slides: Inside Governor Kitzhaber’s State House - Newly Released Emails

Wednesday, September 09, 2015

GoLocalPDX News Team and Brendan Murray

The recent email dump by Governor Kate Brown’s office of more than 5,000 emails of Governor John Kitzhaber representing more than 18,000 pages is a new chapter in the Greek tragedy of “First Lady” Cylvia Hayes and former Governor John Kitzhaber.

The emails unveil a number of insights into the Governor’s priorities and his approach to governing. His tone is often deferential to his staff as well as outsiders and his priorities as weighted by his emails are overwhelmingly focused on environmental issues and healthcare.

Very few of the emails referred to economic development, education or initiatives to grow jobs in Oregon.

Certain insiders like some union officials and environmental business people had personal relationships and unfettered direct access to then Governor Kitzhaber. Of course, the emails unveil the lack of boundries between Hayes' business interests and the Governor's office, staff and resources. Some emails raise the issue if Hayes was part of the Governor's staff or if the Governor was working on behalf of Hayes' business.

BELOW IS A COLLECTION OF EMAILS SELECTED BY GOLOCAL EDITORS THAT UNVEIL SOME OF THE EMAIL DIALOGUE

“The release of these emails partially fulfills a number of outstanding public records requests; the Office of the Governor continues to review the more than 12,000 emails from this account, and it will produce additional emails in the near future. The [email protected] email address also used by former Governor Kitzhaber is presently the subject of litigation; emails from this account are not included in this production,” said the Governor’s release.

The emails reflect the period of early in 2011 (when the Governor's emails were captured and stored) through to 2012.

According to Governor Brown’s release, “Prior to August 2011, DAS state servers stored [email protected] emails only if they included a Governor’s Office employee. Today’s production includes only those emails stored on state servers, and therefore does not include all emails to or from the account prior to August 2011. Former Governor Kitzhaber’s legal counsel has been notified of the lack of archiving for this time period, and has committed to producing public records from that email account from that time frame to the Governor’s Office. Those records will be reviewed upon receipt by the Governor’s Office, and will be released as part of the additional productions from this account.”

Related Slideshow: Kitzhaber’s Emails - 10 Emails That Unveils the Culture

The thousands of pages of emails released on Tuesday September 8 show Governor John Kitzhaber's priorities (primarily sustainability/environment and healthcare issues), unveils his collaborative approach with his staff -- and show the lack of discretion and firewalls with Cylvia Hayes and her interests.

Prev Next

Union Busters

In an email from Duke Shepard, the Governor's aide claims the University of Oregon has employed a union busting out-of-state law firm.

According to the memo, the unions are complaining about the use of the firm.

Prev Next

Frohnmeyer

An email from staffer Greg Wolf to the Governor outlines (the now deceased) David Frohnmeyer was going to push the Governor to killl a local housing project.

The memo infers that the former Attorney General and President of the University of Oregon was motivated for family reasons.

Prev Next

Memo Supporting Project

This memo outlines why the Housing project is good public policy.

Prev Next

Hayes' Business

The email exchange between Micheal Northrup of the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation, one of Cylvia Hayes' funders, and Governor John Kitzhaber unveils the lack of boundries between Hayes' business interestests and access and involvement with Kitzhaber and his office.

Prev Next

SEIU Access

A series of emails unveiled that the political director of the SEIU had direct access to the Governor.

See Page 1 of the two page memo.

Arthur Towers, Political Director of SEIU was comfortable emailing the Governor directly.

Prev Next

Calling the Gov. Out

Towers was able to get his messages (no matter how blunt) directly to the Governor.

Prev Next

Political Memo

This memo from Adam Davis of DHM Research in Portland is the overview of a poll that outlines the dissatisfaction with the political system and support for public transportation and limited development.

Prev Next

System is Broken

This polling topline from DHM shows that 50% of those polled strongly believe the political system is broken and another 20% believe the system is somewhat broken.