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Statement from March 20, 2025

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The lawsuit filed today brings me no joy.

 

Instead, it reflects nearly two years of failed attempts to prevent such a suit. Since my first months in the Mayoral seat, I have been challenged for asking questions and attempting to increase transparency and ensure the City of Umatilla’s actions and expenditures of funds are reflective of the needs of all segments of our community. 

 

On multiple occasions over the past two years, I have attempted to get the members of the City and Council to cease the conduct that led to this suit. Instead, they continued. 

 

I have worked to educate, and to uphold high ethical standards for myself, and others in our City. I have relied upon the advice of the Oregon Government Ethics Commission to guide me and tried to share the information to improve the work at hand. 

 

After exhausting education and communication options, this past summer I was left with two options- file ethics complaints or file a lawsuit. I was trying to be a good steward of taxpayer funds and believed a lawsuit was contrary to that intent, so I filed ethics complaints, even though that meant reporting myself for investigation as well. The case regarding me was dismissed, the others were not.

 

As I’ve said from the beginning, asking tough questions, promoting transparency, and advocating for accountability and fiscal responsibility are not just my duties as Mayor, they are what I promised when I ran for office. 

 

As this lawsuit works through our legal processes, I will remain focused on the work I’ve been committed to this entire time. 

 

I believe in the community of Umatilla. I believe the citizens of Umatilla deserve to have the City of Umatilla show strong stewardship of taxpayer dollars.
 

I believe the funds we’ve received in lieu of taxes for industrial development should be shared with all impacted taxing districts, and not used solely by the County and City without input from those taxing districts. 

 

I believe the government should be small and that the City should not be competing with business. I believe the City should take care of public services- roads, sewer, water, etc. and refrain from luxurious expenditures (like the City’s Tesla and tickets for a professional baseball game for ”employee appreciation”).

 

I believe our employment contracts for management should be in line with other like-size cities and am not supportive of the eight-year contract for the City manager with the two-year renewal process that essentially creates a 9, 10, 11 year contractual obligation for the City- obligating us to well over a million dollars in salary expenses alone. 

 

I believe in open and transparent governmental processes and will continue to strive to provide increased opportunities for the public to be informed, to access information and to have opportunities to understand what is happening. 

 

I will continue to ask questions of our staff and elected officials, not because I am seeking to remove anyone from their roles, but rather because questions are an important piece in governmental accountability, and not an attack on individuals. 

 

In the process of simply trying to fulfill my elected role, I had to take out significant amounts of debt to pay a lawyer to defend myself. I need to attempt to recoup those expenses, and I need to be sure I’m standing tall and fighting when Constitutional rights as fundamental as free speech and due process are under attack. 

 

I’ve endured two years of false narratives about me, and my family. Many false assumptions have been shared on social media by people who’ve never even had a conversation with me.
 

I encourage those with questions to read the actual documents, attend meetings, email or phone me. It’s easy to share things on social media but my parents had a strong message when we were kids and wanted to put things on social media or say harsh words. They’d ask, “Are you trying to make a statement or are you trying to make a difference? If you’re trying to make a difference, roll up your sleeves and get to work. If you’re trying to make a statement, go ahead and keep yelling into the wind.”
 

I’m here to make a difference and I hope others are as well. I’m happy to engage with others, and I’m honored to do the work.

 

In the interest of transparency, I do not expect you to simply take my word as my bond. Instead, I have provided numerous pieces of information below. I encourage those with questions to read and examine for themselves. To open any of these, click on the text that is blue and underlined. If you need other documents, please feel free to reach out or file a public records request with the City. 

 

As always, you can reach me through this website or you are always welcome at a City Council meeting. Alone, we can achieve something, together, we can achieve greatness for the community we all love. 

 

Thank you,

Caden Sipe


 

Emails and Communications

My initial email to City Manager Stockdale regarding tax payer expenditures and request for publicly published minutes

 

My email with questions regarding drinking water from the Columbia River

 

The document I shared with City Manager Stockdale in summer of 2024 in an attempt to explain why my personal opinion was that the City had work to do to build community trust before seeking bond funds for a police station.
 

I fully support a new police station but believe we should tighten our belts and perhaps reduce the scope of the project. I believe we are capable of funding the project within our own budget parameters instead of seeking additional taxpayer dollars: City Promises Document 

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May 2024 City Council Meeting Regarding Police Station and Bond Funding where this project was presented as City, not additional taxpayer bond, funded.

 

Enterprise Zones

My actual quote from the Enterprise Zone meeting (that I was later sanctioned for): “This is Caden Sipe speaking, as citizen, not mayor. The City has taken a mindset shift, that “this is our money and we’re going to take it home and we’re going to do what we want with it.” And it’s heartbreaking to hear the conversation from the PD, I’m sorry, from the fire department, and from the hospital district, the library district, from vector control, and the ESD and education, and the west end, and all. I think it’s really important that we ensure that we continue these conversations. 

 

Moving forward, I hope that we have these critical conversations and that we’re continuing these and they are fruitful, and that the needs of everyone’s districts are being met. If we’re going to have these programs that are in lieu of taxes, we need to provide dollar figures that are in lieu of those taxes. It cannot be one or the other. It must be a conversation. Equity, and ensuring that we are all at the table talking together and talking about what things look like. 

 

Dave is correct. We do have pipelines that we need to fill, but that’s a conversation piece that we’re doing as a unit. If we’re going to spend $15 million dollars building a pipeline between the City and the County and we’re going out for different grants, everyone in this room should know about it so when we can say, “Hey, your pie is getting smaller, because we’re building a pipeline so we have this tax base for 30 years of timeframe,” then that’s a conversation we need to have. It can’t necessarily be that, “We’re going to go out and build this, and then we’re going to go out and do a bunch of other funding pieces with all these other dollars.” The CREZ examples were honestly hurtful. One of the things that I did some quick back of the napkin math on was if we left staff or funded at the same level, the fire district could get another 1.24 million dollars in the same time frame. I know we don’t have their exact figures, but he’s right, (inaudible), you wouldn’t have to go out for a bond. You could start looking at how you could increase services. Moving forward, I hope those are the types of conversations we can continue to have.”

 

Ethics

My request to and the response from the Oregon Government Ethics Commission regarding my potential conflicts of interest when advocating for funds received from Enterprise Zone payments to be shared with ALL taxing districts and not solely kept by the City and the County

 

Oregon Government Ethics Video of meetings regarding concerns I’ve raised (all queued to the starting points for each video):

 

Statements shared here are personal opinions

and are not intended to represent the City of Umatilla

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©2025 by Caden Sipe.

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