Klamath Falls sued by PacifiCorp; blueberry growers settle with Department of Labor; Multnomah County commissioner accused of retaliation fire.
BY JACOB PALMER | OB DIGITAL NEWS EDITOR
Business figures around Oregon have appeared recently in court documents.
In Southern Oregon, Klamath Falls and its mayor have been sued by Pacific Power for an alleged illegal ordinance and perceived threat of condemnation, the Herald and News reports.
Scott Bolton, vice president of community and government relations at Pacific Power, emphasized franchise agreements that lay out terms of use are generally routine.
“It’s extremely rare we find ourselves in the situation where we’re actually going to federal court over an illegal ordinance,” Bolton said.
In the Willamette Valley, a pair of blueberry growers reached a settlement with the federal government to reimburse part of a $220,000 fine that was unfairly imposed.
Labor investigators invoked a “hot goods” provision of labor law in 2012 that immediately prohibited shipment of the farmers’ blueberries, and notified wholesalers that berries from the farms should not be processed. The federal investigators said the growers had violated labor laws, and owed their farmworkers more wages. Panicked their berries would spoil and they would lose more profits during any appeal process, Pan-American Berry Growers of Salem and B&G Ditchen of Silverton signed consent orders that said they couldn’t fight the decision and paid up.
Last year, two federal judges said the Department of Labor unfairly used the “hot goods” provision. Subsequently, the agency partially reimbursed the growers for the consent orders and fines.
The settlement terms say the Department of Labor will pay the rest of the money back, plus $30,000 for each farm. Pan-American will receive a total of $60,386.29 and B&G will get $71,714.37.
Read more at OregonLive.com.
Finally, a tort claim notice filed earlier this year accuses Multnomah County commissioner Diane McKeel of firing a staffer for whistleblowing what he perceived as illegal land-use practices.
[Michael Kennedy, the fired employee] “uncovered and sought to end illegal political fundraisers and related events connected to Commissioner McKeel [and] took action that would limit potential fundraising sources for Commissioner McKeel,” he says in a tort claim notice filed with the county Jan. 5.
Kennedy said he also “voiced concern that Commissioner McKeel’s office was exerting inappropriate and/or unlawful pressure on his job.”
