A long line of Gresham police officers gathered Tuesday morning along one of the city’s busy commercial strips, applauding and exchanging hugs with a woman walking by.
It was Robin Sells, Gresham’s police chief, making her triumphant return in a show of solidarity and defiance.
Sells and her department emerged the victors in a bitter power struggle that gripped Oregon’s fourth-largest city last month. Political bedlam ensued after the deputy city manager and Sells hurled accusations of racism and incompetence. Longtime Mayor Shane Bemis, who had also clashed with Sells, allegedly maneuvered to take her out.
The chaos peaked when Gresham’s city manager, police chief and mayor all quit in the space of a week.
Reform proponents hoped this was Gresham’s Black Lives Matter moment, when it would adopt sweeping racial equity measures. Instead, the city’s “thin blue line” carried the day. After Bemis quit, Sells rescinded her retirement and returned as police chief.
It was a stunning setback for Bemis. The deep personal animosities inside city hall together with the simmering racial issues that came with greater diversity made for a combustible mix he was unable to control.
To believe Bemis, he was little more than a passive observer through those crazy weeks. He knew he was leaving soon and was content to let events unfold as they may.
There is an alternative narrative that is more complicated, a version of events some city leaders suspect but cannot prove: That Bemis helped create the chaos when he leaned on Sells to resign; that he offered the job of interim city manager to a city official on the condition that he fire Sells; and that Bemis finally quit because he was concerned that in his behind-the-scenes maneuvering he may have violated city rules.
Eddy Morales, a member of the city council since 2019, is among the proponents of that theory and one of the few who will voice it publicly. Morales, 40, said one of his goals when he ran was to end the “backroom deals” that he claimed were the norm under Bemis.
Bemis flatly rejects Morales’ accusation.
The ugly infighting has left much of the city troubled and wanting answers. Some are calling for an investigation into the events of the last three weeks, including Bemis’ role in the whole affair.
“I’ve been involved in Gresham city politics for 30 years and the last few weeks have been some of the most troubling in my political career,” said David Widmark, a member of the city council. “I want an investigation because we were kept in the dark. It’s a sad state of affairs. Until three weeks ago, this town was Mayberry.”
A city changed
Actually, Gresham stopped looking like the small town from 1960s television years ago.
As recently as 1990 it was a relatively small city on Portland’s eastern fringes, 92% white. It grew to become the economic hub of east Multnomah County, once a largely agricultural area known for its verdant fields of strawberries.
Many of those fields were long ago plowed over to make way for subdivisions and large warehouses. Major corporations including Albertsons, Honda and Staples built distribution centers here, attracted by cheap land and Gresham’s location near several major transportation corridors.
The population ballooned 60% over the last three decades as it became a relatively inexpensive alternative to Portland’s urban core.
And it grew into one of Oregon’s more diverse communities – today, one in five residents are Hispanic. The number of African Americans in Gresham has nearly tripled since 2000, now representing more than 5% of the city’s population. English is a second language for more than a quarter of residents.
The political infighting that roiled city hall last month is inextricably linked to those demographic changes, as the entrenched leaders inside city hall and the police department reckon with a community transforming all around them.
The operator
Bemis has been the face of Gresham for 18 years. A pro-business, moderate Republican, he’s become one of the most visible mayors in the state, often mentioned as a politician destined for bigger things.
Bemis says his departure from city government is simple. He needs to tend to personal business. He’ll help out with the family restaurant, an Italian place in Gresham’s charming downtown core. He also will spend more time with his three sons.
“I resigned for three reasons,” Bemis said in a recent interview. “This COVID has wreaked havoc on the restaurant business. The National Restaurant Association now says 85% of restaurants will fail by the first of the year. Also, I’ve got three kids at home ages 17, 15, and 9. They are at home raising themselves, sitting at home with no help from their parents.”
Lastly, Bemis said, he’s become convinced by the Black Lives Matter movement that it’s time for him to make way for other, new voices in city hall.
“I just couldn’t keep things going,” Bemis said. “It became untenable.”
Even Bemis’ friends wonder about that explanation. They ask why, if the family restaurant is facing an uncertain future, Bemis would give up a job with decent pay and great benefits?
The Bemis riddle becomes even more puzzling when you listen to him speak passionately about the need for racial justice and equal opportunity. On June 10, he led a “listening session” at City Hall with leaders of the African American community.
An emotional Bemis said “the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police offers us a great opportunity” to tackle police reform. “It’s unfortunate we didn’t launch this conversation a long time ago.”
The mayor promised that this first meeting was “the first of many.”
Bemis seemed the image of the engaged politician. Six days later, he quit.
Chaos arrives
There was nothing ordinary about 2020 even before the events of June. The coronavirus had infected thousands of Oregon and devastated the economy, which led to plunging tax revenue and major budget problems for the city. Then came the George Floyd killing and resulting protests all over the country. Activists marched through the streets of Gresham and neighboring Troutdale.
Corey Falls decided he could no longer remain silent.
A career cop, Falls came to Gresham from southern Oregon four years ago to join the police department. Two years ago, he left the police and became deputy city manager.
On June 8, he issued an internal letter claiming both city hall and Gresham’s police department were rife with racism.
"My reception into the city of Gresham has been at best dismal," Falls wrote. "It was very clear to me that those in (leadership) were not going to accept or support a black man in a leadership position."
"I would not be doing my job as city leader, African-American man and concerned community member if I did not shed light on current events and take these issues head on," Falls wrote. "I sit here today with a heavy heart."
"The black community is fully aware of problems in Gresham, and I am disappointed the city has moved so slowly through this process," Falls wrote.
The Gresham Outlook, the local newspaper, got a leaked copy of the letter and gave it big play.
Falls declined multiple requests for an interview.
The dominos fall
A day after Falls’ bombshell letter, his boss, Gresham City Manager Erik Kvarsten stunned city hall watchers when he abruptly announced his retirement. Though just 60, Kvarsten said he was ready for a change after 15years on the job. He gave 30 days notice.
While Bemis got the headlines, Kvarsten was responsible for overseeing the city’s various departments and its 500 employees.
On June 10, the city council held an emergency meeting to choose Kvarsten’s temporary replacement. Bemis made clear his preference was Steve Fancher, head of the city’s environmental services unit.
Morales immediately objected that Falls was the obvious choice. He was Kvarsten’s lieutenant, after all.
The matter was tabled.
Adding to the intrigue of recent events is the fact that several crucial minutes at the beginning of the June 10 meeting are not available on the city’s video recording. For at least some of the missing minutes, Bemis was addressing the council on the topic of Kvarsten’s replacement.
City officials blame the problem on a technical glitch.
Sells’ turn
The wild rollercoaster ride at the city took another loop-de-loop on June 11 when Sells announced her own retirement.
The accusations by Falls of endemic racism inside her department had cost her plenty of political capital. And then there was the ceramic gnome.
A running gag had developed in the department when officers took the chief’s gnome and photographed it in various locales, sometimes in costume. At an awards banquet months ago, Sells said it was time for the little statuette to be returned.
She closed the show with the line “Gnomes lives matter.”
The joke offended many. To Morales and others, it trivialized the Black Lives Matter movement and reflected the department’s dismissive stance.
The clash over messaging and symbols broadened.
This spring, some city residents were offended by a sticker on police cars: "Do you get nervous when we follow you? Follow us back," the sticker said.
The sticker was intended to encourage locals to visit the police department’s Facebook and Twitter pages. But after a long series of police killings of Black men, there was nothing humorous about the decal, critics said.
The car sticker war escalated on June 25 when a city employee drove to work with a sticker on his truck saying “All lives splatter… We don’t care about your protest.”
As reported by The Outlook, the sticker included the image of car running over three people. In several demonstrations since 2016, political adversaries have used their cars as weapons to take out demonstrators.
Who pressured Sells?
Bemis was no fan of Sells. In an op-ed published in the Outlook after he quit, Bemis said he has “long expressed concerns, publicly and privately, about municipal policing practices. Reform is needed. And we should expect action from law enforcement leadership…. If they are unwilling or unable to make the changes demanded by their community, they should step aside.”
But Bemis denies it was him who pressured Sells to quit.
Morales suspects otherwise. He claims that Bemis told Fancher that he would make sure he got the position of interim city manager, but only if he promised they would fire Sells.
Moreover, Morales claimed, the mayor met with Sells and told her that Morales and his progressive allies were determined to take her out.
Bemis does not dispute that he met with Sells and warned her that popular sentiment was increasingly against her. As for the rest of claims that he was pulling strings behind the scenes, “that’s just simply false.”
Sells did not respond to phone calls and emails. Likewise, the department’s public information office did not return calls. But in an email that went public, Sells made it clear that she felt pushed out.
“I truly wanted to ride this out, but in this day and age, somehow truth doesn’t matter, and I felt pressured to leave,” she said in message to her troops. “My departure has caused a huge divide between city hall and the police department – one that will take years to repair.”
Sells had a special message for Falls, her former police colleague who had leveled the first charges of prejudice and unfair treatment.
“Despite what you may have heard, I can flat guarantee you I am not a racist,” she wrote. “But I do abhor lazy people. (Falls) came here with great ideas and a great speech. But we did not see any results.”
Gresham cops lashed out after their chief’s departure.
Lori Stegmann, a former Gresham city council member and now a Multnomah County commissioner, was among those to receive a threatening message. “What you did to Chief Sells is reprehensible and will not be forgotten. You have awoken a sleeping giant and that was a fatal flaw to your political career. She has the integrity that you clearly lack. .”
The sender was Bob Dorsey, chaplain of the Gresham Police. Stegmann was mystified. She insists she played no role in Sells’ departure.
Dorsey could not be reached.
What now?
Gresham officials are trying hard to return to some semblance of normal. City council member Karylinn Echols was selected interim mayor.
City employees are bracing for cutbacks due to the city’s dire financial situation. The city manager and interim city manager positions remain vacant.
Gresham offers a valuable lesson for all cities, said Mary Fan, a law professor and expert on criminal law at the University of Washington. Black Lives Matter and racial equity are volatile topics. Throw in police reform and the discussion gets even more heated.
“Police reform in general is divisive,” Fan said. “The issue can be perceived as an attack on one’s identity. It’s intensely personal and polarizing. It can so quickly become a question of “are you with us or against us?”
As for Bemis, he said he’s eager to watch others take on those problems.
“There are whole bunch of really difficult, substantive issues that have to be handled,” he said. “It became clear that other voices had to be allowed into the political process.”