The rest of the story

For those who might want to know the rest of the story. On Jan. 6, 2020, 17 people, including former City Councilors Brenda Perry and Thomas Frank and current interim Mayor Rory Bialostosky, adamantly testified in favor of retaining former City Manager Eileen Stein. At least one person, David Baker, threatened to recall Councilors Rich Sakelik, Bill Relyea and me as council president, if we terminated Stein's contract. Since it was a termination without cause, were not at liberty to explain why we believed it was time to move on.

A month later, Oregonian investigative reporter Maxine Bernstein's article, "'Old-boy-style racism' by small-town cops leads to $600,000 payout to Portland man," exploded in the news. Former Police Chief Terry Timeus and several WLPD officers had unlawfully arrested Michael Fesser in Portland in February 2017. The amount CIS, West Linn's insurance company, agreed to pay was one of the highest settlements for a wrongful arrest in Oregon. The damage it caused to public trust and West Linn's reputation is inestimable. People naturally assumed that City Council knew about it all along and called for resignations. Council immediately asked the Clackamas County DA, Oregon DOJ and FBI to investigate and then hired an investigative firm, OIR Group, to conduct an internal investigation to find who knew what and when plus advice on policies to help West Linn avoid further incidents.

After the OIR report came out, City Manager Jerry Gabrielatos fired former Police Chief Terry Kruger, who Stein hired to replace Terry Timeus in 2018. In an executive session in October of 2018, Ms. Stein and former Chief Kruger mislead Mayor Axelrod and Councilors Brenda Perry, Bob Martin, Rich Sakelik and me to believe that WLPD's arrest of Michael Fesser in Portland was completely legal and justified. This was council's first chance to hear about the lawsuit Michael Fesser filed against West Linn in June 2018. When we met in July, Stein warned us that it was a personnel matter. "Our labor attorney Dee Rubinoff and CIS are in charge of it so the details will have to come later," Stein said.

During Ms. Stein's performance evaluation in November of 2017, Stein said she had given Chief Terry Timeus an extra six months' pay plus a complimentary "retirement" press release for the city website as an incentive to leave. Councilor Sakelik and I did not approve of Stein's actions because she had previously informed us that Timeus was demanding an extra nine months' pay and threatened to expose Stein for allegedly asking Timeus to do her a personal favor … or else he would refuse to leave. Sakelik and I thought that amounted to extortion but Mayor Axelrod and Councilors Brenda Perry and Bob Martin supported Stein's decision.

Stein also neglected to inform us that day about Timeus and WLPD's questionable arrest back in February 2017, nor did she tell us that Michael Fesser had just filed a tort claim a month ago in September 2017, against Fesser's boss, Eric Bensen, for his role in WLPD's racially motivated false arrest. Ms. Stein also neglected to inform Council that she assigned her staff attorney, Megan Thornton, to help WLPD produce records related to Fesser's September 2017 TORT claim. If Stein had asked the city attorney, Tim Ramis, to work on this serious legal matter, council would never have been left in the dark. The City Attorney routinely reports to Council about every legal matter the firm works on for West Linn. Some people might not know that West Linn's City Charter Chapter V, Section 23 states that the City Manager "shall … keep the Council advised at all times of the affairs and needs of the City … and of all the affairs and departments of the City." In other words, it was Stein's duty to inform Council about this serious legal matter and make every effort possible to avoid further harm.

Records of this disturbing incident are available on the city website under "Investigation Information." As unpleasant as it is to bring this story up again, I have written this in case the persons who made disparaging remarks about the decision to terminate Ms. Eileen Stein didn't happen to know the rest of the story about the wrongful arrest of Michael Fesser.