PORTLAND, Ore. — Commissioner Rene Gonzalez's mayoral campaign violated Portland campaign finance regulations by failing to include required financial disclosure information on a large campaign banner hung along a local street, the city auditor's office concluded in a notice released Thursday.
The announcement comes just a day after the office announced that it had reopened a separate prior investigation into whether Gonzalez violated campaign finance law by using city funds to pay for edits to his Wikipedia page in connection with his mayoral campaign. The office issued a ruling of No Violation in mid-September due to what it said was a lack of evidence, but walked that decision back on Wednesday, saying it had obtained new information that would need to be assessed.
News of the ongoing Wikipedia investigation first surfaced in mid-August, but the banner investigation wasn't publicly known until Thursday's announcement.
The complaint in the newer case was filed in early September and describes a large Gonzalez campaign banner hung along Southwest Vista Avenue near the Vista Bridge in view of traffic, with no visible financial disclaimer. City law requires campaign signs larger than six square feet to include a box with information about who paid for it. The office said it investigated and concluded the banner was approximately 28 square feet.
The investigation concluded that the evidence supported a finding of one violation, but said there would be no financial penalty, only a "Letter of Warning and Information" to the Gonzalez campaign, because the campaign cooperated during the investigation and had no prior violations during the current election cycle.
In a letter responding to the investigators' initial inquiry, the Gonzalez campaign described the sign as "an outdated banner from our previous campaign headquarters" and said the volunteer who put it up on Vista Avenue immediately took it down at the campaign's request after the complaint was filed.
The auditor's office said the campaign also confirmed it had created and paid for the banner around the time Gonzalez launched his mayoral bid last year, and said they had planned to use it for future events but had intended for the disclaimer to be added before it was used outside of the campaign office.