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Gilmore St. Heppner
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VOL. 141
NO. 51 8 Pages
Wednesday, December 21, 2022
Morrow County, Heppner, Oregon
Windwave owners under investigation by
state ethics commission
Board votes to move forward with ‘complex’ investigation
By Andrea Di Salvo
Four Morrow County
men are now under investi-
gation by the Oregon Gov-
ernment Ethics Commission
(OGEC) concerning possible
conflicts of interest between
their business and their in-
volvement in local politics.
During a Dec. 16 execu-
tive session, the OGEC board
voted unanimously to pursue
investigations concerning Don
Russell, Marv Padberg, Jerry
Healy and Gary Neal in what
some ethics commissioners re-
ferred to as a “complex” case.
Because all four men are in-
volved in the case as owners of
Windwave Communications,
all four waived confidentiality
and OGEC investigator Susan
Myers presented her prelimi-
nary review reports in a single
session last week.
The ethics commission
began a preliminary review
to see if official investigation
was warranted after receiving
a complaint that the individ-
uals had used their political
influence for their own finan-
cial gain. The four men share
ownership of Windwave, a
fiber-optic service provider
in Morrow County. The com-
plaint arose from the fact that
all four men were or are public
officials potentially involved
in negotiations with Amazon
Web Services regarding data
centers located in Morrow
County.
Because Windwave con-
Gary
Neal
Jerry
Healy
tracts to provide fiber-optic
services to several of those
data centers, the complaint
alleged that they had financial
conflicts of interest that they
had failed to disclose. Specif-
ically, the complaint alleged
that the men had violated ORS
244.040 and ORS 244.120,
which deal with prohibited
uses of official positions or of-
fices and methods of handling
conflicts.
Don Russell of Boardman
is a current Morrow County
Commissioner, though he
will be leaving office next
month. He also serves on
the Columbia Development
Authority (CDA) board and
on Columbia River Enterprise
Zone (CREZ). CREZ is the
body that has negotiated with
Amazon over tax reductions
for its data centers in Morrow
County. Myers said her initial
review included a sampling
of the Morrow County Board
of Commissioners meeting
minutes.
“Those minutes indicate
that Don Russell participated
in a number of discussions
relating to Amazon,” Myers
told the board. She added that
in December of 2019 Russell
Marv
Padberg
Don
Russell
had paused the meeting in
order to call ethics commis-
sion staff and that, when the
meeting resumed, the minutes
indicated he was advised to
disclose a potential conflict of
interest due to his interest in
Windwave.
“He did so at this meeting
and at some of the subsequent
meetings. However, in a num-
ber of meetings before that
call, it appears that he partic-
ipated in matters involving
Amazon and did not disclose
a conflict of interest,” Myers
said.
She also said the review
had included some CREZ
meeting minutes, which indi-
cated Don Russell participated
in meetings where the data
centers were discussed and
may have participated in nego-
tiations with Amazon. She rec-
ommended the investigation
move forward so they could
continue to review minutes
of the various entity meetings
and determine if Russell did
have any undisclosed conflicts
or had used his position in
violation of ethics rules.
When given a chance
to respond, Russell said he
didn’t believe he had violated
Heppner Celebrates Christmas
It was a packed house at the Heppner Celebrate Christmas event last Thurs-
day, Dec. 15, when community members showed up at the Morrow County
Fairgrounds to meet Santa, drink hot cocoa and try their luck with the many
prize drawings. Corey Sweeney talks Skip Matthews of Heppner into buying
tickets at the penny board table. -Photo by Andrea Di Salvo
Christine Bailey (left)
and Katie Siri-Murray
draw prize winners at
the $50 table last Thurs-
day. -Photo by Andrea Di
Salvo
Oregon’s ethics rules.
“The reason we are here
today is because there has been
an ethics complaint filed by
someone who has been filing
complaints against any and ev-
eryone in the area for a couple
of years now,” he said. “I think
that after any investigation you
would find that I did, in fact,
act in the best interests of the
citizens of Morrow County
and not in violation of rules. I
look forward to the facts and
truth coming out.”
Marv Padberg is a life-
long resident and farmer from
Ione. He also serves as a Port
of Morrow commissioner
and a director for the Inland
Development Corporation, a
nonprofit organization estab-
lished by the Port, the county
and the Morrow Development
Corporation to provide inter-
net services.
Myers said she reviewed a
sampling of minutes from Port
commission meetings, but that
the only minutes available on
the Port’s website were from
Nov. 2021 to Aug. 2022.
“In some of these min-
utes, it does appear that Marv
Padberg disclosed either a
potential or an actual conflict
of interest and abstained from
voting,” Myers said. However,
she requested further investi-
gation to review minutes prior
to Nov. 2021 and to review
executive sessions that were
held by the Port.
“It appears that a number
of these sessions may have
related to the negotiations for
the Amazon data centers. If
so, then Marv Padberg may
have been met with potential
conflicts of interest in those
executive sessions,” said My-
ers. “The disclosure of such
conflicts would need to be
made in the public session
prior to entering the executive
session. The minutes of the
meetings that we reviewed
did not indicate any such dis-
closures.”
“We’ve always been
aware of the possibility of a
conflict of interest arising from
having a business in the Port
area,” Padberg replied, “and
have done our best to not be
involved in Port decisions that
our company has any involve-
ment in.”
Jerry Healy of Heppner
is a Port of Morrow commis-
sioner, as well as a Port repre-
sentative to the CREZ board.
He is also a director for Inland
Development. As such, he also
faced possible conflicts of
interest as a Windwave owner.
“From some of the min-
Anderson’s light display - Photo by Marcia Anderson
Arcade St. Lexington
Gale St. Heppner
Water St. Heppner
Quaid St. Heppner
Ployhar light display Hermiston - Photo by Bob Ployhar
B St. Lexington
-Continued to PAGE TEN Arcade St. Lexington
Moira Di Salvo and father Carmelo Di Salvo of Lex-
ington browse the $20 prize table to see where they
want to try their luck with the rewards cards they
got from shopping local. -Photo by Andrea Di Salvo
The Heppner Gazette
closed Dec. 26
The Heppner Gazette-Times will be closed Monday,
Dec. 26, for the Christmas holiday. The deadline for all
news and ads for the Dec. 28 edition is Friday, Dec. 23,
by 5 p.m.
We wish all of our readers a very merry and safe
Christmas.
Stansbury St. Heppner