PORTLAND, Ore. — Late last year, members of Portland City Council were none too pleased to learn that, a few months before being encouraged to resign by Mayor Keith Wilson’s administration, then-Housing Bureau Director Helmi Hisserich stumbled upon some $21 million in unspent Rental Services Office funds.
The part that had councilors like Loretta Smith fuming wasn’t that the money had been found, but that city administrators sat on the information for months without telling the city council. They waited, even, until after a contentious fall adjustment process where council members debated where to make cuts, following a turbulent budgeting process in the late spring.
On Monday, Councilor Smith made no secret of her exasperation to learn of a near-identical discovery: another $21 million, again found within the Housing Bureau…