Maybe dignity no longer matters in politics. In the last year, Donald Trump has certainly lowered the bar. But it's still unsettling to watch Chloe Eudaly handle critiques of her freshman year on the Portland City Council.
A week ago, Jessica Floum, who covers City Hall for The Oregonian/OregonLive, reported on the formation of a 9-member communication team at the Bureau of Development Services, which Eudaly oversees.
Eudaly castigated the piece, especially a closing anecdote in which she was dismissive about the symbolism of the bureau's $800,000 communication team.
"Ah, nothing like waking up to an article that contains blatant misinformation about my office and bureau," Eudaly wrote on her personal Facebook page.
"Maybe Jessica Floum shouldn't have contacted me after her deadline, after 5 pm at the beginning of a holiday weekend if she genuinely wanted a response from me. She's really not sharp enough to be covering City Hall, then again, The Oregonian is irrelevant, so who cares I guess."
In truth, Floum alerted Eudaly's staff mid-morning, then texted her for comment at 4:05 p.m, not 5 p.m. In response, the commissioner demanded questions via e-mail so she could decide if it was "worth my while to respond."
The Oregonian/OregonLive published a correction detailing several mistakes in Floum's story, but I am still struck by Eudaly's disdain and cavalier vindictiveness.
It's not out of character, it turns out. In other Eudaly posts shared by freelance journalist Mike Bivins and other "friends," the commissioner:
- Calls an editor at Willamette Week "a bully and a troll," and insists the weekly wrote a piece on a "racist creep in order to associate me with him."
- Tips her hat on Oct. 30 to those who subsequently dumped malodorous top soil in Willamette Week's parking lot: "Not that I condone this kind of thing. But Jesus if you're going to unload shit across the entire city people are likely to respond in kind."
- Tells visitors to City Hall, "All I want for Xmas is for people to educate themselves before they come to Council ... (H)ow about not distracting from the real issues and wasting your time and ours with uninformed BS?"
- Invites critics to publicize her Facebook reflections: "Feel free to share, moles! P.S. You suck."
As Mary Beth Herkert, the state archivist, reminds us, sharing Eudaly's social media is most appropriate because the commissioner's "private" page is almost certainly public record.
"I don't know why you would talk about your job on Facebook," Herkert observed Thursday. But when public officials are discussing their work and it's not captured elsewhere by the agency or bureau, Herkert added, "You are creating a public record. And the minute you get comments back and forth, you really have a public record.
"It's called social media for a reason. By definition, you're putting it out for the public to know. It's a social tool."
Or, all too often in Eudaly's case, a decidedly anti-social one.
When I contacted Eudaly Wednesday for a better understanding of all this, she responded:
"If you're writing an article about how shoddy reporting is undermining public trust in media and government, I'm in. But if your premise is that no one can speak out against it because the media is sacred, forget it."
My premise? Thanks for asking. I have several.
I think the media is, like Eudaly, flawed. It's just not half as full of itself.
I believe the former bookstore owner rode a populist wave into office last November, rolling incumbent Steve Novick on the strength of her bravado and affordable housing concerns.
I suspect she's now living in an echo chamber of sycophants, frustrated by the tedium of expectation and ordinary people: As Eudaly complained at the end of October, "I didn't live in voluntary near poverty for over 22+ years in order to support independent media and serve my community to have people disparage and discredit my contributions."
I'm convinced she's struggling to deal with criticism, which is why Eudaly has stalked out of council chambers at least a half-dozen times rather than sit through what she terms "verbal abuse/irrelevant testimony."
And I'm guessing a vast majority of Portlanders can't wait for her to shelve the endless hubris and grow into this job.
-- Steve Duin
stephen.b.duin@gmail.com