“Get in there and get me a sazerac!”
That’s the opening salvo from Donnie Oliveira, deputy city administrator, in a text message to Jon Isaacs, Portland Metro Chamber executive vice president of public affairs, just before the two met and talked about Zenith Energy on Jan. 22. The meeting took place at Paddy’s Bar the day after a City Council work session on Zenith’s need for a city land use compatibility statement, or LUCS, thanks to a penalty DEQ imposed on the Houston-based fossil fuel company for illegally modifying and operating pipes at its facilities for over three years.
The new records raise the ongoing question of how deputy city administrators like Oliveira — appointed by City Administrator Michael Jordan to cover six distinct service areas — make decisions in Portland’s new form of government and whether the City Council, Mayor Keith Wilson or Metro Chamber lobbyists should hold the power to guide the city’s work.
Wilson and city bureau staff approved Zenith’s LUCS on Feb. 3, despite a resolution City Councilors Mitch Green and Angelita Morillo filed on Jan. 31 directing Wilson to investigate Zenith’s potential violations of its franchise agreement. The resolution also seeks to increase transparency and accountability from public officials — a central tenet of Portland’s new form of government. Councilors Tiffany Koyama Lane and Jamie Dunphy also co-signed the resolution.
Despite the broad public interest and his persistent involvement with city bureau staff, Oliveira long argued that land use approval was an apolitical administrative decision that the City Council could not influence.
Street Roots published multiple stories in the weeks before the City Council’s Jan. 21 work session on Zenith, including a Jan. 9 story outlining Zenith’s efforts to position itself as the preeminent renewable fuels hub on the West Coast and a Jan. 10 story outlining how a city attorney sought to protect a political strategy around Zenith by ensuring their office was included in a meeting to justify attorney-client privilege. Public records revealed an opaque process to rubber stamping Zenith’s LUCS, fueling critics’ fears that the city would engage in a “backroom deal” with business interests, similar to the process that led to Zenith’s previous approval in 2022.
City Administrator Michael Jordan wrote Oliveira on Jan. 9 to clarify critics’ framing of the 2022 process, according to the records.
“I keep seeing the phrase ‘backroom deal’ in describing the previous LUCS,” Jordan said. “Can you tell me why that characterization is so popular?”
Oliveira responded that the notion was false and hoped to clarify it in the following weeks.
“There is a perception that Cmrs Rubio and Ryan made a backroom deal to approve the LUCS,” Oliveira said. “That is not what happened and I plan/hope to use the work session to myth bust that.”
Quarter one
Multiple city councilors told Street Roots privately that they remain concerned about the communications outlined in the records and the Metro Chamber’s potential influence on the process.
When asked about Isaacs and Oliveira’s communications, City Council Vice President Tiffany Koyama Lane said she shares her constituents’ questions and concerns about how power and access affect city government.
“Who is able to directly intervene in city business, and who is not?” Koyama Lane said. “As chair of the Governance Committee, I plan to bring these types of questions to this committee. It is our job as Councilors to make sure that everyday Portlanders have the ability to engage in public, transparent processes that influence how our future is shaped, particularly regarding issues that affect our health and safety.”
Public records show Isaacs and Oliveira interacted consistently throughout the month leading up to Zenith’s approval. Asked to confirm that he reached out to Oliveira multiple times in January, Isaacs told Street Roots he only spoke to him once in 2025.
“I have spoken with DCA Oliveira one time in 2025,” Isaacs said. “The Zenith LUCS issue was briefly discussed, but our position, as expressed in the letter you are referring to is well known to city officials, so it was not a primary topic. The Chamber’s Q1 lobbying disclosure will reflect this.”
Isaacs and Oliveira sent at least 29 text messages back and forth between Jan. 10 and Jan. 28 when the Chamber sent its letter — Jan. 16, 17, 20, 21, 23 and 28 — according to the records. Isaacs is a prolific lobbyist, reporting 39 of the Metro Chamber’s 110 contacts with city officials in Q4 2024.
It is our job as Councilors to make sure that everyday Portlanders have the ability to engage in public, transparent processes that influence how our future is shaped, particularly regarding issues that affect our health and safety.”
— Tiffany Koyama Lane, City Council Vice President
On Jan. 16, Isaacs sent a text message asking Oliveira to get drinks after work the following week.
“Can we get drinks next Wednesay (sic) or Thursday post work,” Isaacs said. “I feel urgency in this right now. And block 2/8 for nerdy game night with Carmen and me. Wednesday work?”
Isaacs declined to directly answer Street Roots’ multiple requests clarifying whether “Carmen” is former City Commissioner Carmen Rubio or whether Zenith was the topic of “urgency.”
“There were over a dozen individual friends of mine on the game night invite, so I wasn’t referring to anyone in particular,” Isaacs said. “DCA Olivera did not reply or attend.”
“Sounds good,” Oliveira responded. “I would like to get briefed on the state of the economy report coming out too.”
Isaacs and Oliveira then met at Paddy’s Bar on Jan. 22, the day after the City Council work session.
Asked about the nature of the meeting, Oliveira did not mention Isaacs’ urgent topic but said the Metro Chamber’s State of the Economy report was top of mind. He also confirmed that the two talked about Zenith and other topics related to Zenith’s operations.
“We also discussed the Clean Industry Hub, an effort to meet Portland’s decarbonization goals and support the City’s manufacturing industry — which he and I had been working on for a couple of years,” Oliveira said. “And while Zenith did come up, it was largely in response to the continued discourse about the issue, without any policy substance.”
The Clean Industry Hub is Portland’s version of the “industrial symbiosis model.” Based on a similar approach in Denmark, the idea is to provide a network of services, including guidance, oversight, funding and other resources to help companies like Zenith transition to cleaner sources of energy. (Gas utility-adjacent nonprofits have paid for multiple trips to Denmark for public officials, including Rubio and Oliveira in 2022.)
As part of its 2022 LUCS approval, Zenith promised to transition to renewable fuels by Oct. 3, 2027 and continues to work closely with the city to update its infrastructure. Environmental advocates argue the expanded infrastructure could still be used to increase fossil fuel throughput — as Zenith has done every year since 2019 — particularly if renewable fuels are unavailable.
“Additionally, Jon and I are friends, and the most significant part of conversation was his interest in my well-being,” Oliveira said. “Like many work relationships, personal friendships emerge, and I was grateful that he was there and interested in my well-being that evening.”
Isaacs told Street Roots Feb. 24 that the vast majority of the Jan. 22 conversation was about Oliveira’s personal mental and physical well-being, despite the initial request coming six days prior to the proposed meeting date.
“DCA Olivera (sic) is a friend and public servant I have high regard for and I felt it was urgent that he make time for people who want to make sure he is doing okay,” Isaacs said. “I feel a great deal of urgency when I am concerned about people I care about, and I go out of my way to make the time to check in with them.”
Six days after their meeting, Isaacs sent a letter to City Council President Elana Pirtle-Guiney and other city officials at 1:44 p.m. on Jan. 28, but sent it to the wrong email address, according to public records. At 1:53 p.m. Oliveira sent Pirtle-Guiney’s email address to Isaacs, and Isaacs resent the letter to the corrected address at 1:59 p.m.
Oliveira told Street Roots he was unaware of the letter until Isaacs sent it.
“I sincerely had no knowledge of Metro Chamber’s letter until I received it alongside Mayor Keith Wilson, City Administrator Michael Jordan and Council President Elana Pirtle-Guiney on Jan. 28,” Oliveira said. “After noticing a typo in Council President Pirtle-Guiney’s email address in that email, I texted Jon Isaacs flagging it to ensure the information was sent to her correctly.”
Conflicting interests
The letter, signed by Andrew Hoan, Metro Chamber president and CEO, cited the Metro Chamber’s partnership in the Clean Industry Initiative as a reason the city should approve Zenith’s application despite significant public opposition, including from other environmental groups directly involved in advancing the Clean Industry Initiative.
“The Chamber is a formal partner of the city’s Clean Industry Initiative to decarbonize Portland’s industrial sector,” the letter said. “We have committed publicly to lead the effort to meet the city’s 2050 industrial carbon emission reduction goals through the Portland Clean Industry Hub.”
It also invoked the Clean Industry Initiative to voice support for Zenith’s plan to expand its operations as a renewable fuels hub for the entire West Coast and the Portland International Airport.
“Portland is on an ambitious path to decarbonize its industrial sector through the Clean Industry Initiative,” the letter said. “The Zenith Terminal is the state’s largest renewable fuel storage facility and one of the largest providers of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). Zenith Energy is a crucial partner in Oregon’s goal of reducing carbon emissions.”
Oliveira, who the city credits with establishing the Clean Industry Initiative, said deputy city administrators do not have a role in land use decisions before Portland Permitting and Development and cannot influence them.
“While I receive updates from staff regarding such matters, my job as DCA is to support the decisions of the subject matter experts,” Oliveira said.
In January 2024, Portland State University and the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, or BPS, announced a two-year partnership to advance the Clean Industry Initiative. In December 2024, the Portland Clean Energy Fund, or PCEF, granted $20 million to the closely related Clean Industry Community Program. The Metro Chamber is a member of the program.
The project intends to provide resources for large facilities and industrial businesses to invest in decarbonization, energy efficiency and renewable energy for their operations. Partners in the project include Neighbors for Clean Air, Portland Metro Chamber Charitable Institute and other community and business groups.
While the Metro Chamber letter may provide some political cover for the LUCS approval, not all parties involved in the Clean Industry Community Program support the city approving Zenith’s land use statement and do not necessarily believe it aligns with the Clean Industry Initiative.
Mary Peveto, Neighbors for Clean Air co-executive director, said the Chamber’s letter gave the parties an opportunity to talk about the relationship between the Clean Industry Initiative, renewable fuels and Zenith.
“I raised the question because I was uncomfortable with the association between the Clean Industry Initiative and inherent support for a position that would support the LUCS,” Peveto said. “That felt really incongruous to me.”
Peveto said the Clean Industry Community Program is narrowly focused on decarbonization for industries and institutions in Portland.
“It does not give blanket greenwashing to all things,” Peveto said.
Neighbors for Clean Air’s role in the process is to develop community consensus about the best use of the $20 million grant award, and Peveto said it would be premature to say how the money should be spent.
“The first part of our task is to establish community benefit criteria to be utilized in prioritizing what the investment should be from the PCEF grant award,” Peveto said. “We aren’t here because we think we can speak for all community.”
Oregon has lagged behind neighboring states Washington and California in addressing carbon emissions, mainly because the state has failed to adequately address older technologies like diesel engines and the heavy truck sector, according to Peveto. In other words, clean fuels used in newer technologies can reduce emissions, but cleaner fuels paired with old technologies like those widely used in Oregon dramatically reduce those benefits and continue the paradigm of burning fuel.
“(Neighbors for Clean Air’s) position is that we should transition out of older technology engines to achieve the greatest health and climate benefits,” Peveto said. “We have found that continuing to prioritize fuel, even clean fuels, has only perpetuated a reliance on older burning technology, and it slowed the acceleration in our state to lower and zero emissions.”
The Zenith resolution, which is expected to head to the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on March 10, noted the Portland City Code regulating lobbying entities was enacted “to promote transparency, encourage open government processes to avoid even the appearance of favoritism, and assure an accountable City government.”
On the morning of Jan. 10, Metro organizers seated Isaacs and Oliveira at the same table at the Metro Regional Housing Stakeholder Advisory Table, a special meeting to discuss the Metro Council’s potential actions to advance long-term regional funding for affordable housing and services.
“We got seated together ‘trouble makers’ haha,” Oliveira said, according to the records.
“Nice! Im almost there,” Isaacs responded. “I will look for you to know where to sit.”
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This article appears in February 26, 2025.
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