The story behind Friends of Smart Growth North Plains TAXPAYER funded mailer
In 2025, North Plains Taxpayers Paid $72,000 To Settle A Lawsuit Brought By An Outsider Political Network. Now the Same Political Network Is Back.
Let’s look at their mailer landing in North Plains mailboxes:
On the front, it promotes a “Candidate Forum for North Plains City Council.”
It identifies the event as being sponsored by Strong Towns North Plains.
But on the postcard itself, the fine print states:
“Postcard paid for by Friends of Smart Growth, PAC ID 23849.”
This is not a neighborhood potluck announcement. It is a political communication paid for by a political action committee.
Campaign-finance records show Friends of Smart Growth paid $7,411.38 to VistaPrint on April 24, 2026, along with another $394.11 payment that day.
The PAC is spending thousands of dollars on printed campaign material.
The question isn't whether Friends of Smart Growth and Strong Towns North Plains are politically active. They are.
The question is whether the public understands who is actually behind these supposedly community-oriented activities.
The city's own records show how Friends of Smart Growth blurred ethical lines.
On January 15, 2025 — barely days after then newly elected City Councilor Katie Reding was sworn into office — the council was already discussing the UGB litigation. During that meeting, Councilor Michele McCall-Wallace read into the record a contract between Friends of North Plains Smart Growth and Katie Reding.
The meeting also included discussion of the pending settlement offer and the city's legal expenses.
A citizen speaking at that meeting explicitly raised the conflict question, noting that Katie Reding was not simply an ordinary councilor — she was identified as the chief plaintiff in the lawsuit against the city. The speaker argued that she should recuse herself from litigation discussions and decisions.
Katie Reding, a sitting councilor backed by Friends of Smart Growth North Plains, who was a plaintiff in the litigation against the city participated in the city's confidential discussions about that litigation and then voted to approve a $72,000 settlement that basically covered Her and Friends of Smart Growth North Plains legal bills as plaintiff.
Who were the other plaintiffs in the lawsuit?
· Aaron Nichols
· Linda Galas Merten
· Loretta Furrow
· Benjamin Williams
· David Vanasche
· James Long
· Jason Reynolds
· Save Helvetia
North Plains taxpayers paid $72,000 to Katie Reding and Friends of Smart Growth North Plains to settle the city's legal fight over the 2024 Urban Growth Boundary referendum.
And as voters prepare to decide who will be on the next City Council, that political network that organized the referendum, backed Katie Reding, AND helped elect a slate of councilors who have all resigned AND was at the center of that lawsuit is back at work — this time promoting ANOTHER slate of candidates through political mailers and a candidate forum. That new campaign mailer raises an important question: Are your taxpayer dollars now funding the same political network?
Back to The 2026 Candidate Forum: Let’s talk about the moderator
Strong Towns North Plains has announced Dean Moberg as the moderator of the upcoming forum. That deserves attention.
Moberg is not an impartial stranger to the North Plains growth fight.
In 2024, Friends of North Plains Smart Growth identified Moberg as a participant in one of its public forums concerning the UGB referendum. Friends of North Plains Smart Growth
The official 2024 Washington County voters' pamphlet also identifies Moberg as an endorser of the Goodwin campaign and the four-candidate slate that included Reding, Dumbrow and Hagedorn.
Today, Moberg is being presented as the moderator of a candidate forum sponsored by the same political network.
That does not necessarily mean the forum will be unfair.
But it does mean voters should know the moderator's history and political relationships before accepting the event as a neutral candidate forum.
A political organization should not be allowed to create the appearance of an independent civic forum simply by putting a moderator in the middle of the room.
Transparency requires telling voters who organized it, who paid for it and who is moderating it.
