Urban Alchemy, a California-based nonprofit making headlines for its Portland shelter operations, apparently crossed a line, according to city auditors. The firm, notorious for running Portland’s mass tiny home shelter, seemingly played a bit too fast and loose with the city's lobbying rules a couple of years back. The city’s watchdogs have flagged that the nonprofit didn’t bother to clock its schmoozing hours with city officials back in 2022, failing to register its lobbying activities with the city, OregonLive reported.
The company beat the drum pretty hard to convince Portland bigwigs it should manage the city’s alternative shelter sites. This led to a sizable amount of cash and, time being poured into persuasive conversations with the officialdom of Portland that auditors argue should have been disclosed. Yet, Urban Alchemy did not consider these meetings lobbying, Oregon Public Broadcasting laid out.
The nonprofit’s lawyers, coming from the firm Tonkon Torp, threw their two cents in, claiming their staff was invited by elected officials simply to tutor them on setting up outdoor shelters. "None of the communications … constitute an attempt to influence City officials or official policy," according to the defense penned by attorneys Danny Newman and Paul Balmen, as per Oregon Public Broadcasting. But City Auditor Simone Rede wasn’t buying what they were selling. Even if the chitchats were instigated by the city themselves, that didn’t let Urban Alchemy off the hook for a lobbying designation, she argued.
Regardless, the nada in fines for Urban Alchemy has some onlookers raising an eyebrow. Instead, Rede suggested a light slap on the wrist, recommending the organization to get up to speed on the city's lobbying rules. It's notable to mention that Urban Alchemy isn’t a stranger to this kind of scrutiny, having been granted several no-bid contracts to run similar services in San Francisco since 2018, KOIN notes.
What's clear in this murky affair, is that a transparency checkpoint was missed somewhere along Portland’s cobblestone pathways. "Portland's lobbying regulations serve to build trust in the City's decisions by shining a light on outside efforts to influence City officials," Rede underscored, as per KOIN. It remains to be seen if this episode will cast a shadow on the ongoing operations of Urban Alchemy’s three mass outdoor shelter sites, or if it'll just fade into the bureaucratic ether, another lesson chalked up in the annals of city hall.
