Commissioner Eudaly Staffer, Who Attended an Avocado-Toast Based Party With Portland Tenants United, Cleared of Wrongdoing By Elections Officer

Avocado toast at the Spaceroom Lounge Margot Black

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Did a key staffer for Commissioner Chloe Eudaly violate city rules by being too cozy with lobbyists? An anonymous complainer said so. The city elections officers says no.

The issue at hand: Whether Jamey Duhamel, Eudaly's policy director, had too much avocado toast at an impromptu Portland Tenants United (PTU) gathering at a Southeast Portland bar this summer. She was reported to the city by an unnamed landlord lobbyist accusing her of not disclosing the "gift" from the city.

City Elections Officer Deborah Scroggin, who runs the lobbyist registration program in the city auditor's office, notified Duhamel this afternoon that she was cleared of violating the city code that requires city officials to disclose when the receive gifts, including meals, over $25 from lobbying entities.

"I confirmed that expenses for the event, hosted and partially paid for by registered lobbying entity Portland Tenants United, were under the amount per person requiring disclosure by City Officials," Scroggin's letter says.

Margot Black, head of PTU, tells the Mercury she and PTU supporters headed to the Space Room Lounge on Hawthorne Ave in July. They were there to celebrate an Oregon judge's ruling against the landlord lobby in their push to dismantle the city's new renter relocation ordinance, which was strongly pushed by Eudaly and backed by PTU. The complainer found a picture of Duhamel there with PTU on Black's husband's Facebook account.

Jamey Duhamel, top right, at the Spaceroom Lounge with PTU Sammy Black

They had avocado toast at the bar, Black says, as a jokey reference to an Austrialian millionaire blaming millennials inability to afford homes on their avocado toast habits.

"If this is the best you guys got..." Black says about the anonymous complainer.

Eudaly was the subject of another complaint this winter, alleging she was wrongly meeting with PTU, "which is not properly registered as a lobbyist entity despite meeting the definition." After that, Black says, PTU registered as a lobbying entity with the city: "I didn't know that was a thing" PTU needed to do. "We weren't trying to break rules or sneak around, we just had no idea."