by Christy Solo – Editor
Shady Cove City Council held an open hearing Feb. 19. Per the announcement, “In accordance with ORS 192.660(2)(b), the council will hold an “open hearing” to consider the dismissal or disciplining of, or to hear complaints or charges brought against, a public officer (councilor).”
Initially the meeting had been scheduled as an executive session, however Councilor Paige Winfrey requested it be held as an open hearing. The executive session was cancelled and the hearing scheduled and notice posted.
Because charges brought against Winfrey revolved around information covered by attorney client privilege some of the evidence against her is not public record and could not fully be disclosed.
That coupled with the tense and complex nature of the hearing may have caused some of the facts to be lost in the shuffle for attendees.
We’ll cover the facts first, then cover how the meeting played out. The meeting can be viewed in full on Shady Cove’s website here.
Please note: The AI transcription accompanying the Zoom recording is not accurate. It is best to listen to the meeting and consider the “transcription” as more of a guide to the flow of the meeting overall.
The meeting began with city attorney Jeremy Green stating that over the past several months council has had several executive sessions wherein “attorney client privilege communications have been reviewed or discussed.”
Green then said that on Jan. 13, “this office was informed that Ms. Winfrey disclosed, or attempted to disclose, confidential information discussed during one or more council executive sessions.”
What was stated during the Feb. 19 hearing is that former city administrator Michele Parry’s attorney sent an email to Green stating Winfrey had disclosed confidential attorney client privileged information from executive session(s).
The email itself was shown to all council members but is not public record at this time. The email was initially shown to council during the Jan. 29 executive session which was attended by all five council members.
Additionally Winfrey disclosed attorney client privileged information to the Oregon Government Ethics Commission in her response regarding an ethics complaint filed against council in November. That statement is now public record as it was included in the dismissal packets for Councilors Jeff Vanier and Kathy Nuckles.
Note: Even the OGEC cannot force anyone to violate attorney client privilege absent a subpoena. Winfrey chose to give them the information without being subpoenaed, and without the approval of the full council.
Why the emphasis on “attorney client privilege” information versus just “giving out information from an executive session?”
If attorney client privilege is waived by the client, their attorney cannot represent them anymore and no other attorney will be willing to represent them. This could create very serious ramifications for the city.
That said, Green said that Winfrey had disclosed information without the approval of the full council. He then stressed, “to be clear, the purported disclosure did not result in a waiver of the city’s attorney client privilege. A waiver may only be obtained by a formal council action.”
Essentially the city is being given a first warning for these waivers and being advised leaks of confidential information must stop as per Green,” The disclosure arguably compromised the City’s ability to satisfactorily resolve the pending matters.”
In other words, it appears harm has already been done.
After Winfrey and council discussed the complaints and charges against Winfrey (which we’ll discuss more below) council was asked to come to a consensus on one of four courses of action.
- Do nothing
- Winfrey would receive education and training to “obtain a better understanding of her oath of office and obtain individualized training in education concerning her obligation to maintain confidentiality of attorney-client privilege.”
- Winfrey would receive education and be sanctioned. She would not be permitted to participate in any future executive sessions concerning matters related to or concerning the employment of former administrator Parry.
- Education, not permitted to attend executive sessions regarding Parry and would also not be able to attend executive sessions concerning the recruitment or employment of the city’s new city administrator.
The consensus was for option four, however the vote was not held until the 6 p.m. regular council meeting (see separate article covering that meeting in this week’s edition).
The flow of the meeting itself: Following Green’s opening statement Winfrey gave her statement then council was given the opportunity to make further statements, ask questions etc.
After that council took time to deliberate and reach the above consensus.
The discussion/deliberation portion of the meeting found everyone involved getting quite emotional and at times heated discussions arose, but Mayor Richardson, and in one instance Councilor Steve Mitchell, quickly called “point of order” and those who wanted to speak had their say.
For her part Winfrey didn’t flat out deny the allegations set forth in the email but said that she “disagreed” with it. She did say that follow up “verbal accusations from my three fellow councilors” made in the Jan. 29 executive session were “completely false.”
As those alleged accusations took place in executive session, whatever they were or might have been is not a matter of public record.
Later on in the meeting Winfrey did say she was “guilty as charged” regarding the disclosure of attorney client privileged information in her response to the OGEC. Adding “for doing the right thing.”
The bulk of Winfrey’s initial statement centered on her belief that she was “ambushed” in the Jan. 29 meeting and that she had not had sufficient time to “understand the accusations” against her between then and the Feb. 19 hearing.
She said she “finally” saw the email from Parry’s attorney Feb. 17. However, she also said she, along with all the other councilors, had seen the email Jan. 29 and that she read it as well as the accompanying “intimidating” document written by Green.
She said she’d asked for printed copies of the email and had been denied and feels that per “due process, I have a right to see the evidence against me.”
Note: Per the Oregon Supreme Court due process (AKA Loudermill Rights) is applicable for government employees faced with termination or consequences. Winfrey is not a government employee, but an unpaid elected official.
Nonetheless due process was met as the requirements under Loudermill are that the employee must receive:
- A written notice of the charges.
- A notice of the kinds of sanctions being considered.
- An informal opportunity for the employee to refute the charges orally or in writing.
All three of these requirements were met in Winfrey’s case, though again they were not required.
Note also that “supporting documents” (i.e. the email Winfrey requested) are not part of the requirements for “due process.” The email falls under attorney client privilege and is not a public document. While councilors read the document in the executive session no one was allowed to take documents out of that meeting.
Winfrey continued saying the process was “not fair” as council had access to the city’s attorney and felt that it all came about due to a “well-known desire for me to be gone because I push boundaries.”
She closed by saying she felt the meeting and accusations were a “coordinated attack” and were “simply an attempt to intimidate me and get rid of me.”
As for questions from council; Councilor Vanier asked Green if there were “any videos or audio from your informant with this confidential information.”
Note: The email is not “confidential” Vanier has seen it and knows the “informant” is in fact Parry’s attorney. The email is, however, not public record.
Green replied to Vanier, saying there is no audio or video, but there is the email “which you’re aware of.”
Later Vanier accused “the media” of leaking the confidential information from the executive sessions in an apparent further attempt to muddy the waters. (we further address this in this week’s Editorial from the URI staff).
Nuckles attempted to establish a pattern of Winfrey’s behavior of working closely with Parry at the expense of the city by exemplifying emails from Parry to “external organizations” such as the Teamsters and a PR person “paid for by the city” to “get out [Parry’s] one-sided story.” Nuckles clarified that only Winfrey and no other council members were CC’d on those emails.
Winfrey said Parry had CC’d her because she “wanted a record” of those emails but “It doesn’t mean I was involved in those.”
Note: All the emails are public record by default as they were sent from Parry’s official city account.
Nuckles said she felt Winfrey should have advised the other members of council about Parry’s actions as the emails were “a red flag that something bad was brewing” and harm to the city could’ve have been prevented.
Nuckles also cited emails directly between Winfrey and Parry where the two worked together back and forth crafting individual statements they would each read to council (each statement written via AI, one by Grok, one by ChatGPT).
In one email Winfrey suggested that some of the statements Parry wrote via Grok AI (there were multiple iterations) could be modified “as letters from the public stating their frustration and mistrust of what has been done.”
Note: All of these emails are public record as well, having been sent from Winfrey and Parry’s official city accounts.
Nuckles concluded that she initially “truly wanted to believe that [Winfrey] inadvertently disclosed” confidential information, but in light of the evidence, at this point was instead looking for “some sense of remorse” from Winfrey.
Winfrey had no response to this last statement.
Council then moved on to deliberations. Vanier said he wanted to go with option three, Richardson, Mitchell and Nuckles wanted option four. So the consensus was for option four to be included in the resolution at the 6 p.m. meeting.
See our separate article on the Feb. 19 regular city council meeting in this edition.
