Earlier this week, WW reported on a message thread among the six members of the progressive caucus on the Portland City Council, who call themselves “Peacock” for short.
The hundreds of messages, obtained through a public records request, show that Peacock members tightly coordinated their actions during the May and June budget sessions, helping the caucus to secure several wins, including rerouting $2 million in new funding from the Portland Police Bureau to Portland Parks & Recreation.
They exchanged the messages on the dais in council chambers as the budget hearings occurred. As a result, onlookers and other councilors watched one meeting unfold on the public record, but the texts show that members of Peacock were conducting an unofficial parallel meeting at the same time, one that onlookers were not made privy to. The contents of that second meeting are only now being made public, more than two months later…