A Portland commission tasked with helping steer more city contracts to women and minorities issued a vote of no confidence against the city three weeks ago.

That vote, however, was hidden from public scrutiny by city officials.

It wasn't until Wednesday that the city released records from an explosive Feb. 18 public meeting - and only in response to questions from The Oregonian/OregonLive. The disclosure came after a city bureau director told commission members that he alone was authorized to speak on behalf of the group.

The dust-up marks the third time in recent months that two separate city committees created to tackle inequities have instead voiced concerns about leadership. Videos of recent meetings and other documents make clear that the city's Equitable Contracting and Purchasing Commission remains deeply fed up with Portland's slow progress to provide meaningful data or address inequities.

What's more, members of the nine-member panel feel ignored by top city officials including chief administrator Fred Miller, purchasing director Christine Moody and Mayor Charlie Hales. The revelations call into question how seriously Portland officials are committed to tackling systemic barriers that limit opportunities for communities of color.

Bryant Enge, director of the city's Bureau of Internal Business Services. Beth Nakamura/Staff

Portland's Office of Management & Finance acknowledged Wednesday that officials purposely held back video -- and written minutes -- from the Feb. 18 meeting. That decision was made by Bryant Enge, director of the city's Bureau of Internal Business Services, who serves as chairman of the commission.

"At that time, the commission was still in its infancy, and the video does not show the commissioners in the best light," Jen Clodius, a city spokeswoman, wrote in an email Wednesday. "Bryant decided not to post any more videos" until after the commission meets for a retreat next week.

The commission has held seven meetings and the past three have been recorded with members' knowledge.

And yet tensions clearly boiled over last month, the newly released video shows, with the conversation regularly taking aim at city leadership.

Andrew Colas, a commission member and chief operating officer of Colas Construction, went off at the end of the nearly two-hour meeting.

"I don't need to convince anybody here that there's a big problem," he said.

"Right now, they've got us sitting here wasting our time," Colas continued. "We're not getting the respect of a city commission, anyway. Christine Moody hasn't shown up to one of these meetings. Fred came to one of these meetings and he completely could care less about anybody that was here."

Colas kept going. He called on commission members to channel their collective power by writing concerns on letterhead and delivering that message to the City Council.

"That's power," he said, snapping his fingers. "I promise you, immediately, we would have a reaction from every single commissioner, we would have a reaction from the mayor, and we would actually get something done. That's what we need to do."

At that point, Maurice Rahming, president of O'Neill Electric, called on the board to vote no confidence in the city's procurement process. Members immediately voted in support, with no discussion, according to the video. Colas abstained.

There's no mention of the vote in city minutes.

After the vote, Colas offered support for Enge and warned that Enge might be fired as a "sacrificial lamb" if he delivered the message to Miller. Colas worried about losing leadership from Enge, one of Portland's rare African American bureau directors.

At that point, two commission members called for Enge to resign so he could avoid being in such a difficult position.

"This meeting has been adjourned," Enge quickly announced.

Minutes for the meeting make no mention of the call for Enge to resign.

Those omissions, coupled with city officials' decision to sit on the video, are noteworthy. At the February meeting, commissioner Tony Jones of the Metropolitan Improvement Partnership explicitly called on Portland to do a better job with minutes so the public could understand what happens at meetings.

Various commissioners, reached by The Oregonian/OregonLive in recent days, declined to comment.

Their quiet comes even after Enge instructed members to expect media calls. He told members that the city couldn't censor them but that it was his job, as chairman, to speak on behalf of the commission.

Enge didn't respond to a request for comment Wednesday about holding back records from the meeting. Beyond the city's initial statement to The Oregonian/OregonLive, neither did a spokeswoman for the Office of Management & Finance nor Hales' spokeswoman.

Hales personally pushed to create the committee in February 2015. But as concerns have mounted in recent months, commission members were told by Enge that Hales had a busy schedule and it might be easier to instead meet with Hales' chief of staff, Josh Alpert, before next week's retreat.

Alpert in a statement said the commission hasn't received the level of direction he expected because the mayor's office has been focused on housing and homelessness. But Alpert said he recently met with some members and all sides are "back on course."

Portland "needs and values" the commission, he added.

The spectacle of February's meeting followed months of frustration by commission members who complained that they were in some cases stonewalled and hampered from taking action. Commissioners requested data about contracting numbers but didn't find the city especially responsive.

Miller attended a meeting in November. He did little to ease concerns about a 2015 city audit that slammed city purchasing for diluting efforts to help minorities and women, and poor reporting on progress.

In January, the commission wrote a letter to Hales saying that members were repeatedly left out of discussions that fell squarely under their mandate. They pointed to a proposed $195 million overhaul of the Portland Building and a $57 million plan to build a drinking-water pipeline underneath the Willamette River.

Commission members said they need to be included earlier in decisions, when concerns can be taken seriously. Otherwise, they were "little more than window dressing on decisions that the City has already made" and they could not "fulfill our legislative mandate."

Improving equity in contracting has long been a city goal, dating to Mayor Vera Katz's administration. A 2011 city report, called a disparity study, found that during a five-year period Portland awarded nearly $875 million in construction contracts.

Of that, just 2.8 percent of the money went to firms owned by minorities.

Numbers from the 2014 fiscal year showed some improvement, according to meeting records. Out of $100 million in contracts, 7.5 percent of the money went to minority-owned businesses.

But the issue remains a problem. During Wednesday's City Council meeting, for instance, Commissioner Amanda Fritz dug into the paltry sum going to minority contractors for a sewer project.

"It's only $4,283," she said, "out of $9 million."

-- Brad Schmidt

503-294-7628

@cityhallwatch