In December, PJ Media reported on the suit filed against Portland City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty by credit card companies for unpaid and defaulted debt. We now have the result of that lawsuit. If you guessed Hardesty, who has pushed hard to defund the Portland Police, took personal responsibility, showed up to court, and worked out a repayment plan on her defaulted credit cards, well, we have some bad news for you.
Hardesty failed to show up to court, saying she somehow “missed the notice” of the court date. When that happens, the judge almost always issues a default judgment in favor of the creditor. That’s exactly what happened this week in Multnomah County Circuit Court.
OregonLive reported earlier this week, when the judge entered the order of default judgment:
A Multnomah County judge ruled that Portland Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty must pay a credit card company more than $16,000 in overdue debt and fees after she failed to show up in court to address the matter.
Circuit Judge Judith Matarazzo issued default orders last week in a pair of lawsuits filed by Bank of America in November that alleged Hardesty had defaulted on two credit card accounts, documents show.
The judge approved a $4,900 lien against Hardesty in the first case March 21 and another $11,700 penalty related to the second case three days later, court records and officials say.
Documents of the second lien did not appear in Oregon’s online court record system Tuesday because of a processing backlog, judicial clerk Matt Frederick told The Oregonian/OregonLive.
Records show that neither Hardesty nor an attorney representing her appeared in court or filed a written notice in the two cases.
“I fully intend to pay and have reached out to Bank of America’s attorneys to arrange a payment plan,” Hardesty said in an emailed statement Tuesday. She did not answer questions about why she never responded to either court case.
After the obvious backlash and media attention in which even Portland’s local media couldn’t ignore or run cover for Hardesty, she followed up with a statement a few days later:
Earlier this week, the Oregonian ran a follow-up on my $16,000 personal debt. I made an initial payment today, and have set up regular deductions from my wages to settle the matter. I should have done more when I did not see any notice. This is my mistake, and I take full responsibility. This was a personal failing and has no impact on my official responsibilities. I regret that it is taking away energy and focus from the good work we have done together for our city like Portland Street Response, which we expanded citywide this week.
On day one I fulfilled my campaign promise to hire an experienced finance director to ensure my office finances are impeccably managed and have their expertise in the bureaus I oversee. At the time we were the only commissioner’s office with this position.
I have made it my priority as commissioner to elevate the voices of our communities and ensure we are included as the city makes decisions and policies that impact our lives. I am learning from this mistake and have faith that it will make me stronger. I will continue to be transparent, own my mistakes, and show up for Portland.
Like most Portlanders, I have worked my whole life. Living paycheck-to-paycheck for 60 years before becoming your commissioner was hard, and I often struggled to make ends meet. In that way, I’m no different than the vast majority of Portlanders. Once I got elected and back to work as your city commissioner, I budgeted my salary to pay down my debts and cover medical expenses.
My reasons for running remain clear – fighting for working families and vulnerable communities in our policy-making; being honest about the problems we face; and creating solutions that are equitable, accountable, and transformative.
Your commissioner and neighbor,
Jo Ann Hardesty
Jo Ann Hardesty turned 64 years old in October of 2021. She makes over $100k per year in city commissioner salary. She has the means to handle more financial stress than the average Portland resident. She simply didn’t want to. That’s the only conclusion one can reach after seeing all her personal failings play out on the reluctant nightly news.
Notice in her statement that she shifts blame to some hazy financial director who has never appeared before the cameras to corroborate her claims. Hardesty then claims she’s taken personal responsibility for the debts by setting up regular payment deductions from her paycheck.
In the legal and the credit worlds, we call those garnishments. In other words, an involuntary deduction—hardly the hallmark of a person taking responsibility. She can spin this all she wants, but when the chips were down, so to speak, she failed to pay her debts and now she’s got a garnishment on her paycheck. Like what we used to call in the credit and collections industry: a career debtor.
As we reported in December 2021:
Notably, Hardesty earns a salary as a city councilor north of $127,000 while living in a small apartment in East Portland. Hardesty has made no comment so far as to why she hasn’t paid back the debts.
Never mind her cushy public salary, with which the 64-year-old Hardesty could easily have paid off these debts with a minimum of responsible budgeting. Her written statement that she ran into debt while campaigning for office doesn’t hold water. An examination of her campaign contributions from 2017 through 2020, maintained at the Oregon Secretary of State’s website, shows she raised over half a million dollars for her campaign—$514,398.30, to be exact.
Hardesty’s statement that “as a working person” she ran into credit card debt allows for one of two conclusions: either she illegally commingled personal credit cards with her campaign expenditures or she didn’t have a job while campaigning, which belies her claim as a “working person.”
When one probes Hardesty’s history, a clear pattern of mismanagement emerges. There is an endless list of unpaid parking tickets, previous lawsuits; unpaid taxes, allegations of substance abuse and a possible gambling problem, accusations of impropriety in her time as head of the local chapter of the NAACP, and, of course, the allegation of involvement in a hit and run accident. While the Portland Police Bureau claimed less than 24 hours after the accident that they didn’t consider Hardesty a suspect, questions linger.
All along, her response is to accuse those talking about her of racism against the city’s only female of color on the city council and to file lawsuits.
This followed her personal Summer of Love, in which rumors swirled that she had checked herself into inpatient drug rehab.
Which followed a winter in which she called the cops on her Lyft driver and was accused of being involved in a hit and run accident while driving.
As PJ Media reported in December, Hardesty never adequately proved her innocence in the hit-and-run incident. Her cover story was tissue paper-thin, and the police investigation into the incident was a politically motivated farce:
So, when the Portland Police Bureau (PPB) put out a statement that they had ruled out Hardesty as a suspect in a March 2021 hit and run accident, that closed the case, right?
Not exactly. Many questioned how deeply the PPB investigated the report before putting out their statement about 18 hours after the news exploded. The original complaint said an African American woman matching the description of Jo Ann Hardesty, driving a late model tan-colored four-door Toyota or similar model, rear-ended another driver and then left the scene. Subsequent media reports, based on police statements, implicated a different African American woman, who lives in Vancouver, Wash., and does not match the description of Hardesty, based on traffic camera footage from about 20 blocks away from the incident.
It didn’t make sense.
Speaking of not making sense, Hardesty held a press briefing to address the allegations. The appearance was downright unhinged. She stated that she had a car like that and didn’t know the make and model of it, but that she had donated it the night before to the Volunteers of America by parking it at their lot down the street from her apartment. She said because of COVID, the title had not yet been changed over—another excuse that made zero sense.
Of course, when asked to provide the documentation that she had indeed donated the vehicle, she couldn’t find it. She assured the assembled reporters she would provide it as soon as possible.
Look. It’s no crime to have a personal life that’s a train wreck. But is it too much to ask that the stewards of public trust, and public funds, have a modicum of personal responsibility to demonstrate that they’re not going to make the city go kerfluey at the most inopportune time?
Wait. We’re talking about Portland. Don’t answer that.
*Note: prior to a career in writing, the author spent a decade and a half in the credit and collections industry.
Source: PJ Media
