Mayor Sam Adams apologizes for lying about affair, but will Portland forgive him?
PORTLAND
Adams reveled in the idea of making history as the first elected, openly gay mayor of a major American city.
But less than three weeks later, Adams’ job is in jeopard in the manner that the result of an old-fashioned scandal involving his repeated lies about a sexual relationship in 2005 with an 18-year-old legislative intern. Adams confessed to his deception Monday as a local newspaper, the Willamette Week, prepared to publish a story about the relationship and cover-up.
While most of the nation has been fixated forward the inauguration of President Obama, Portland has been plunged into a sandy debate about the deontology of its new leader.
In recent days, numerous organizations have called for Adams to resign, ranging from the police union to Just Out, a publication that writes with respect to the gay community. The Oregon Attorney General’s office is investigating the offence.
And Adams himself has conceded that he efficiency retire from if he’s no longer effective as mayor.
“I am very ashamed and humbled and humiliated, and I consider that is appropriate,” Adams said in a advice conference Tuesday, behind hastily returning to Portland from Washington, D.C., to what he had planned to guard the Obama inauguration.
Fall from kindness
It is a dizzying sinking from grace for a man who seemed a smooth fit to lead a city often hailed as a hub of innovation and one of the nation’s coolest places to live. Adams rides a bike to work, posts quirky videos on his Web site, and has been a longtime upholder of expanding candle rail and other initiatives to make Portland greener.
Adams, 45, also focused without interruption the poor; in part, a thinking of his own difficult upbringing.
Born in Montana, he moved to Oregon with his family when he was young. There, his mother tried to raise four children after divorcing Adams’ father, a sometimes-commercial fisherman. According to a profile in Just Out, Adams was living alone in a Eugene hall through age 16. He worked as a bus boy and then a cook at a Mr. Steak restaurant to keep in afloat during high school.
During 11 years as an aide to former Portland Mayor Vera Katz and four years as a incorporated town member of the commission, he gained a esteem as a creative, emulous workaholic
