My comment in the Oregonian about Chris Dudley's 20-pt plan

Wow! If Oregon elects this guy, we're pretty stupid. This plan benefits Filigree Investments (Dudley's company) and the wealth-on-paper crowd he represents. I DO think there is a story here, if the Oregonian would pursue it.

Let me put it to you in perfectly understandable terms. My husband owns a corporation. He is based in Oregon and is the proverbial "small business" that Dudley is aiming to stimulate. Capital gains cuts won't help him. It won't help him employ a single person. Small businesses don't make purchasing or hiring decisions based on capital gains. Meanwhile, day traders and companies like Filigree are going to pay 66% less in taxes than a cop, firefighter, or teacher. Or you or me for that matter.

Dudley keeps using this disengenuous figure of 11% capital gains and that it's "the highest in the nation". What he's not explaining is that it's 11% above $500,000. This applies to millionaires. Dudley doesn't like the fact that he has to pay taxes on money made speculating in the market as if it were income. This plan is redistribution of wealth to people he represents at his firm with money that belongs in the Oregon coffers.

This gift for speculators WILL NOT CREATE A SINGLE JOB.

Reject this fraud!

(Link to article)

Dudley's Donors - Part 1

First, an administrative note: I want to apologize for not moderating comments in a timely fashion. I was pulled in reluctantly to start this blog when I witnessed the RGA's disappearing tweets bragging about Chris Dudley's meeting in Aspen, CO when he should have been debating John Kitzhaber. I'm still figuring out how this all works. Doing the research is easy (yes, you can do this yourself). Finding the time to write about it is harder. I'm also an artist, always trying to get some time in the studio. And I am a principal in my family's corporation. You will find no one who is happier than I am for the elections in November to be over with, but in the meantime I will try to be more aware of the mechanics of this blog. And so, I apologize. Your comments should be posted in better time from now on.

And now, on with the show...
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In case you were wondering who is contributing to Chris Dudley's campaign, the high rollers are a veritable who's who of environmental ne'er -do-wells and inhumane shitbags. Are you surprised? I'm not. If you believe as I do, that Dudley's function at Filigree Advisors is to glad-hand and essentially pimp his celebrity for his company (and now his party) and if you read Filigree's application for IAR (see below), the types of investments they are involved in jump out at you:












Real Estate. OK. Oil and gas partnerships? Just looking at this alone, it comes as no surprise that Chris Dudley nonchalantly told Laurel Porter on KGW Straight Talk that he was "open" to off-shore drilling EVEN AS the BP oil spill nightmare unfolded before the nation's horrified eyes.

This is the "nugget" that Dudley wants the voters to believe: Because he is "pro-business" (supposedly more than his opponent), this translates into job creation. When you look at Dudley's donors, you have a list of persons and business entities that are certainly expectant of wealth creation, especially through use of our natural resources. That, however, doesn't necessarily mean "job creation". And when you look at some of these donors' behaviors, it seems downright disgusting to reward them with anything, least of all a friend in the Governor's Mansion in Salem.

So, let's start the Dudley's Douchey Donors list with the natural resources category:

Stimson Lumber
Aggregate Donation to Dudley: $50,000
Personal donation form CEO Andrew Miller: $8450

As a special interest group, these guys are no stranger to an election.

No on Measure 49 involvement (2007):
The Portland Mercury explains better than I can why scrutiny of political donors is so important:

There's a reason journalists and good government activists spend so much time poring over campaign donor lists—the motives of each side's backers can reveal what's really in store for the state. That's clearly on display with M49, and with M37 three years ago. The biggest M37 claimholder, with over 109,000 acres in contention, is Stimson Lumber, who donated the largest contribution yet ($200,000) last week to the Stop 49 campaign. Stimson, a major player in the Northwest timber industry for over a hundred years, was the preeminent sponsor of M37 three years ago.

Understand: Stimson logs and then parcels the land for housing.
"In Washington County, west of Beaverton, Stimson Lumber holds the largest M37 claim, for nearly 15,000 acres subdivided for residential development. The cumulative area slated for development under various Measure 37 claims would immediately double the suburban land area in Washington County—and the Stimson claim is the lion's share of that potential sprawl."

In explaining the Stimson claims, CEO Andrew Miller told the Willamette Week "his company’s claims are 'political leverage'.” It should be mentioned that Stimson was also a $30,000 contributor to the original Measure 37 campaign.

Luckily, the voters prevailed and M49 passed.

No on Measure 67 involvement (2009/10):
Stimson Lumber has not been in agreement with the majority of Oregon voters on other issues. As explained in an excellent article regarding campaign funding which is worth a full read, it is not surprising that they pumped massive cash into defeating M67 campaign which passed this year. Measure 67 primarily effected large corporations such as Stimson, and closed a huge inequitable tax loophole for large corporations in this state. The anti-tax crowd is still complaining about it and Chris Dudley has plainly stated he was against it. But so far there is no proof that a single company has left the state as a direct result of Measure 67. No doubt, this issue will still be discussed this election until there is proof positive to shut the Chicken Little's up. In any case, Measure 67 was not the job-killer that the lousy economy in general is.

More Stimson/Measure 49 links:
http://blog.oregonlive.com/politics/2007/10/stimson_lumber_adds_money_to_m.html
http://www.wweek.com/editorial/3349/9812/
http://www.forestgrovenewstimes.com/news/print_story.php?story_id=116906024346035100

More Stimson/Measure 67 links:
http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=5692411&auid=5773288 (Some of the same donors to both the campaign to defeat M67 AND Chris Dudley are named on this list.)

Legal matters:
Being a company over 100 years old, you are bound to run afoul of the law and regulations now and again. Stimson has its share of polluted ponds, DEQ and OSHA violations and deplorable as those are, three more egregious matters should make anyone wonder why any campaign would take this company's money.

Most recently, just this year "The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ... Northwest Environmental Defense Center (NEDC) v. Brown, No. 07-35266, a three-judge panel overruled a Federal District Court's dismissal of NEDC's suit alleging that the Oregon State Forester and several private timberland owners had violated the Federal Clean Water Act (CWA)." Stimson was named as one of the defendants in this case. Basically they fought for and lost the right to dump their polluting run-off water in the ditches where they log without a permit.
More:
http://www.leagle.com/unsecure/page.htm?shortname=infco20100817216


Before that, there was the biggest fire-related settlement in Idaho's history, paid by Stimson Lumber for negligence.

"BOISE – A North Idaho logging operation is one of two companies that must pay $1.5 million to the state to settle negligence claims stemming from a 2003 wildfire.

The Hunt Creek fire torched nearly a square mile of state-owned timber on the eastern shore of Priest Lake.

Babbitt Logging Inc., based in Coeur d’Alene, and Portland-based Stimson Lumber Co. signed the settlement Oct. 9. The state had alleged that the companies caused the fire by improperly rigging logging equipment.

The money represents the largest forest-fire-related settlement Idaho has ever received, said Roger Jansson, head of state Department of Lands’ northern operations."

That takes us back further to Oliver vs. Stimson Lumber, a case that by everything I could find and understand (I am not a lawyer), seems to be some sort of precedent case regarding evidence destruction through negligence where an employee was injured on the job and evidence was re-tooled so as to render it useless even after it had been named as evidence.


But there's nothing like a Civil Rights case against a Reservist to really drive the case home: These guys suck.

Department of Justice

Office of Public Affairs

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Justice Department Settles Lawsuit Against Stimson Lumber Company to Enforce the Employment Rights of Oregon Reservist

WASHINGTON - The Department of Justice announced today that it has entered into a consent decree with Stimson Lumber Company (Stimson) that, if approved by the court, will resolve the Department’s complaint, also filed today, that Oregon-based Stimson failed to reemploy Oregon reservist David Eckhardt in violation of the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 (USERRA).
...

The Department’s complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Portland, Ore., alleges that Stimson violated USERRA by failing or refusing to promptly reemploy David Eckhardt upon his return from military service in the Naval Reserves. In March 2007, Eckhardt attended a required military training program. After a short recovery period from an injury sustained during his military training obligation, Eckhardt contacted Stimson in April 2007 to seek reemployment as a boiler operator. The complaint alleges that Stimson failed or refused to reemploy Eckhardt, notifying him that the company had hired another individual to replace him. Under the terms of the consent decree, Stimson is required to provide remedial relief to Eckhardt in the form of an undisclosed monetary payment. Stimson is also prohibited from retaliating against persons who exercise their rights under USERRA.

Regulations? Laws? Who cares about laws?

In closing, Stimson already has its tentacles in all levels of forest management, and I realize that the timber industry in Oregon has fallen on hard times in recent years (ironically causing much of the job loses that Dudley is blaming on John Kitzhaber during the time when he was Governor). But Stimson has proven by the examples shown here and by their political activism that they are scrambling hard to get a Corporate Welfare Savior in Salem. Dudley is their guy and the association may not be beneficial to the rest of us.

If you have links to other Stimson Lumber stories, please tweet them to me @bujeeboo

More of Dudley's Donors in coming days...

And allow me one last divergence. What is up with the Republican Party of Oregon? No platform yet? I guess they have Empty Suits and no standards by which to judge them, even amongst their own party.

Kitzhaber takes the High Road. Voters get No Road.

Update: We've been asked to show some examples of the information we cite below. It's all available, public record stuff. And I was rather angry about matters last night when I wrote my piece that my feelings at the time were essentially "I won't do the media's job for them, let them find this stuff". Trust me, it wasn't hard! But here is a screen grab of the Biography section of the Form ADV so you can see what I am talking about. Chris Dudley is a biography for Filigree. He has a super awesome title and no apparent role.




























This is the ONLY mention of Dudley with the SEC.












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In light of the very recent news that John Kitzhaber, who I have the greatest respect and admiration for, has told the Democratic Governors Association (in effect) to cease and desist with any negative campaigning for the time being, I thought I had better make a few things abundantly clear about this blog and vent my frustration.

First of all, this blog is written and researched by my husband and myself. We are Oregon residents. We are not part of the Democratic party in any official or unofficial capacity. You may have noticed a lot of this blog is formatted in the form of questions. As voters, we have questions! The media seems to have exhausted and bored itself with research on Dr. Kitzhaber because he is a known quantity. But we know even less about Chris Dudley.

We are not impressed with Chris Dudley. That is obvious. For one thing, the media seems to have bought into this enchanting notion that Dudley is somehow this experienced business person who knows how to create jobs. Chris Dudley doesn't create jobs in his career at Filigree Advisors. He (supposedly) creates wealth on paper for a living. And there's really no proof of success there either. The guy who did have some direct knowledge of business and job creation was Allen Alley but the Republicans didn't think Alley was glamorous enough so they invested no resources in his campaign. Chris Dudley, is above all, a campaign donation machine. So we "get" why his party likes him.

We fell into our role of exploring Chris Dudley quite by accident when we witnessed the Republican Governors Association post and then remove some tweets about where Chris Dudley REALLY was when he said he was unable to attend the ONPA debate because he was on a "family vacation". Now that we see how much the RGA has received from News Corp, the parent company of Fox News, we understand why Oregon voters came last on July 16th when Dudley had a choice between debating and going to a fund raiser. Screw us, the dumb shit voters of Oregon. Oh boy! The RGA has money and Haley Barbour to rub elbows with! What do we matter?

Since my husband and I witnessed Dudley's lie firsthand, we have been curious about him but there is little to know about him. Everything we can find on our own in local press says he has no specifics and that he has no experience in government. Then his 26 point plan comes out, and all be darned. It's true. The man needs a civics class on how Oregon government works!

So here's what I want to know based on my own research:

Why does the CFP Board website list Dudley's CFP license as current but that he is not practicing? A call placed to the CFP Board told me this means he's licensed but he isn't taking new clients.

Update: Chris Dudley is also not registered with SEC as an IAR (Investment Adviser Representative)

The Willamette Week in their July 21st article said Filigree has a value of $55 million in accounts they manage and the article speculated how much they made using a very generous 1% commission rate. The actual rate (if you do the damn research) is a sliding scale with the most generous being .85%. They have 30 clients according to their most recent filing with the SEC. We can assume that these clients are not all equal in wealth. So if we use the highest .85% commission rate, that's $476,500 annually that this firm makes. Hardly Fortune 500 stuff. It's three guys on commission in a high rent office in Lake Oswego, which I found leases from anywhere between $21 and 25/sf/yr. Oh yeah, a real job and wealth factory there. I'm not impressed.

All this leads me to my pivotal question: what the hell does Chris Dudley DO? His bio on the Filigree Advisors website says he is a "Wealth Strategist". In fact, the Filigree website doesn't even mention Ian Crawford, the third partner but instead leads the visitor to believe that it's Gerald Graves and Chris Dudley's s show. However Filigree's FORM ADV with the SEC says lists Chris Dudley's biography and that's it. No duties, no detail. He's not a controlling partner. The ADV goes into some detail what Graves and Crawford do. But for Dudley, it's just a biography.

And I would contend, that's all he is in his job and that's all he is in politics. A biography. A story. A hand-shaker. Someone to bring clients in, or bring donors in. The thinking is, where the money goes, the voters will follow. Where is the evidence that Chris Dudley has created a single job? Where is the evidence that he's even created any wealth?!

As for negative ads, Dudley's expensive campaign ads have already gone negative on Kitzhaber in spite of Kitzhaber wanting to take the high road. In Dudley's recent ad, he blames Kitzhaber for poor job creation in Oregon during the recession in 2001 after we were attacked on 9/11 and when the whole country was in recession. He neglects to say that the Republican Legislature at the time also shares the blame if there is any blame to give. He neglects to say that the Oregon Progress Board set goals for itself and basically gave itself the F grade as depicted in the ad. It's disingenuous crap and half-truths. If Kitzhaber doesn't have the money right now to put out something positive in defense of this BS, then I have concerns that this will never be an even race, which I believe most Oregonians believe in.

So John Kitzhaber may have shut off the DGA, but this humble husband and wife team will keep on chipping away at the facade that is Chris Dudley, "economy fixer and job creator" until we see evidence that he can do either.

Your Humble Blogger
~bujeeboo

Chris Dudley's employment history

Chris Dudley became Vice President of M Financial Wealth Management in 2006. The "outsider" who is his "own man", would like you to think he's just like average Oregonians.














M Financial Wealth Management was featured in the October - November 2008 issue of the magazine "Private Wealth: Advising the Exceptionally Affluent". (I am guessing that isn't you, Gentle Reader.) This is a very exclusive class of people who are just itching to get their Number 1 free-thrower in the highest office in the state. These are not wealthy people who necessarily create jobs or stimulate the economy in times of recession. These are the ones who sit on their Golden Goose asses and hire firms like M to accelerate their wealth on paper. For many in this class, the only jobs created are the folks' at M.

Having connections in high places is important for a Governor. Chris Dudley is not like that other celebrity pol to our South, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who came into office politically isolated and largely remained politically isolated while running as a populist. No doubt, Chris Dudley intends to leverage his relationships with the "Exceptionally Affluent" to procure some promises for jobs. But he won't come out and say it (even when pressed) and it's the kind of back-door dealing the voters have come to hate, the promise of jobs not-with-standing. Not only that, but such deals have the potential to be dangerous especially when a political neophyte isn't a very strong communicator, which Dudley despite his overall "nice guy" persona, is not. But Dudley claiming to be "open" to offshore oil drilling and LNG pipelines means he's a typical Republican who is "open" to parceling out our natural resources to the highest bidder. That can mean jobs. And it could also result in opening the Oregon coast within 3 miles off shore to oil exploration.

For you and me, he has candy.

Dudley and another former M employee left in 2008 and started their own wealth management company called Filigree. You might recognize Gerald Graves, his business partner. He's one of the "testimonial" heads on Chris Dudley's commercial "Drive".

And lest you think, as I do, that the above is not adequate experience to run the state of Oregon, there's always this gem from Sports Illustrated:

"In the NBA you're working with 12 or 15 players of completely different backgrounds usually," Dudley said. "They're from all over the country working toward a common goal and that's winning a championship. That element of teamwork and working with others is something that translates well into politics."

The stakes have never been higher.