Last updated on 06/24/2014
11/3/2010: After 2 weeks of delays from UO, and a petition to the Attorney General, we’ve now got a copy of new UO General Counsel Randy Geller’s cover letter and resume, here. His employment contract is here – $200K a year. Nice raise.
There is no mention in his letter or resume of his role in fulfilling and denying UO public records requests, and the resulting DOJ petitions. Public records troubles were at the root of the problems at the GC office, when Geller was Deputy GC. If a professor goes up for a promotion and omits something of material importance from their vitae, well that can be a bit of trouble. I wonder if laws apply to lawyers too?
Also no mention of his former boss, Melinda Grier. No mention of the Attorney General’s investigation of General Counsel Melinda Grier, which led to the GC job suddenly becoming available. Not a word on why all these lawyers are called Generals. But the Attorney General’s investigation of the General Counsel closes with this:
The deficiencies in legal services described above could have been remedied by greater supervision of Grier’s performance by either UO or the Department of Justice. In light of these events, it is obvious that improving quality control with respect to legal services at the UO — and improving communication and coordination between the DOJ and UO — is necessary to ensure these problems are not repeated.
Apparently President Lariviere decided that appointing Melinda Grier’s deputy Randy Geller as General Counsel constitutes “improving quality control with respect to legal services”. And since the DOJ signed off on his appointment, AG Kroger must have agreed. Maybe Mr. Geller is a perfectly fine lawyer, and a great person to promote, and he is now going to clean house. I hope so.
Addressing past problems straightforwardly would be a good first step. These problems came to light in part because of the failures of the other 2 lawyers in the GC’s office with Geller – Melinda Grier and Doug Park – to respond to public records requests from reporters. Now UO will not even allow reporters to interview Randy Geller. And did we already mention that it took a public records petition to the Attorney General to even get his resume?
11/5/2010: Stefan Verbano of the ODE has now managed to Oregon Commentator Media Digest refuses to back down on theory Geller does not exist, despite Verbano interview. Speaking of non-existent administrators, maybe Verbano can next interview John Moseley, Lorraine Davis, and Charles Martinez?
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