SALEM, Ore. — The Oregon Government Ethics Commission issued a stern verdict against Salem’s city leadership on Friday, ruling that five city councilors and Mayor Julie Hoy violated state law by conducting a series of private discussions to determine the employment of former City Manager Keith Stahley.
In a unanimous 6-0 vote, with one commissioner abstaining, the state’s independent ethics watchdog found the officials engaged in an illegal “serial meeting,” where a quorum deliberated on public business outside of a legally required public meeting. The decision is the result of a months-long investigation into the events leading up to Stahley’s sudden resignation in February 2025, which was started by formal complaints from two citizens. The commission formally adopted its investigator’s report, which concluded the officials “deliberately coordinated and orchestrated” the communications to avoid a public decision-making process.
The violation centered on a sequence of one-on-one conversations regarding Stahley’s job performance following a poor audit report. By mandating that all discussions by a quorum of a governing body take place in public, Oregon’s Public Meetings Law aims to guarantee government transparency. In order to avoid public scrutiny, the law expressly forbids “serial communications,” in which members of a body come to a collective decision through a series of private discussions…