The long-delayed installation of parking meters in Northwest Portland will likely be postponed again - but for how long is unclear.

Portland's bribe-tainted meter contract is to blame.

City transportation officials said Monday they won't install hundreds of Cale America parking meters until more is known about the role that company leadership played in a now-infamous 2006 contract manipulated by former city parking manager Ellis McCoy.

"We may have to postpone installation," said Dylan Rivera, a transportation spokesman.

Meter installation had been scheduled to begin this month. But Rivera said officials will not move forward until Cale completes an outside investigation and city officials vet the findings.

"It could take weeks," he said. "It could take months."

Until recently, Portland officials thought they had largely moved past the fallout over the McCoy scandal, which peaked in 2011 when the FBI raided McCoy's office and home as part of a corruption investigation.

Federal prosecutors accused McCoy of taking bribes from George Levey, a Florida-based distributor of Cale meters. In response, Cale officials cut ties with Levey.

Despite the scandal, Commissioner Steve Novick in 2013 planned to keep buying Cale meters for Northwest Portland, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported at the time, arguing that the city got a good deal. But in the face of criticism, Novick backtracked and officials launched a competitive process in 2014.

Earlier this year, the City Council authorized an $11.9 million contract with Cale America to buy up to 1,000 new meters. In May, the city ordered 400 machines.

But just a few weeks later, in conjunction with a judge sentencing McCoy to two years in prison, prosecutors released decade-old emails showing that top Cale leaders had been sent emails detailing some of McCoy's contract shenanigans intended to benefit Cale.

Some of those same leaders were still involved with the company.

"We have concerns about whether Cale negotiated in good faith with the city," Rivera said.

The emails did not indicate that Cale officials were told about the bribes. No company official was accused of wrongdoing, but Cale did put two officials on leave pending its investigation.

Cale hired three outside law firms to conduct an investigation, Rivera said. The firms are Portland-based Cable Huston, Sweden-based Vinge and Norton Rose Fulbright in Canada.

"We really need to see the results of their investigation and evaluate it ourselves," Rivera said.

Rivera said city officials had been willing to move forward on meter installation if Cale would agree to put the city's money in an escrow account, with distribution dependent on the outcome of the investigation. But Rivera said company officials wouldn't agree to the arrangement.

Transportation officials earlier this year had warned of meter installation delays, not because of Cale but out of concern of disrupting shopping for businesses along Northwest 21st and 23rd avenues.

Officials decided to move forward with some meters. They took out a full-page advertisement in the July edition of a Northwest Portland community newspaper announcing that meters just off the main drags would "go live in late July."

But on Monday Rivera said city officials want to get all the information about Cale before moving forward, even if that means another delay.

"To us," he said, "the important thing is public trust."

-- Brad Schmidt

503-294-7628

@cityhallwatch