UNDER PRESSURE, TRAVEL OREGON REVEALS CEO’S NEW SALARY: After a week of secrecy, Travel Oregon and its commissioners have revealed what they are paying CEO Todd Davidson to stay on in the top job for one more year after he retires this month. Davidson, who made a $365,000 base salary in 2024 and is one of highest-paid agency heads in state government, will make $342,000 in addition to his pension. The Oregon Journalism Project had sought the offer letter for a week after the Travel Oregon commissioners, in a 7–2 vote, approved the deal. A Travel Oregon spokesperson said the document couldn’t be disclosed because it was “incomplete” until it was signed. Travel Oregon released the signed offer within hours of OJP publishing a story about the agency’s unwillingness to release the information. Two Oregon First Amendment lawyers said that the agency’s withholding of the letter violated Oregon law. The chair of Travel Oregon’s board of commissioners, Lucinda DiNovo, didn’t reply to a request for information on Davidson’s new contract. Nor did Harish Patel and David Penilton, the two commissioners who voted no at the public meeting. A recent Oregon Journalism Project investigation of Travel Oregon detailed operational dysfunction at the agency and the outsized pay of its decadeslong CEO (“A Nice Place to Visit,” WW, May 28).

CONTROVERSIAL WILLAMETTE FALLS FUNDING PROCEEDS: As lawmakers prepare to finish the 2025 session, the so-called Christmas tree bill contained few presents larger than the $45 million included in House Bill 5006 for the Willamette Falls Trust to purchase Moore’s Island, about 60 acres of property available now because of the closure of West Linn Paper Co. That appropriation comes amid intertribal controversy: The Grand Ronde Tribe, which has historic treaty rights at Willamette Falls, urged Gov. Tina Kotek not to give money to the trust, whose executive director is former Gov. Kate Brown and whose members include the Siletz, Umatilla, Warm Springs and Yakama tribes. But the project rests in the district of Salem’s most powerful lawmaker, Senate President Rob Wagner (D-Lake Oswego). Grand Ronde tribal chairwoman Cheryle Kennedy panned the appropriation. “Any state investment in land at Willamette Falls must center the voices and rights of Tribal nations with ancestral ties to this sacred site, not a private nonprofit,” Kennedy said. Meanwhile the trust cheered the decision. “We are grateful to the Legislature for including this project, which will return an iconic treasure to the people,” the trust said.

LAWMAKERS ANGLE FOR PRIMATE CENTER CLOSURE: Unable to pass a dedicated bill on a short schedule, state legislators opposed to medical research on nonhuman primates proposed a different tactic to close the Oregon National Primate Research Center in Hillsboro before the 2025 session ends on June 29. Rep. David Gomberg (D-Otis) and others added a section to the House’s budget reconciliation measure directing Oregon Health & Science University, which runs the center, to determine if it can survive cuts to funding from the federal government. Grants from the National Institutes of Health, a target of Trump administration budget cuts, pay for most of the center’s $63 million budget. If passed, the measure would require OHSU to determine the impact of those cuts and confirm that no state money is being used to support the 200-acre primate center. The bill would also require OHSU to develop a “comprehensive plan” to close the center should NIH funding fall by more than 25% from fiscal 2024 levels or if OHSU is forced to tap state funds to maintain its monkey operations. The plan must include a detailed timeline for closure and a system for “disposition” of the 5,000 macaques and other species that live at the center. The reconciliation measure must pass both the Oregon House and Senate and be signed by Gov. Tina Kotek, who has called for the center to shut down in an orderly fashion. “We are glad all legislation aimed at closing the Oregon National Primate Research Center failed to advance this legislative session,” an OHSU spokesperson says. “Through this budget note, we look forward to the opportunity to share both the positive benefits of the center and provide an analysis of how our patients, people, students and animal welfare could be supported in the event of deep federal cuts.”