Community Members Rail Against County Chair Deborah Kafoury For Calling Commissioner Loretta Smith a "Bitch"

Multnomah County Chair Deborah Kafoury listens to people complaining about her calling Commissioner Loretta Smith a 'Bitch" Doug Brown

More than two dozen Black Portland-area residents—including trailblazing former State Sen. Margaret Carter and Pastor Matt Hennessee, among other prominent community members—took to the microphone this morning to address County Chair Deborah Kafoury in the first county board meeting since she called Commissioner Loretta Smith a "bitch" on Dec. 21 during a heated exchanged at the end of the last board meeting.

Smith, notably, was not at the meeting today. She's apparantly sick.

Kafoury started the meeting by acknowledging the large crowd that signed up for public comment at the beginning of the meeting: 18 were on the list, instead of the usual four or five, but it ballooned up to 25 people speaking out against the comment by the end of the meeting.

Kafoury again apologized and said that "name calling has no place" in government, and called back to her public apology the day it happened, her private apology to Smith, and her apologetic email to county employees last week.

And then community members sounded off about the incident for nearly two hours.

Some urged reconciliation. Some demanded she resign today. Some were upset with the other three commissioners for not doing enough. Some were happy that Kafoury has apologized. A couple likened the comment to when President Donald Trump called Colin Kaepernick a "a son of a bitch" for peacefully protesting. All said the use of the word to Smith, who is Black, was insulting. One of Smith's staffers, at the very end of public comment, said Kafoury's created a "hostile" work environment.

"I want to register my deep concern for the chair's out-of-control, unprovoked verbal attack," said Marcia Hocker, who likened Kafoury's comment to Bill O'Reilly. The spat at the last meeting "did not justify the chair's degrading vulgar use of the b-word." She appreciated that Kafoury apologized.

Some speakers, like Bruce Broussard and Kenneth Doswell among others, highlighted the perceived racial connotations of the word "bitch."

Her use of the term, Doswell said, "was as insulting as it was racist" and it "demonstrates you're not fit to serve either as chair or as a member of this commission." He asked her to resign.

Broussard said Kafoury was "not a racist" but said "bitch" was a "loaded word" used against female slaves in the same way as the n-word.

Kafoury showed clear reverence when former Sen. Carter—the first Black women elected to the state legislature who's now 82—came to speak. She said Kafoury's apology showed courage, but "when you insult one women you insult all women." She said she fielded a lot of calls from Black women about the incident in the last two weeks and "I'm still shaking in my shoes" about Trump calling Kaepernick a "son of a bitch." The language, she said, is "so low, so degrading."

Pastor Hennessee told Kafoury "I appreciate your apology this morning" and that he "supports the comments of my brothers and sisters." He said "I love and support you, Chair Kafoury" and urged them to not "be distracted by an atmosphere of evil that permeates in politics." He didn't call for her to resign or for "further harm than what has already been done." He asked for "grace, mercy, mediation, and reconciliation.... If Dr. King can forgive Bull Connor and other leaders of division and hate, then so can we."

After everybody who originally signed up for public comment had their time, other commissioners made comments expressing their disagreement about the word. Commissioner Sharon Meieran was interrupted after expressing "I did not realize that this was a racially charged term" and vowed to never say "bitch" again. People in the audience audibly groaned, and more went up to speak out.

The final comment was pretty important. It was from George Hocker, a Smith advisor who says he went against Smith's wish to address Kafoury, and sounded like he was setting the foundation for a lawsuit.

Loretta Smith staffer George Hocker addresses chair Kafoury, who called his boss a bitch at the last meeting. pic.twitter.com/wjdwqviJhW

— doug brown (@dougbrown8) January 4, 2018

"Chair Kafoury, when you called Commissioner Smith a 'bitch,' and I was sitting there, you created a hostile environment for all of us who work at multnomah county, and particularly for all of us who work on the sixth floor—this is unconscionable behavior," Hocker said. He mentioned he knew about a woman who got a $6 million payout because of "hostile" environment. "A hostile environment is as detrimental to the success of the employees who work in this county as if someone was putting their hands on them.... I am extremely disappointed you other three commissioners who spoke this morning have not even mentioned Loretta Smith's name."