Category: Portland, Oregon Local News

GOOD MORNING, SUNDAY! It’s the perfect time to catch up on some of the great reporting and stories the Mercury churned out this week! (PRO TIP: If you despise being “the last to know,” then be one of the first to know by signing up for Mercury newsletters! All the latest stories shipped directly to your email’s in-box… and then… YOUR HEAD.)

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• How a Portland-Based Psychiatrist Ended Up in the Epstein Files 

The prolific sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein met with and appears to have solicited help from Portland-based psychiatrist Dr. Paul Conti to treat a young woman in his inner circle.

• Blazers and Beyond

Portland LOVES basketball, and Cameron Crowell rated the game day experiences for the Trail Blazers, the Portland Pilots, the Portland State Vikings and the Rip City Remix. Find out who has the best fandom, where to get the best stadium snacks, and where to see the best ball.

• What Can the Multnomah County District Attorney Do to Stand Up to Trump?

As federal agents escalate force in Portland, residents are demanding more accountability. Now advocates are turning to Multnomah County DA Nathan Vasquez, the elected official tasked with prosecuting those who break local laws.

• Portland Officials Condemn ICE After Federal Agents Tear Gas Peaceful Protesters and Children

Thousands of union members & supporters gathered in Portland’s South Waterfront on Jan 31 for an anti-ICE demonstration hosted by Oregon labor leaders. The family-friendly event turned chaotic after federal agents met the peaceful crowd with tear gas as they marched outside Portland’s ICE facility.

• Portland Housing Bureau’s Unspent Funds Reach $106 Million

News of the unspent money comes two months after city councilors learned the city’s Rental Services Office amassed $21 million in revenue, which went unreported for months.

• Man Fatally Shot By Police in NW Portland

Portland Police officers shot and killed a man inside a Northwest apartment complex Thursday morning. According to police, officers tried to serve a warrant on a man who pointed a handgun and tried to shoot at two security officers last Saturday, January 31.

• Second Run Portland: In Picnic at Hanging Rock, Valentine’s Day Turns Mysterious 

In this month’s Second Run, all the flicks you should see this month, including nine films on love, desire, and human psychology to see in Portland! 

• Remembering Judith Arcana

Judith Arcana was an abortion advocate and legend in Portland—as well as being part of Chicago’s underground abortion service known as Jane. Megan Burbank writes about her recent passing, her relationship with Arcana, and how her legacy as an activist and poet will live on.

• Mercury Music Picks

We celebrate two music birthdays this week, Miami reggaetón princess MJ Nebreda is in town, a secret listening party, and “You Got Gold” starts its Cinema 21 run. Plus the new New Music Portland section is unreasonably dense, and don’t forget there’s some juicy bits in Portland Music News as well.

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WOW, THAT IS A LOT OF GOOD READIN’. I hope you didn’t have any other plans this weekend! Dig in, and remember: Producing all this hard work costs moolah—so please consider contributing to the Mercury to keep it all coming! Thanks!

The Portland Housing Bureau (PHB) is sitting on $106 million in unspent funds, far more than was previously reported. City Administrator Raymond Lee outlined the funding in a memo Friday afternoon.

At least some of the additional dollars may already be earmarked for other projects, Council President Jamie Dunphy told the Mercury Friday.

“This moment reflects the City’s ongoing shift from bureaus and offices developing budgets independently to the City of Portland managing its finances holistically under our new form of government,” City Administrator Raymond Lee said in a press release Friday afternoon. “I am prepared to support the Council, as the City’s legislative body, in making fully informed decisions.”

The news comes after the City Council on Wednesday approved a resolution to investigate the initial findings of $21 million through the city’s Rental Services Office, including why the money was not disclosed to city councilors prior to a budget discussion in November.

“In what we know will be a challenging budget year, this is a good problem to have – but it’s still a problem,” Dunphy stated in a February 6 press release. “I’m very glad that the new form of government is leading to unearthing these longstanding problems. We are lucky to have lots of opportunity to do good and deliver help to the community, both in programmatic support and in greater transparency and efficacy of our government.”

The Mercury reported February 2 that the Portland Housing Bureau had found additional unspent dollars in its coffers, adding to the previous $21 million it found through an audit last year.

It was unclear then exactly how much money was in the fund, but Dunphy called councilors over the weekend to tell them they would soon learn of the specifics of what was found in the Housing Investment Fund. By February 3, Dunphy said in a press release that two accounts were sitting on at least $15 million, but a specific number was unclear.

“While the timing of this information is difficult, I do not believe these were hidden maliciously, but are instead a relic of the old government system of accounting,” Dunphy stated.

News of the unspent money comes just over two months after city councilors learned the city’s Rental Services Office had amassed about $21 million in rental services fees paid by landlords, which went unreported for months. 

“More than 40 percent of the unbudgeted money comes from the Housing Investment Fund, which was created in 2016 to track financial activity related to multi-family housing operations,”  said a city press release about Lee’s memo. “The remainder, which is being reported for the first time, comes from other Portland Housing Bureau funds with more stringent spending restrictions.”

The Housing Investment Fund includes the city’s transient lodging tax—taxes paid by hotels and booking agents—and short term rental fees from operations like AirBnB, as well as other sub-funds, according to the memo.

The newly announced funding comes two days after the City Council voted to open an investigation into when the city’s administrative branch discovered the initial funds, and why the Council did not learn about the funds until immediately after an annual budget adjustment last November.

The newly found funds could help Wilson and all 12 councilors notch a win on a contentious “Slow the Inflow” resolution aimed at homelessness prevention, which has been in process since early December. Some wanted to allocate the $21 million toward rent assistance, while others wanted to send more than 25 percent of the funds to Prosper Portland for a cash-strapped, 230-unit housing project.

Now, the money could stretch far enough to cover everything, and councilors will decide Thursday where the money should go.

City spokesperson Cody Bowman said February 3 that after the previous $21 million was uncovered, staff began a broader review of the Bureau’s funds. He said staff are finalizing documents and will provide the Council with a full accounting of the funds, their sources, legal constraints, and intended future uses.

“These resources are now being proposed for inclusion in the budget as contingency, consistent with state budget law and the City’s transparency goals,” Bowman said. 

Lee’s memo comes two days after the City Council passed a resolution requiring Lee to release public records related to the initial $21 million surplus. If passed, the resolution will also require Dunphy, as Council President, to schedule an oversight hearing, the first under the city government charter.

Councilor Mitch Green filed the resolution December 16, 2025, urging the Council to use its investigative authority to learn how nearly $21 million in funds went unspent. The investigation will attempt to answer questions about who was aware of the funds and when, and why the Council was not informed of the funds until the day after it concluded a November budget process to address an $18 million shortfall.

The resolution said the Council should use public records and oversight hearings to understand the dynamics that left Council in the dark about the funds during the budget process, and to what degree the administration’s decision to stay quiet were related to the budget adjustment. 

News of the unspent funds has generated complexity in how the local government runs its business since former Housing Bureau director Helmi Hisserich initiated an audit of the RSO in July 2025. 

Those initial funds, which come from a small registration fee that landlords pay for doing business in the city, accrued between 2021 and 2024. Hisserich joined the Bureau in early 2024.

Wilson, then-City Administrator Michael Jordan, and Chief Financial Officer Jonas Biery were made aware of an initial discovery of $12 million in early September, but did not alert the Council. Wilson and Oliveira placed Hisserich on a three-week administrative leave without cause on October 30, the same time the City Council was debating how to fill the funding gap. Hisserich resigned November 20.

In a December 3, 2025 Council meeting, Jordan said the issue of Hisserich’s removal and the funding questions were not necessarily related. 

“It’s very challenging to talk about a personnel issue in public, so I’m not going to do that,” Jordan said. “But I also want to make sure that the public knows that the implied linkage between this money and the personnel issue you’re referring to is not a complete picture. So, I just want to make sure the public understands that.”

By December 4, Hisserich sent a memo to councilors, outlining her perspective on the series of events, seeking to clear her name and adding fuel to the burning question of why the Council was not made aware of the funds earlier. She said she believed she was unfairly blamed for revenue that went unspent prior to her appointment. Hisserich’s account said the administration viewed the funds as “a big PR problem,” adding that Oliveira told her not to disclose the audit’s findings.

Oliveira’s office disputed the assertion that he knew of the full $21 million, saying he was only aware of $12 million last August, when Hisserich alerted him. His spokesperson told the Mercury in December that Oliveira learned of an additional $9 million on November 17. 

Thanks to the resolution’s passage, Lee is to release the records by February 20, and council operations staff will compile the information by February 27. Dunphy will be required to schedule an initial oversight hearing, including testimony, no later than March 6. 

In recent meetings, councilors have also hotly debated how to prioritize the previously known $21 million after the housing and homelessness committee and, later, the finance committee, passed two competing pieces of legislation, then merged them through amendment proposals. The resolution would urge the mayor to reflect the City Council’s established priorities for those funds in his proposed budget next fiscal year.

The process to develop that resolution revealed a small rift between councilors who wanted to level the funding toward rent assistance for those on the verge of entering or exiting homelessness, and those who wanted to divert roughly $8.1 million toward projects managed by the city’s economic development corporation, Prosper Portland.

It is unclear how the $106 million total will impact those future discussions.