The city of Bend paid $86,000 in September to the outgoing director of the department that led equity and inclusion, Andrés Portela, for him to agree not to sue the city.

In his letter of resignation, Portela described the city as an “unsafe, inequitable, and professionally hostile environment” where repeated incidents of discrimination and racism made it “untenable” for him to remain. 

“I’ve left the city for organization and community culture,” Portela said in a message to The Bulletin. He did not agree to talk further.

Portela spent two years leading city of Bend’s Accessibility and Equity department. He resigned after the department was broken up and staff were reassigned.

His rocky exit comes as equity and inclusion work is being unravelled locally and across the nation — and in a city that has professed it as a core value. It spurred the city to hire an outside consultant to help guide equity work, and launch an internal investigation into the events that led to it.

Alleged pattern of mistreatment

He said he faced a pattern of mistreatment among staff members and elected leaders across the city, and that the city did little to respond to incidents of racism. 

Portela cited a “lack of meaningful support” after he alleges he was chased by an unnamed person to his car, spat on and called racist slurs outside city hall. He was also troubled by alleged incidents inside city hall: He said a former councilor was racist to him, colleagues undermined his authority, criticized his tone in emails and asked him how to “deal” with Black community members and staff, he said. He said he didn’t feel protected after facing discrimination from friends of City Manager Eric King at a city-sponsored event. 

He also said said he was ​​consistently told to remove the word “race” from external facing equity documents, and that “there are other priorities for the city and equity work must pause.”

The city denied that is has moved away from diversity, equity and inclusion work in any way.

This year the Trump Administration has attempted to purge diversity, equity and inclusion programs across the country by signing executive orders that target federal agencies, contractors and recipients of federal money. In response to the Trump Administration, Deschutes County axed a staff committee focused on equity and inclusion. The city of Bend has since joined two lawsuits challenging executive orders that threaten federal funding to the city.

City Attorney Ian Leitheiser said recent changes to the city’s equity department are not an attempt to comply with federal mandates. The city says it identified “leadership issues” in the department and “agreed on a new structure that distributes equity and accessibility work more strategically to better meet community and organizational needs.”

“We can’t emphasize this strongly enough: the City’s equity work continues, and the employees and partners doing the work remain dedicated and committed,” he said in an email. 

City withholds records

The city refused to release Portela’s resignation letter for weeks. It was kept out of multiple public records requests, some filed as far back as Sept. 16, with the agency citing public records law and claiming that keeping the record private was key to keeping the integrity of an internal investigation into the issues raised by Portela.

The city sent the email to The Bulletin on Friday after Oregon Public Broadcasting published it in an article. But also attached were responses from Leitheiser and Stephanie Betteridge, Portela’s former supervisor who works in the city manager’s office.

Their responses expressed concern and refuted much of what Portela claimed. 

“My recollection of many of the events and discussions differs from yours,” Betteridge wrote to Portella. 

Leitheiser sent a long email, writing that he believed the city had listened to Portela’s input and addressed issues between Portela and other city staff.

“I can’t address everything in your email and won’t try to here,” he wrote. “I respect your decision to move on, if that’s where you are. I didn’t know you were chased or spat on. I don’t think I can fully communicate how awful that sounds, even for me to type it out, or express how much I wish I could prevent those things from happening to you or anyone. I’m sorry those things happened.”

In a statement Friday, Leitheiser told The Bulletin that “Andrés demonstrated inconsistent statements, behaviors, and actions during his time with the City, including in the period after he announced his resignation. In the judgment of the City’s Human Resources Department and the City Attorney’s Office, this created risk and justified a resignation agreement.”

Portela made a public announcement of his decision to resign at the Sept. 17 Bend City Council meeting. The response was cordial, with King highlighting several of his accomplishments. A day earlier, Portela had sent a six-sentence resignation email to the city, writing that he was grateful for the opportunities and wanted to ensure a smooth transition. The day before that, Portela had sent an email to a number of city staff members about his departure. He cited accomplishments, including creation of shared language and definitions around equity, development of a new tool to evaluate equity in city policy, and the work of an internal diversity, equity and inclusion committee.

Moving forward

Portela categorized his initial email to the city as the starting point for “constructive dialogue” about why he felt the need to leave. 

Megan Perkins, a Bend City Councilor who founded an equity nonprofit called Embrace Bend and is the liaison to the city’s equity committee, declined to comment on the issues related to Portela’s departure, but called it “a huge loss for the city and for our community.”

“But I want to assure everyone that does not mean that anything is stopping, and it never actually has,” she said. 

She addressed concerns in emails to community members last month, writing that the city’s Human Rights and Equity Commission would soon be diving into policy work with water equity, the growth plan, fire planning and housing recommendations. Council’s goals for the next two years include expanding language access, incorporating an equity framework into the city’s decision-making process and collaborating with community partners to “address hate incidents and discrimination.” She said the staff who were assigned out of the equity department are still “deeply imbedded in equity.”

The city recently contracted with Ben Duncan, who worked for seven years as Multnomah County’s Chief Diversity and Equity Officer, to perform an audit and report back. 

Perkins said there is a lot the city can do to advance equity, but the “hardest thing” is figuring out how to make sure staff of color are welcomed and supported. That’s what she hopes the consultant can focus on. 

“If you are a Black man or a Black woman, and you walk into a city staff, I think we have 800 staff, you can go days without seeing someone that looks like you,” Perkins said in an interview. “As a city, how do you help provide that kind of support so that you don’t feel alienated and you don’t feel alone in that position? That’s hard. That’s really hard.”

*Editor’s note: This story has been updated for clarity.