According to reporting from The Oregonian/OregonLive, an Oregon elected official has been attending Metro Council meetings remotely for months at a time while sometimes being in Spain, a situation that has many people wondering how “local government” is supposed to work.
Metro Councilor Mary Nolan, a former Democratic majority leader in the Oregon Legislature, currently represents District 5 on the Metro Council. The position pays about $68,013 per year, and while it is not technically classified as full time, the job still involves making decisions that affect the Portland region, including land use, transportation planning, housing, and regional policy.
Records reviewed by The Oregonian/OregonLive show Nolan has participated in council meetings remotely for extended stretches of time over the past year. Those periods included March 27 through June 5, July 24 through September 18, and November 13 through January 8. Nolan has also been attending meetings remotely again since February 5 of this year.
When contacted by phone, Nolan told The Oregonian/OregonLive they sometimes travel to Spain to visit family.
“I come to visit my family occasionally and when someone in my family needs help,” Nolan said.
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While the idea of a regional policymaker working from another continent may sound unusual, there is currently no Metro rule requiring councilors to physically be in Oregon while conducting Metro business. At the same time, Metro employees who work remotely are required under agency policy to remain in Oregon or Washington.
Election rules do require councilors to live in the district they represent in order to run for office. Their seat would reopen if they moved out of the district.
The situation gained even more attention after an awkward moment during a February 24 Metro Council work session. During the meeting, Nolan asked fellow councilor Juan Carlos González to repeat himself “in English.” The problem was that González had already been speaking English.
According to The Oregonian/OregonLive, the comment prompted an audible reaction from council members inside the chamber. González paused for several seconds before responding.
“Let me try to repeat that in English, which is the language I was speaking,” he said.
At the next council meeting, Nolan issued a lengthy apology while again attending remotely. Nolan first attempted the apology in Spanish before repeating it in English.
González later told The Oregonian/OregonLive the exchange caught him off guard.
“I was shocked again for the second time in a week,” he said. “It did not feel great.”
Other council members suggested the situation highlighted the downsides of frequent remote participation in such a small governing body. Metro’s council only has seven members, meaning collaboration and communication between them can be important when working on regional policy.
Councilor Christine Lewis told The Oregonian/OregonLive that Nolan’s frequent remote attendance can sometimes make the work more difficult.
“It makes it harder to both do serious policy work and have the relationships with each other and the communities that we serve,” Lewis said.
Lewis also suggested the council may need to review its policies on remote participation.
“There’s only seven of us,” she said, adding that the relationships council members build with each other and with the communities they represent are critical to getting their work done.
For now, however, Metro’s current rules still allow elected councilors to attend meetings remotely, even if that remote location happens to be thousands of miles away.
