Part Three: CPO 8 Became a Political Pressure Machine
Updated: Aug 31
At 1:21 p.m. on December 2, 2024, CPO 8’s leadership account sent more than 50 people a political action plan for its neighboring City of North Plains. The published public record contains no CPO vote ever authorizing it. The Council record shows that now-City Councilor Don Weber helped carry out the plan.
Part Two showed the blueprint.
Part Three shows the machinery.
At 1:21 p.m. on December 2, 2024—hours before the outgoing North Plains City Council was to meet—Linda Galas-Merten used the CPO 8 leadership email account to send a two-page political action plan to more than 50 people.
The message that afternoon called the outgoing Council’s final work a “parting shot.” It warned of “questionable resolutions.” Its attachment told recipients which agenda items to challenge, why they were “bad” and who was expected to speak.
This was not a neutral meeting notice.
It was an organized pressure campaign sent under the identity of a Washington County-supported public body. Funded by taxpayers.
And the official record does not show that CPO 8 ever authorized it.
At 1:21 p.m., the assignments went out
The December 2 email came from leadership.cpo8@gmail.com, an account tied to Washington County vineyard owner and activist Linda Galas-Merten.
Its recipients included Mayor-elect Ariel Goodwin and Councilors-elect Aaron Dumbrow, Mandy Hagedorn and Katie Reding—the four-person slate hand picked by CPO 8 that had just won control of North Plains City Hall.
It also went to CPO leaders, UGB referendum activists, Don Weber and dozens of people connected to the broader political network that had formed around the fight over North Plains’ growth plans.
The attached document was blunt. Its three columns were labeled:
“Agenda Item” | “Why It’s Bad” | “Person willing to comment”
As TRFNP first reported, the attachment described City proposals as “buried,” attacked Council rules and called a possible contract renewal “unethical and financially irresponsible.”
People were not simply being invited to learn what their government was doing. They were being given the argument, the target and the speaker assignment.
There is not much “objective citizen participation” in a column titled “Why It’s Bad.”
The published CPO record says “NONE”
CPO 8 was not a campaign committee or a private activist list.
Its County-approved bylaws say the organization exists to obtain “objective citizen participation” in community decision-making. They require minutes, attendance records and recorded votes. Even when time is short, the steering committee may take a position only on behalf of the steering committee—and must bring it back to the membership for a vote at the next meeting.
The last published CPO 8 minutes before Galas-Merten’s email are dated November 21, 2024.
They list Galas-Merten, Vice Chair Patti Perrin and Don Weber among the attendees.
Then the minutes record:
Open Mic Discussions: NONE
Decisions: NONE
Action Items: NONE
TRFNP found no later published agenda, minutes or vote authorizing the December 2 campaign.
That missing authorization cannot be separated from the missing records.
On December 17, a Washington County program coordinator asked Galas-Merten, Perrin and Hosey for seven months of CPO 8 minutes and sign-in sheets “to be in compliance with Public Meetings Law.”
In other words, the County was chasing the records needed to show what CPO 8 had noticed, discussed, decided and assigned—while the organization’s leadership account was already being used to mobilize political pressure on another government.
CPO 8's own records show that Linda Galas-Merten's actions were not authorized.
So, what should we call it when a government official uses taxpayer resources for unauthorized political purposes?
One assignment matched the Council record
The action plan identified Weber as the person expected to question the proposed transfer of the North Plains Elephant Garlic Festival’s intellectual property. Why this was an issue before CPO 8 at all is still unclear.
“Don Weber — will comment.”
Two weeks later, that item came before the City Council.
The City’s official December 16 minutes record Weber questioning why the City was transferring the rights to the North Plains Events Association rather than the Chamber of Commerce. Just as Linda Galas-Merten directed.
Today, Weber is a North Plains city councilor.
His path into City Hall belongs to the next installment. Here, his role establishes something narrower: at least one named assignment in Galas-Merten’s CPO 8 action plan unfolded exactly as the plan said it would.
The public platform and the private organization began to merge
The December email was not the end of the overlap.
Strong Towns North Plains says it formally organized in January 2025, although we'll address its true formation date later in the series. Two months later, the official March 20 CPO 8 agenda featured “The Principles of the Strong Towns Movement.”
The agenda assigned Galas-Merten to introduce and discuss the movement. It assigned Hosey to explain how Strong Towns concepts applied to land-use laws and “how they can be integrated.”
A properly noticed presentation about Strong Towns was not, by itself, the problem.
What happened next was.
By summer 2025, CPO 8’s Facebook page was publishing North Plains UGB advocacy that directed residents to the private Strong Towns North Plains email address.
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. At the bottom, readers were directed to strongtownsnp@gmail.com.
The same graphic appeared on the Strong Towns North Plains page.
Another CPO 8 post displayed former Mayor Teri Lenahan’s signature on a City grant agreement—and again sent readers to the Strong Towns address.
This was no longer a shared interest in a national planning philosophy.
The County-recognized CPO page was acting as a feeder for the private organization led by the same person.
Washington County finally said stop
Part One documented what happened when Washington County reviewed those posts.
On September 8, 2025, County Chair Kathryn Harrington ordered the advocacy removed and told CPO 8 that such posts had to stop unless they were recognized, received and reviewed by the Board of Commissioners.
The County also rejected a CPO 8 operating proposal that would have reduced conventional meetings while moving more discussion and decision-making into email and social media.
“The new proposed format cannot be accepted.”
That response makes the December 2024 record more important, not less.
The public-meetings problem Washington County identified in 2025 was already visible a year earlier: political direction moving through the CPO leadership account without a published meeting, decision or vote to support it.
Two names. One advocacy pipeline.
Part Two showed Galas-Merten describing a plan to recruit an aligned Council slate.
Part Three shows the same network using the CPO 8 leadership account to pressure the outgoing Council before that slate took office.
Then the public and private channels began carrying the same North Plains advocacy.
CPO 8 supplied the County-recognized name, the public platform and the appearance of official community representation.
Strong Towns North Plains supplied the private advocacy vehicle.
Galas-Merten led both.
Washington County eventually closed the CPO lane.
By then, the network was already moving closer to City Hall.
Questions remain:
Was Linda Galas-Merten's plan all along to use their tax payer funded role within the CPO system to launch the Strong Towns North Plains political advocacy group?
Are they using the same subscriber database they obtained as CPO 8 chair for their special interest political organizing activities today?
NEXT IN PART FOUR: The slate won. Then the appointments began. Don Weber helped put Mark DeForge and Anna Warrington on the Council—and the advocacy network gained a new route into City government.
