July 14, 2005
(Updated) Bradley F. Tellam's Curious Ideas On Ethics
(He's The 'Investigator' Who Cleared PDC Chair)
Note: This post has been updated. Any and all updates appear at the end of the original post.
In a town this size, it'd always prudent to do some Googling when names you don't recognize show up in the stories you're following. In this case, the name at issue is Bradley F. Tellam, the attorney who earlier this week presented a two-paragraph memo exonerating PDC Chair Matt Hennessee from exerting undue influence over contracts.
At the core of it, Tellam was charged with conducting an ethics investigation. So we find it curious where he's positioned himself on the issue of ethics in the past.
According to a September, 2004, column by Steve Duin, Tellam served as the attorney for a pair of lawyers from Ater Wynne after that firm suddenly went from working with the City of Portland on its PGE acquisition plans to working with Texas Pacific Group on its PGE acquisition plans.
Now, while it's true that the Oregon State Bar, two months ago, dismissed the complaints against those attorneys, it certainly wasn't because it had been determined there were no ethical lapses at work.
"It is difficult to believe that the Ater Wynne attorneys worked for the city for over a year without obtaining a single confidence or secret that could have been used against the city's interest in the PUC proceeding," the bar stated in its summary of the case. "However we have no way of knowing what those confidences or secrets were."
The bar reserved the right to open another ethics probe into the matter when city officials are no longer bound by the confidentiality agreement.
Yes, you're reading all of this correctly. Tellam, who represented some attorneys who fairly clearly were playing with ethical fire, was put in charge of an ethics investigation at PDC.
Not especially reassuring, and all the more reason why the Portland Development Commission together with Barran Liebman (Tellam's firm) need to release the actual documentation for Tellam's investigation, rather than merely a two-paragraph memo which doesn't actually tell us anything.
(Incidentally, for those following the bouncing ball of Portland's two degrees of separation: One of the reasons Ater Wynne decided it had to pull out of working with the City? They had a professional connection to Neil Goldschmidt -- who himself, of course, had a relationship with Texas Pacific Group.)
For those who will make some noise that we're somehow "reaching" to make a story, we should say this: We're not trying to make anything, except a rather crucial point which PDC continually misses. Namely, that the only way to avoid this sort of questioning is to fulfill the promises for increased transparency.
Releasing say-nothing memorandums and calling them "reports" which don't prove anything, which don't actually demonstrate how the conclusions were reached, just doesn't cut it. Show us, don't tell us, and perhaps the questions will stop.
July 14th, 2005 Update
Here's another one, found entirely through the archives of Willamette Week. Back in 2001, Tellam represented Charles Ball, a prosecutor for the District Attorney, in an ethics investigation by the Oregon State Bar.
Later that same year, a disciplinary board of the Bar moved to prosecute Ball for "conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice."
Still later the same year, the Bar released a complaint against Ball "for saying in court that documents didn't exist, when in fact they did."
We haven't yet found anything on what happened to the case after that last article, but our point is just to underscore the original post here.
If PDC and Tellam had released an actual report demonstrating how the dots did not connect regarding Hennessee and certain contracts, we wouldn't now have to be poking around in Tellam's past to discover that he seems to represent people who clearly get themselves into ethics trouble, which, as we said, doesn't reassure us of his judgement when conducting an investigation at PDC.
July 14th, 2005 Update
One other hanging chad in this story: Notice how The Oregonian story on Wednesday's PDC session refers to Tellam's "report" and never once mentions that it consisted entirely of a two-paragraph memo.
Unless reporter Ryan Frank somehow got additional material. But since Martha Richmond of PDC told us that the memo was all there was, and since Frank himself says that Tellam wouldn't answer his questions, nor would Matt Baines, PDC's interim counsel, it would seem safe to assume that he had nothing more than the same two-paragraphs of nothing that the rest of us have.
Comments (10)
Jack Bog on 14 Jul 2005
Brad Tellam represents lawyers who are accused of wrongdoing. Some of his clients are scum, others are pure. I even hired him once myself (judge for yourself which I was). He's a Steve Houze-type defender, only for lawyers. So it's no surprise that his name is on a bunch of ethics complaint defenses -- it's to be expected. If you dig around, you'll find dozens, probably hundreds, of such cases.
But opining on government ethics is quite a different matter.
The fact that he was hired by the PDC in the same sort of no-bid contract that he was supposed to investigate is, not to put too fine a point on it, funny. And the Ater connection -- well, it's about one degree of separation from You-Know-Who, the Godfather himself, to whom the Hennessee-Mazziotti PDC leadership all owed their positions. Let's be glad that we have but 17 more days of that to live through.
The One True b!X on 14 Jul 2005
Well, the thing that got me was this bit from the Duin column:
Which, for me anyway, sort of sent up a flare, suggesting that Tellam's concern might appear to be with hair-splitting in cases which clearly don't even pass the basic ethical smell test.
Worldwide Pablo on 14 Jul 2005
b!X:
You are completely out of your league here.
We know all of these characters. There are some first-rate people here, completely undeserving of your post's tone and content. One day it will all make sense, which is exactly how a fair and equitable justice system is designed to work. In other words, what seems like a lack of transparency and delay of timing to you today will be made abundantly and crystal clear in a later tomorrow for everyone else. It's clunky, but it's the system we have, and such a system eventually works to your benefit ... albeit not your "I need it now" sensibility of the moment. Time will come when the shoe will be on the other foot, for you or someone you care about, and our "clunky" system won't seem so bad.
In the meantime, if you listen to anyone, listen to Jack. He's right.
The One True b!X on 14 Jul 2005
The point is this: If they given us Tellam's work rather than just his word, the story would be different. But since they didn't, and all we have is his word, that makes Tellam's credibility relevant.
I'm all aware of the fact that everyone gets to have their fair representation when they are being accused of something, and that ovbiously includes retaining Tellam (as in the Ball case). But when in the course of such representation, Tellam makes remarks about how it's not about ethical standards but about "nuance", I believe that's relevant when considering his credibility in looking into ethical practices at PDC.
It wouldn't be relevant at all if Tellam and PDC had bothered to produce more than a two-paragraph memo which in essence says, "Trust me, there's nothing to this."
The One True b!X on 14 Jul 2005
Actually, speaking of being out of one's league, there's another point, which is actually the main point in all of this, and it's something that various people at PDC, and now Tellam, don't understand: If you're going to conduct any aspect of the public's business, you'd better do it as transparently as possible. If you're not willing to do that, then don't get in on conducting the public's business. If you persist on doing the public's business without that transparency, then don't gripe when the public or the press subjects you to scrutiny.
None of which inherently says the people involved have done something they should not have, nor is it an accusation that Tellam is somehow engaging in a coverup (I believe no such thing).
But I had thought we had all learned something back in grade school: Show your work. Tellam didn't, and that makes his credibility the story. And that's his own fault.
Jack Bog on 15 Jul 2005
Don't go after Tellam. He has a duty to his client -- the PDC. Without permission from the client, the lawyer can tell the public nothing. He's just doing is job.
Two paragraphs and "put the whole thing behind us" is just how the holdovers on the PDC board want it. The problem is with Parsons and Blomgren, who are just sweeping more trash under their shabby old rug. (Notice, too, that they are the board's "audit committee," who are going to accept the second coat of whitewash when it comes in from the PDC's other hired guns, its accounting firm.)
Is Mayor Potter satisfied with just the two paragraphs? In 17 days, his appointees will finally be running things. Maybe things will change then.
Steve Schopp on 15 Jul 2005
Jack said, ---"Is Mayor Potter satisfied with just the two paragraphs? In 17 days, his appointees will finally be running things. Maybe things will change then."----
Given that Potter was given a $40,000 "presentation" by the PDC I suspect he has been quite thoroughly enlisted.
Without any challenges to the on going "presentation" we can be assured that any contrarian elements will never be fully vetted by the honorable Mayor Potter.
doretta on 15 Jul 2005
Besides the dubious implication that representing unethical attorneys is tantamount to being one (it might be amusing to watch you apply that standard to criminal defense), it also seems from here you are over-speculating about the meaning of a one-sentence quote.
Jack's right on this one. Tellam is a lawyer not a journalist. His duty is to his clients, not to "transparency". He can only release as much information as his client, PDC, allows him to release. I think that's the fundamental truth behind the "out of your league" comment although IMO your batting average is just fine, this is more like one swing and a miss
You have a point about the the transparency thing, and I don't think you should buy WWP's "patience grasshopper" schtick but sink your fangs into that PDC pant leg, instead of confusing the issue by barking up the Tellam tree.
The One True b!X on 15 Jul 2005
The issue isn't one of making some claim that Tellam is unethical -- a claim I've not made.
Rather, the issue is that whether it was Bradly F. Tellam, Richard M. Nixon, or Jesus H. Christ charged with the investigation, they would have needed to show their work, because when dealing in the public's business, one's word is not enough.
Showing the work is precisely what would make the credibility of the individual themselves irrelevant. But the absence of the work leaves only the credibility of the individual themselves relevant -- because it's all we're given.
Tellam came forward and said nothing more than, "Trust me." There's only one rational response to that: Asking, "Why should I?"
We should never have been left even having to consider that question, but absent the work itself, and left only with Tellam's word, it's the only question available. Which means looking into Tellam himself (something I assume he'd prefer to be otherwise, and frankly I'd prefer it to be otherwise as well) is all Tellam and PDC left anyone with.
Here's the point I didn't make very clear at all, perhaps: The fact that PDC asked someone who's usual job is to be zealously partial (that's why we hire lawyers, after all) to perform a job which requires impartiality only makes the need for showing the work all the more crucial for the crediblity of the investigation.
In performing his proper job and being zealously partial when representing clients, Tellam has a responsibility to perhaps make certain arguments about the concept of ethics -- some of which seem akin to splitting hairs about ethics in order to defend his clients. As I said, in that context, that's his job and that's fine.
But because his actual job requires him to make zealously partial statements about ethics, we have no way to know whether those zealously partial (and seemingly hair-splitting) views on ethics are the ones he brought to bear on his investigation for PDC.
Pointing that out is simply not the same as saying that Tellam himself is unethical or that he can't be trusted. Pointing that out is the same as saying we're supposed to trust but verify, assure not assume. In this case, we can neither verify nor assure, and are therefore left only with Tellam's credibility -- which is in essence impossible to determine either way.
It's supposed to be about the process, not about the people. But when they don't show us the process, looking at the people is all we have left.
Which is the whole point here: Leaving us with nothing to look at but the people themselves (their word), because they didn't how us the process (their work), is utterly inappropriate.
Steve Schopp on 15 Jul 2005
Dancing around the edges of the PDC will only serve to sustain it as it funcitons today.
The PDC is corrupt and spends undless public dollars to promote themselves and obscure their activities. ($40,000 presentation to Potter, preparation of the Dodson commentary and full time staff to decive the public.
They skim property taxes on the way to our schools, parks, infrastucture, police, fire, and libraries and use it fund themselves and the land speculators club they operate.
And it's skimming from the property taxes on 1000's of acres of Portland including most of downtown and the 3744 acres in the Interstate Urban Renewal district.
Their shiny expensive building, 220 employees and $270 million annual budget is an insult.