Do we really want our public policy made by calls from out of town big wigs, straight up conflicts of interest, and big money deals made in the Portland equivalent of smoke filled rooms? Airbnb had applied pressure on city officials—records show the company spent $47,000 lobbying City Hall this year. Airbnb sweetened the courtship by announcing in March it would locate 160 jobs and its national call center in Portland. (It’s now 220 jobs.) The deal also looked cozy: Hales’ daughter, Katelyn, was dating Airbnb’s chief mapmaker. [...] On Dec. 4, Hales got a call from David Plouffe, Uber’s senior vice president of policy and strategy. Plouffe ran Barack Obama’s upstart 2008 presidential campaign, then spent two years as a senior White House adviser. Uber looked on its city-by-city effort to overcome regulators as if it were a political campaign and in August hired Plouffe for his expertise. [...] On Dec. 13, a Saturday, Hales, Novick and three staffers sat down at a dining-room table in the Eastmoreland home of political consultant Mark Wiener. Wiener had helped get Hales and Novick elected, and Uber officials turned to him to see if he might broker a deal. Across the table sat Steger, the Uber general manager, and Caitlin O’Neill, a company policy adviser. For more context, see the City of Portlands code of ethics and see how many flagrant violations you can spot: portlandonline/Auditor/index.cfm?c=28153
Posted on: Sat, 03 Jan 2015 20:21:43 +0000
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