE cut this deal directly.
It sounds like it goes back to the council with a yes recommendation as part of the deal. It will be interesting to watch. The council rejected the prior hearing officer’s decision which had approved the application.
The initial recommendation of BDS staff will go to the Land Use Hearings Officer. An appeal of that decision—which could be a denial is what will be before Council.
Is this the same City Attorney who decided that Keith Wilson doesn’t have a tie-breaking vote when the Council is gridlocked at 6 to 6?
And is this the same City Administrator Keith Wilson enthusiastically hired after he abruptly left his last administrative job in a small Colorado town with a non disclosure agreement?
That’s a critique of the people involved, not an explanation of why the City entered into the agreement. I’m more interested in understanding the legal and factual basis for the decision than speculating about personalities.
From a governance perspective, the optics here are striking: an unelected administrator signing an agreement that directs city staff to advocate the opposite of what a unanimously elected Council had previously voted for. Even if legally permissible, that is the sort of action that invites scrutiny under the new charter because it tests where executive administration ends and legislative policymaking begins.
This news is an outrage and violates the open process enacted by the original council's
unanimous agreement ! This cannot be allowed to stand.
Jere Grimm
I was afraid that this might not over; yet another Portland zombie project.
"I know we're not going to always agree, but as long as we have the best interests of the community, we can figure out the details.”
- Raymond C, Lee III, December 2025
He has barely lived in Portland months--I don't think his mandate is to overturn previous policy approved by the Council. I'd like Raymond Lee to get the budget under control and demonstrate he has the fortitude to make hard choices to reduce the cost of city government. Then let him flex his muscles.
Per Ollie's note, what is the 'City of Portland'? Is it not the City Council? Are they gonna reject it again? Not sure what this means.
As a resident of Willamette Heights close to Forest Park, i would like to say I don’t have enough expletives to express my dismay and frustration at this decision. PGE has enough corporate funds to run their lines on a safer route without endangering thousands of lives and properties, and it can be done without raising our exorbitant fees. Why, oh why, do city, state, and federal governing bodies continue to bow to corporations and their boards in manners that go directly against the good and safety of the public? Greed!
Don Booth
So much for "good government reform." We were promised a professional City Administrator would fix City Hall's dysfunction. Instead we got the same bureaucratic arrogance with a new org chart.
The Council voted 12-0 to reject this project. Twelve to zero. Neighborhood associations, the Forest Park Conservancy, Bird Alliance of Oregon, and even city staff's own testimony opposed it. Yet now, the City Administrator secretly signs an agreement committing staff to recommend approval of essentially the same project.
The deal is as bad. And the process, which involved the City and PGE cutting the environmental intervenors out of the discussion, may be worse
This is the culture critics have complained about for years: unelected staff deciding they know better than the Council and the public, and simply working around a decision until they get the outcome they wanted all along. If a 12-0 vote isn't "policy direction," what is?
And where were the three dozen public engagement staff this city employs, whose entire job is making sure resident input matters, while this was happening? Or is "engagement" just theater we perform until staff can maneuver around the result?
The fine print about the Hearings Officer and Council retaining final say doesn't change the intent: staff has told PGE, in writing, it will advocate for a project Portlanders' elected representatives unanimously rejected. That's not a neutral process. It's bureaucracy substituting its own judgment and hoping nobody notices before the Hearings Officer signs off.
If the new form of government just means the same insular decision-making with a different name on top, the reform accomplished nothing. Portlanders deserve an on-the-record explanation from Mr. Lee for why this agreement was signed at all, and why clear City Council direction and opposition to the project was ignored.
This email was received five minutes ago from Drew Hanson, communications manager for PGE:
Hi Allan,
Given the urgency of the Harborton Reliability Project, PGE and the City of Portland have agreed that PGE will submit a new land use application that includes additional details and information about the project’s need to maintain reliable electric service to Portland customers, and commitments to additional environmental mitigation and restoration that broadly enhance the park. The updated application will be filed later this week and will go through the established land use review process.
For some reason, PGE's statement leaves out several important facts.
1. The project isn't just about reliability. It is also tied to serving the rapidly expanding data center industry in Hillsboro, a development that has generated growing public concern. Voters recently defeated an incumbent state senator whose support for data center tax breaks became a major campaign issue.
2. There is a reasonable alternative. PGE's own consultants identified another route, but PGE chose not to pursue it. Instead, the company has increased its mitigation package by another $3 million (bringing the total to $5 million), apparently hoping that additional funding will resolve the controversy.
The problem is that mitigation for impacts to wetlands and other environmentally sensitive areas is extraordinarily expensive, and $5 million is inadequate to fully address those impacts. Moreover, under the proposed agreement (see Sections 4.A and 4.B), PGE retains broad discretion over what restoration work is ultimately undertaken. The public should not assume sufficient mitigation will automatically occur. Because it won't.
3. This is only the first phase of a much larger project. PGE acknowledges that additional phases are planned, yet continues to characterize them as separate projects that need not be fully disclosed now. That approach prevents the public from evaluating the cumulative impacts on Forest Park and surrounding natural resources. Before any approvals are granted, PGE should present the full scope of its long-term plans. Not just the first piece (see previous OPB reporting below).
The bottom line is that the proposed agreement is heavily weighted in PGE's favor while asking the public to accept significant environmental impacts without a complete picture of what lies ahead. It is difficult to understand why the City administration would agree to recommend approval under those circumstances.
*****************************************
As OPB previously reported:
Fogarty said opponents to the Harborton project are also concerned about what PGE might do next. Future phases of the project could involve another 15 acres of the park to provide electricity to data centers in Hillsboro.
“Those phases are separate projects” from what’s presently in the works, said PGE’s Franks. The company has identified a need and is working through its options, he said. But he was not able to say when PGE might proceed with more work in Forest Park. “They are very early in planning stages and so those time frames are well out into the future,” he said.
That vagueness has worried conservationists, and bolstered opposition to the current effort.
“We’ve reached out to PGE many times to see what their future plans are, and we haven’t really gotten a response,” said Fogarty with the Forest Park Conservancy. “That is the crux of the issue. We don’t know."
No kings.
Allan should join Bojack and get interested in Raymond Lee.
This is illegal, isn't it?, how can this be allowed!!? Fire him and give him a big severance package...
So what can we do to stop this!!?
It looks uncomfortably like a veto, coming while the ink is still wet on a unanimous, widely supported city council referendum. I thought that he was looking at making recommendations to council re. City code which is increasingly set aside in ordinances and emergency proclamations. Promulgating yet another work around that excludes residents from opportunities for input is not a good look and moving in the wrong direction. It’s “Settle in the back seat and enjoy the scenery; father knows best.”
Omnipotent busy bodies never sleep. Looks like Mr Lee wants attention or perhaps a severance package.
In 2024, the Sierra Club argued that the new transmission lines likely have nothing to do with "keeping the lights on" and everything to do with the needs of data centers. "...data centers consume 10% of Oregon's electricity and that could double in the next five years. Meanwhile, energy efficiency measures have mostly stabilized residential energy demand." Not coincidentally, I imagine, the Oregon Public Utility Commission just approved a 29% rate increase on data centers and a 1.3% decrease in residential rates, along with slightly lower rates on small business. Linking clear cuts with lower rates for the general public?
One possible explanation is that the City Attorney concluded there was a meaningful risk that the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals would overturn or remand the City Council’s denial. Rather than risk losing outright, the City may have determined that negotiating a settlement was the better outcome because it secured additional environmental protections, $5.5 million in funding from PGE, and avoided further litigation. Since the appeal was settled before LUBA issued a decision, the public does not know how the City Attorney assessed the City’s chances of prevailing. I find it hard to believe the City Administrator would effectively bypass the unanimous City Council unless the City’s legal advisers concluded there was a compelling legal reason to change course.
One would think that the city attorney had ample opportunity to opine before the council voted 12-0- and probably did.
I would assume the City Attorney advised the Council before its unanimous vote. However, the situation may have changed after PGE filed its appeal with LUBA, which occurred after the Council’s vote. The parties then spent months in mediation, during which PGE submitted additional technical and environmental information and agreed to enhanced mitigation. It’s possible that this new information, combined with the City’s assessment of its litigation risk, led the City to change course. Just because the City Council took a strong vote in opposition does not mean state land use law couldn’t require the City to reconsider its decision.
My point is that it’s unrealistic to assume the City Administrator simply went rogue. I find it hard to believe he would have signed this agreement without the concurrence of the City Attorney and the Mayor. It could also be that, after reviewing the additional information developed during mediation, the City concluded PGE had made a stronger case for the need to upgrade the transmission system and that the project should proceed with enhanced environmental protections. I suspect we’re missing part of the story.
It will be interesting to see what happens if this makes its way back to the Council. I’m not claiming to know what happened; I’m simply suggesting there are plausible explanations, and that the City Administrator was likely acting based on legal advice and what he believed to be in the City’s best interests.
Thanks. Regarding mediation, it essentially failed, and then excluding the intervenors (Forest Park Conservancy etc, who were involved in mediation), the city and PGE cut this deal directly.
Like I mentioned, it will be interesting to watch if this makes it back to the City Council.
It sounds like it goes back to the council with a yes recommendation as part of the deal. It will be interesting to watch. The council rejected the prior hearing officer’s decision which had approved the application.
The initial recommendation of BDS staff will go to the Land Use Hearings Officer. An appeal of that decision—which could be a denial is what will be before Council.
Is this the same City Attorney who decided that Keith Wilson doesn’t have a tie-breaking vote when the Council is gridlocked at 6 to 6?
And is this the same City Administrator Keith Wilson enthusiastically hired after he abruptly left his last administrative job in a small Colorado town with a non disclosure agreement?
Asking for a friend.
That’s a critique of the people involved, not an explanation of why the City entered into the agreement. I’m more interested in understanding the legal and factual basis for the decision than speculating about personalities.