Part One: Washington County Told Linda Galas-Merten to Stop
New records show Washington County had been confronting the political use of its CPO program long before it finally ordered CPO 8 to remove advocacy posts. A recorded candidate forum shows exactly why County officials were concerned.
Washington County did not wake up one morning in September 2025 and suddenly decide CPO 8 had crossed a line.
The County had been watching that line blur for more than a year.
Newly obtained emails show that on November 8, 2024, Washington County Chair Kathryn Harrington gave then-North Plains Mayor Teri Lenahan an unusually direct explanation for the County's effort to overhaul its Community Participation Organization program:
“Having CPOs being used for political city criticism purposes, is why the BCC directed the WA Co staff ... to modernize the CPO program to get back to the root purpose of the Washington County CPO & CCI program.”
That was not a critic's characterization. It was the chair of the Washington County Board of Commissioners explaining what had prompted County action.
The public record now fills in the rest.
Weeks before Harrington wrote that email, CPO 8 held a candidate forum featuring four aligned North Plains candidates. All four were elected. Each resigned before reaching the halfway point of their first term.
The moderator told the audience that the candidates “generally share the same philosophy.” One question asked why voters should elect all four. The candidates answered that four votes would give them (the CPO8 forum attendees) a City Council majority.
Linda Galas-Merten opened the event as CPO 8 chair. She closed it by thanking the CPO 8 members who had planned and assembled it, then urged attendees to tell their neighbors what they had heard and get people to the polls.
Less than two months later, Galas-Merten used the CPO 8 leadership email account to organize opposition to items before the outgoing North Plains City Council.
Then came more North Plains advocacy under the CPO 8 name, the rise of Strong Towns North Plains and a proposed CPO operating model that would have shifted much of the organization's work into email and social media.
On September 8, 2025, Harrington finally issued the direct order:
“Such posts must cease as communication of the CPO unless recognized, received and reviewed by the Board.”
Why does this matter?
CPO 8 was not Galas-Merten's private political club
Washington County describes CPOs as community-led organizations that give neighbors a structured way to participate in public decisions. They are backed by taxpayers.
CPO 8 covers Helvetia, North Plains and Mountaindale. Its own bylaws say its purpose is to obtain “objective citizen participation” in community planning and decision-making. The chair is assigned the responsibility of distributing information to members, representing CPO 8 and maintaining its files.
They require the secretary to keep minutes, attendance and voting records and prepare official correspondence.
Even when time is short, the bylaws say the steering committee may take a position only on behalf of the steering committee—and must bring that position to the membership for a vote at the next meeting. Business votes are supposed to be counted and recorded.
The County’s July 9, 2024 letter made the rules clear: CPO meetings, deliberations and votes had to be public, properly noticed and documented. Positions on another government’s policies required County review. The message was not “do not advocate.” It was: do not use a County-supported public identity as a private campaign vehicle.
The warning signs reached County officials before the election
On September 24, 2024, Lenahan emailed a CPO program leader asking about the rules for candidate forums. She said she had seen a web page describing a forum sponsored by CPO 8 and asked whether that was normal and what best practices community organizations followed. She copied then-mayoral candidate Russ Sheldon.
Two days later, former North Plains Mayor Cindy Hirst sent Washington County Commissioner Jerry Willey a formal complaint about CPO 8. Hirst accused Galas-Merten of turning the organization into a platform for anti-growth politics, driving away people with different views and helping an aligned slate challenge North Plains officeholders.
Hirst's email put the issue squarely before County officials—and it pointed them to a recorded April 2024 forum where Galas-Merten had publicly discussed recruiting candidates and changing the Council.
That earlier forum will be the subject of Part Two. Today, we look at what happened a few months later, one month before the 2024 North Plains elections for mayor and City Council.
The October 2024 CPO 8 candidate forum was anything but neutral
A video published October 6, 2024 to the Friends of Smart Growth YouTube channel shows the now-resigned "Four" in front of an audience organized by CPO 8. (The "Four" are Ariel Goodwin, Aaron Dumbrow, Mandy Hagedorn and Katie Reding)
The first words on the recording are Galas-Merten welcoming the audience to the “CPO 8 candidate forum”. She explains that a CPO's job is to stay on top of what is happening “in our district, in our community, in our city.”
The moderator then says CPO 8 is “technically under the auspices of the County” and that the forum will use a League of Women Voters-style format. But almost immediately, he describes the four candidates on stage this way:
“Most of these candidates, while they're not walking in lockstep with each other, they generally share the same philosophy.”
Only those four candidates appear on the stage. When an audience member later asks why the other candidates are absent, Dumbrow says invitations went out and “people choose where they're going to be.”
The four candidates were repeatedly addressed as a group. Goodwin said “all four of us are well aligned” on the City's growth direction. Another audience question asked:
“Why is it important that we vote for all four of you?”
Reding's answer was explicit: electing all four was important “so that we gain a majority vote on City Council.”
Goodwin followed:
“We have a really unique opportunity here in one election cycle to move the needle and make meaningful change ... the four of us sitting here would be four out of seven, which is enough.”
That is not a neutral policy discussion. It is a direct explanation of how an aligned slate could win control of the City Council.
The moderator later praised the candidates for the time they had put into their campaigns. Galas-Merten then thanked the “CPO 8 members who came today, planned this, put it all together”. She encouraged the audience to talk to neighbors and friends about what they heard because it would encourage people to go to the polls and vote.
The County's current CPO records archive lists CPO 8's October 24 water-law meeting, but nothing about this heavily publicized candidate forum.
CPO 8 activity raised concerns throughout the region
On November 7, after losing reelection, Lenahan forwarded a CPO 8 email to every member of the Washington County Board of Commissioners. She wrote that CPO 8 had been “mobilized as a political group” and “weaponized” against North Plains. She asked where the oversight was and how the County would keep publicly supported CPOs from being used against cities.
Harrington answered the next morning.
She said she and Washington County mayors had already discussed “this very topic, CPO role” in August. She then wrote that CPOs being used for “political city criticism purposes” was why the Board had directed staff to modernize the program and return it to its root purpose.
Harrington described a “critical inflection” and said the County was undertaking significant work to redirect the program.
The advocacy continued from the CPO account
On December 2, 2024, Galas-Merten sent an email from leadership.cpo8@gmail.com to more than 50 people—hours before a North Plains City Council meeting.
The email described the outgoing Council's final work as a “parting shot” and urged recipients to challenge “questionable resolutions.” Its attachment organized the effort in three columns: “Agenda Item,” “Why it's Bad” and “Person willing to comment.”
The last published CPO 8 minutes before that email record no open-mic discussion, no decisions and no action items. TRFNP found no published agenda, minutes or vote authorizing the campaign.
An assignment went to now-City Councilor Don Weber as the person who would raise a specific objection at the meeting. Official Council minutes later showed Weber doing exactly that. We'll address this episode further in the series.
CPO 8 and Strong Towns began to blur
The County archive shows a March 20, 2025 CPO 8 program titled “The Principles of the Strong Towns Movement.”
By later in 2025, CPO 8's Facebook page was openly publishing North Plains UGB advocacy that directed readers to Strong Towns North Plains. One graphic was headed “Timeline of Lies” and “What They Aren't Telling You.” It demanded that the City rescind a state grant and two ordinances.
Another post displayed Lenahan's signature on a grant agreement and again routed readers to the Strong Towns address.
Washington County attached three CPO 8 posts to its October response.
September 8: “Such posts must cease”
Harrington's September 8, 2025 letter drew a hard line between factual communication and advocacy. It ordered the Facebook posts removed and told CPO 8 to stop publishing positions under the CPO identity unless the Board had recognized, received and reviewed them.
The letter also said some posts included discourteous or nonfactual commentary inconsistent with County expectations for respectful discourse.
Then it addressed a counterproposal from CPO 8 that staff understood to mean that conventional meetings would become rare while email and social media would be used to exchange information, deliberate and move toward decisions.
The County said the approach likely violated Oregon public-meetings requirements. It refused to approve it.
“The new proposed format cannot be accepted.”
CPO 8's response falls flat
On October 1, 2025, CPO 8 responded from its leadership account under the signature “Steering Committee CPO 8.”
The response challenged the County's authority, disputed the line between education and persuasion, defended the plan to reduce conventional meetings and asked to meet with Harrington.
Its central question was revealing:
“If people are educated, are they not then persuaded toward facts?”
But that was exactly the distinction Washington County was enforcing. A public-participation body can give residents facts and a fair process. It cannot simply label political persuasion “education” and discard the rules that come with its public identity.
On October 9, Harrington answered every question. She identified Galas-Merten, Patti Perrin and Faun Hosey as CPO 8 leadership and reminded them that they were volunteer public officials when acting in those roles. She cited County Counsel's public-meetings training and prior guidance requiring presiding officers to remain nonpartisan, impartial and neutral. CPO newsletters, the guidance said, were not to carry editorials, political positions or endorsements.
Harrington also rejected the argument that living within a CPO boundary gave CPO 8 general authority to take positions before a city council.
Then she drew the line one last time:
“The County has no role in limiting the voice of any community member ... in their individual capacity or in association with groups outside of the CPO program.”
In plain English: Galas-Merten could lobby, organize and take sides. She just could not freely use the CPO 8 identity and County-supported platform to do it.
Washington County closed one lane. Galas-Merten's advocacy kept moving.
The September 2025 directive was not the beginning of Washington County's concern. It was the culmination of a record that ran through the 2024 election, a CPO 8 candidate forum, complaints to County officials, direct warnings from city leaders, a County modernization effort and continuing political advocacy under the CPO identity.
The County asserted control of the CPO 8 name, the public authority and resources supporting it. It mandated meetings, notices, votes, records and review.
By then, Galas-Merten was already moving the same advocacy into a private organization.
At the time Washington County issued its September and October 2025 directives, Strong Towns North Plains was already operating publicly.
Washington County tried to close the public-body lane.
Galas-Merten's activities in North Plains did not slow down.
NEXT IN PART TWO: By Galas-Merten's own public account, Washington County would not allow CPO 8 to sponsor the April 20, 2024 UGB forum. The forum proceeded “unsponsored.” A preserved video clip records Galas-Merten describing a candidate-recruitment committee, a four-person Council slate and what the group could do “if we can get a city council.” Read her contemporaneous sponsorship-withdrawal comment.
Read the record
