Tag Archives: Melinda Grier

6/26/2010: Les Zaitz has a long story in the Oregonian today about AG John Kroger. Very mixed reviews, mostly involving his political ambitions. This part struck home:

… he also has refused to release the record of his agency’s examination of Mike Bellotti’s unwritten employment deal as the University of Oregon’s athletic director. When he resigned in March, Bellotti said he was owed millions under a verbal deal. He settled for $2.3 million, but news of the odd arrangement sparked public outcry.

Kroger put his agency to work on the case, and the Justice Department report issued last month said the review was meant to assess legal services provided to UO and “to determine whether there was any evidence of criminal conduct or other illegal behavior warranting criminal investigation.”

State lawyers racked up $44,000 in costs doing the review. “It required a significant amount of legal research. Contract issues are complicated,” said Tony Green, Kroger’s spokesman.

But Justice staff interviewed just one person: Melinda Grier, UO’s general counsel who also reported to the Justice Department. The review concluded Grier erred in not getting Bellotti’s employment deal on paper. She lost her job.

But no one questioned Pat Kilkenny, UO athletic director when the Bellotti deal was struck, or Dave Frohnmayer, former attorney general and past UO president.

That triggered the resignation of a third top Kroger aide. Jerry Lidz, who as solicitor general managed the state’s appeals all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, resigned over the treatment of Grier, his wife.

Dave Leith and Keith Dubanevich, the DOJ attorneys who ran the investigation, didn’t even interview Frohnmayer, Kilkenny, or Bellotti. How can you investigate a verbal agreement, conclude UO did no wrong in paying $3 million to Bellotti, and not even interview the people who made the deal? It’s just not believable. As in I do not believe it. These people are not that incompetent.

The Portland police will give the Oregonian an mp3 of the recording of the masseuse’s allegations that Al Gore assaulted her. But try and find out what the Oregon DOJ investigators discovered about Dave Frohnmayer’s role in the $3 million Bellotti payoff? What about the $240,000 Kilkenny donated to Frohnmayer’s Fanconi foundation, the year before Frohnmayer appointed him AD? Did boosters give the money for Dave’s raises and bonuses too? The Oregon DOJ will reject your public records requests and tell you that’s none of your business. Move it along, punk.

Dave Frohnmayer is simply untouchable – at least as far as the Oregon DOJ, which he headed for 8 years, is concerned. I’m beginning to see why Jerry Lidz resigned over this investigation.

5/1/2010: Greg Bolt of the RG finally gets Frohnmayer to talk about the Bellotti contract. Frohnmayer was waiting to see exactly how much the AG’s report unearthed before he went on the record with his version. And the report has just one mention of Frohnmayer – he delegated signing authority to Grier – and none of the $440,000 in donations from Pat Kilkenny, before and after Frohnmayer appointed Kilkenny AD and let him negotiate the Bellotti deal. This is a professional courtesy from the new AG to the old one. Neither wants anything in the papers that makes the office of Attorney General look bad.

So, now that the Oregon DOJ and the investigator David Leith have let Dave Frohnmayer off the hook, he shoves Melinda Grier under the bus:

“I assumed the contracts would be handled in due course,” he said.

“I think I reasonably relied on the usual course of business being followed by the general counsel’s office.”

“I wasn’t always happy with how the relationship worked,” he said.

“Even with direct reporting, I felt I wasn’t always getting direct reports.”

The attorney general’s report also was critical of Grier, saying she gave the university “deficient legal representation” and failed to report problems with Bellotti contract issues to the justice department.

Frohnmayer declined to comment on those issues but defended Grier’s dedication to the university.

“Melinda is a very hard-working person,” he said.

“I don’t know anyone whose car was in the parking lot on weekends and holidays more than Melinda Grier’s. There was no lacking of energy and devotion to her job.”

Nice job reference, Dave: “Ms Grier served as my loyal General Counsel for 12 years, covering my ass even when this led the Oregon Bar to start an ethics investigation of her. But in the end it turned out she was incompetent, made me look like a fool in the press, provided deficient legal representation and had to put in a lot of hours to accomplish even that. However, I did find her to be an excellent scapegoat.”

4/30/2010 update: Greg Bolt has a story about this in the RG. Not much new except this:

Some attention also focused on former UO President Dave Frohnmayer, who in 2005 had assigned responsibility for personnel issues in the athletic department to Grier’s office. Frohnmayer was winding down his presidency when Bellotti announced that he would take over as athletic director. Frohnmayer couldn’t be immediately reached for comment Thursday. But in earlier comments he said that although he had asked Kilkenny to negotiate a contract with Bellotti he had no direct role in those talks. But without mentioning Frohnmayer, Lariviere made clear he wouldn’t have handled the situation that way. “No one negotiates the contract of his or her successor,” Lariviere said. “That’s just part of the culture. Everyone understands that.”

Still no explanation from Frohnmayer of his role, still no defense of Melinda Grier, who worked for him for 12 years. He has been waiting to see the AG’s report, so he’ll know exactly how much of the truth they unearthed, before he goes on the record with his version. “No criminal wrongdoing” is a big relief for Dave!

What’s Frohnmayer going to tell the first reporter who asks him about decision to give control of athletics to Kilkenny the year after Kilkenny started his $440,000 series of donations to Frohnmayer’s Fanconi Foundation?

4/29/2010: Ok, I was part wrong. The Oregon DOJ investigation report rips into Melinda Grier. This won’t get her disbarred – believe me, I’ve tried that – but it is a reasonably well-documented hatchet job and I can’t imagine anyone who reads it hiring her as an attorney. Ever. But of course Frohnmayer walks. For starters:

Oregon Attorney General John Kroger today announced that a Department of Justice review found deficient legal representation, but no criminal wrongdoing in the handling of former University of Oregon Athletic Director Mike Bellotti’s contract.

Here’s the report. It is public because Lariviere insisted that Kroger make it public. Thanks. A key date in the events was April 20, 2009, when Grier was first asked about a written contract and when Frohnmayer was still President. Lariviere was obviously blindsided and had no responsibility for the lack of a contract. The report makes clear he did the best he could with a disaster.

The report does not mention the previous Oregon DOJ ethics investigation of Melinda Grier. That investigation was of false statements Grier made to the US DOJ Civil Rights Division, during their investigation of UO’s minority faculty recruiting procedures. Associate AG David Leith was in charge of that investigation (on which he spent well over $20,000), as well as of the report released today.

I’m surprised at the depth of this new investigation and the vehement tone of this report from Kroger. Somebody is pissed. My guess? David Leith and John Kroger went out on a limb for Melinda Grier, covering up the civil rights investigation and a raft of previous issues. Jean Stockard’s case would be another exmple – cost the state $500,000 plus fees. When this came up, they decided it was the last time she would make trouble for them.

UO’s Public Records Officer, Doug Park, gets off without a mention in the report. Oregon law gave Park responsibility for responding to the repeated public records requests for Bellotti’s contract. Presumably he passed them on the Grier, instead of doing his job. Lariviere has already announced he will take this responsibility away from Park. Good enough. We’ll see if the new GC will keep Park and the other longtime Grier assistant, Randy Geller.

There is not a word about Kilkenny. Dave Frohnmayer, of course, gets off untouched. Still no public word from Frohnmayer on his role in the Bellotti contract, on the firing of the woman who served as his principal legal advisor for 12 years, or on the AG’s judgment that she was incompetent.

Meanwhile Frohnmayer is still collecting his $245,700 in UO pay, still collecting a second paycheck at Harrang, Long, et al., and a third paycheck from Umpqua Bank. His former Provost, John Moseley, is still getting paid by UO on a questionable PERS retirement buyout deal, set up by Frohnmayer, while he runs a fishing retreat on the Deschutes. No kidding, you can rent a lodge from him here. The Oregon Government Ethics Board investigator wanted to pursue this, the board voted him down. The guy Frohnmayer appointed VP for Diversity 5 years ago, Charles Martinez, is still working for UO without any kind of affirmative action compliant search, and he’s still double dipping at another job off campus. Sleaze.

How many of these deals did Melinda Grier also have her fingers in? How much more is there? It’s going to be a while before the shit gets cleaned up, but this is a start.

4/22/2010: Rumor control Reports in the RG and Oregonian explain that Melinda Grier will be given a one year terminal contract at the Knight Law School, apparently at her full $183,00 salary. Under Brad Shelton’s new budget model it looks like the law school will have to pay her salary and benefits out of law school student tuition money. Or maybe we will all pay?

Frohnmayer’s emeritus deal ($245,700 in salary, $186,000 for expenses, $25,000 for assistants) also gives him an office in the law school. Maybe he and Melinda will co-teach a course on how to break Oregon’s public records law?

We are now paying over $1 million a year just in salary for the obvious administrative deadwood. It’s going to be hard to justify a tuition increase without some cuts in this.

Update: Brian Leiter of the University of Chicago law school thinks dumping Melinda on the law school is outrageous.