The Real Story – A Column
The sanitized press release hit the wires on Monday, September 21, 2026. Packed with bureaucratic euphemisms and Orwellian praise, Washington County announced that Board Chair Kathryn Harrington was stepping down, with her last official day set for October 2. The county framed it as a selfless decision that would allow her to “focus on her health,” while quietly acknowledging that Harrington had already been stripped of her meeting gavel, barred from communicating with staff, and, most tellingly, denied security access to county facilities.
Let’s stop the spin right there. Health issues, including mental health issues, are serious, but Kathryn has raised this flag before (May 2026), and yet her behaviors have not changed. Balancing health issues, the rights of staff and fellow Councilors, HR and legal requirements for treatment of employees and staff, and rules of decorum means all sides need to be held accountable. Read the Oregonian’s full analysis and Harrington’s statement right here.
Anyone who has seen the Queen in action over the many years she has been on the dais knows a different reality, and so do former managers and employees.
Elected leaders do not get their security badges revoked so they can rest. They confiscate keycards when you are deemed an immediate workplace liability and a threat to the building’s safety and sanity.
The mainstream press and television cameras rushed to Hillsboro because of an eight-second viral video: Kathyrn Harrington sitting at the dais, glaring at Commissioner Nafisa Fai, and raising her middle finger during a live public broadcast. But anyone who has read The Hillsboro Herald over the past several years knows that gesture wasn’t an isolated lapse in judgment. It was simply the mask finally slipping off on camera.
Flipping off Commissioner Fai was repugnant. But compared to the millions in backroom utility money being tossed around, the destroyed careers, the gutted public assets, the suppressed records, and the systemic culture of arrogance Harrington leaves behind, that middle finger was merely the punctuation mark on the most polarizing, destructive political tenure in modern Washington County history. Kathryn has been metaphorically giving the good people of Washington County the finger for years; according to many accounts, the staff has been taking it on the chin, too.
For years, The Herald stood virtually alone in documenting the pattern. We sounded the alarm, took the hits, filed the records requests, and warned the public that this administration was running on sheer institutional intimidation. I personally filed Oregon Ethics Reports on Harrington, Fai, Treece, and Willey for their travel and activities as Clean Water Services Board members. Fai and Willey were cleared of violations. Harrington and Treece faced formal commission scrutiny and findings regarding prohibited travel perks and disclosure failures. And to this day, we have no idea what has really happened to all the captive insurance money and its Board of Directors. Full Disclosure: I supported Harrington in campaigns for public office way back — but I did not like what I saw after she got going as a bureaucrat.
Here is the exact paper trail of how we got here—step by step, story by story.
The Clean Water Services Piggy Bank: Hawaii, Luxury Dining, and Hidden Millions
Long before Harrington exploded at the board table, her administration’s foundation had rotted through its dual role as the Board of Directors for Clean Water Services (CWS).
When The Oregonian broke the initial reporting on lavish executive spending at CWS, The Herald went directly to the public meetings and behind the scenes. In Things Appear Very Dirty At Clean Water Services As Lavish Spending And More Surfaces, we sounded the alarm. The Washington County auditor later called the agency’s spending habits “excessive and embarrassing”—and with good reason. Clean Water Services racked up over $440,000 on local and travel meals alone over five years—more than four times what its two Portland-metro water counterparts spent on food during that same timeframe combined. That tab sat alongside tens of thousands of dollars spent on executive travel and luxury resort stays in Hawaii. It was not an accident; it was an institutional culture tolerated by a Board of Commissioners that was asleep at the wheel (or actively complicit).
When the board convened to confront the crisis, we covered it in Clean Water Services CEO Diane Taniguchi-Dennis Called To The Carpet By Board Of Directors. While Harrington and her fellow commissioners postured for the cameras, we pointed out what they were sweeping under the rug: the complete refusal to audit Clean Water Insurance, the secretive Hawaii-based captive insurance subsidiary used to bankroll offshore junkets out of ratepayer sight.
As the fallout spread, The Herald followed every ripple:
In Storm Clouds Darken Over Clean Water Services As Scandal Spread To More Executives, we tracked the widening rot inside the executive suites.
In Clean Water Services Meeting Shows CEO Crisis Not The Real Show As Board Leaders Show Themselves, we turned the spotlight where it belonged: on Harrington and the commissioners who let it happen while simultaneously claiming poverty and hiking sewer bills on working families.
When the board passed yet another burden onto 610,000 local residents, our exposé CWS Team Approves Sewer & Storm Water Rate Hikes: $370 Million Dollar Reserve Fund Revealed pulled back the curtain on a staggering $370 million slush fund reserve sitting idle while families struggled to pay their utility bills.
When CWS tried to rehab its image, we called out the propaganda in Worldwide Travel By County Commissioners Glorified In Clean Water Services Puff Piece, demonstrating how international travel was treated as an entitlement for the county’s ruling class.
Pam Treece (Center) and Kathryn Harrington (Right) have been trotting the globe on the CWS ratepayers’ money. Far left is former CEO Diane Taniguchi-Dennis, who resigned amid the ongoing investigations. When the embattled CEO fought back, as chronicled in Disgraced Clean Water CEO Attacks County Chair As Fallout From Scandal Continues, it exposed the vicious internal civil war between an unaccountable bureaucrat and an equally abusive County Chair.
And finally, in From CEO Scandal To Commissioner Ethics Probes: Clean Water Services Culture Of Secrecy Exposed, we documented the state ethics complaints landing on the commissioners’ desks as their wall of secrecy began to crumble.
Gutting History and Shuttering Arteries
While tens of thousands of dollars flowed freely for executive perks and offshore trips, Harrington presided over severe austerity for everyday community staples. I sat at my desk, receiving messages from folks pointing to an environment of intimidation—mirroring the exact concerns about staff fear documented in county records dating back to 2015.
When the county faced budget shortfalls in 2025, Harrington didn’t look to trim high-level executive bloat. Instead, she pushed through the permanent gutting of our heritage. In 175 Years Of Washington County History On The Line As History Museum Closes, The Herald documented the heartbreaking shuttering of the Washington County Museum. Decades of pioneering artifacts, regional preservation efforts, and community educational programs were tossed aside as collateral damage. Fai fought to keep it open; Harrington led the other 4 to shut it down and defund the organization that was keeping it open, the 5 Oaks Museum, and allowed the lease with PCC to be terminated in a few years, ending a 50-year lease. Now tens of thousands of items from our native and pioneer era are in limbo, and the museum is closed.
Then came the arrogance of Harrington’s infrastructure dictates. In Washington County Commissioners To Close River Road Into Hillsboro For 5 Months, we reported on the heavy-handed decision to cut off one of the most vital vehicular arteries into South Hillsboro. Commuters, local farm traffic, and emergency response times fell into chaos, with virtually no meaningful consideration for the working-class residents and businesses who use that corridor daily.
Watch Harrington and Commissioner Pam Treece contort their faces in open mockery of Nafisa Fai, who is trying to discuss keeping 1 lane of River Road open to protect the residents who had to travel 12-18 minutes out of their way both ways for 6 months or longer.
Ideological Bullying and Corporate Entanglement
Harrington’s governing style was defined by a ruthless demand for compliance. It seemed that almost anyone who questioned her directives was potentially going to be marginalized, steamrolled, or targeted.
When community groups raised genuine concerns about county governance frameworks, Harrington ignored them, as we reported in Washington County Rewrites Equity Policy Despite Significant Public Outcry.
When community members mobilized for accountability, we covered the friction in Protest Today: Washington County Democrats Speak Out On Sanctuary And Immigration.
When regional air quality and heavy industry collided with public health, we pressed the issue in”n Intel Air Discharges Set To Hit Record Number And Citizens Meet This Week, “ illustrating how top-down leadership consistently aligned with industrial interests rather than neighborhood transparency.
- And the Oregon and local news channels covered the 2025 internal investigations into Harrington actions that cost the tax payers $50K in internal investigations by an outside legal firm, and then the county refused to release the findings – https://www.oregonlive.com/watchdog/2026/03/unprofessional-and-inappropriate-board-chair-dinged-for-text-message-but-cleared-of-discrimination-harassment-allegations.html
- All of this AFTER the horrible issues of alleged bullying by Harrington in 2022 also reported by the Oregonian – https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2022/05/washington-county-chair-race-heats-up-after-report-alleges-incumbent-bullied-county-employees.html
The Climax: Nafisa Fai, Data Centers, and the Middle Finger
That brings us directly to the moment that blew the county wide open.
Over the past year, Commissioner Nafisa Fai dared to do what few on that board had the backbone to do: she stood up to Harrington. When massive data center developments began consuming vast swaths of prime land, guzzling water, and straining our electrical grid, Fai listened to our reporting and responded to the people.
In “Commissioner Nafisa Fai Calls For Temporary Pause On New Data Center Development In Washington County,” we covered Fai’s courageous move to demand a moratorium and to establish a Data Center Task Force. Harrington despised it. Just a couple of weeks before the bird was flipped, Harrington was demeaning and going at Fai as if she was a petulant child who did not belong in the room.
The contrast between the two women couldn’t have been sharper: Fai was composed and professional. Harrington seemed wild-eyed, power-hungry, and enraged that a County Commissioner would dare to gather her constituents and have a conversation about Data Centers and AI that are destroying our valley and way of life.
We covered their direct dynamic alongside Harrington’s allies in Nafisa Fai, Jenny Kamprath, And Pam Treece Square Off In Town Hall Event.
And in our formal editorial, The Herald Endorses Nafisa Fai Over Pam Treece For Washington County Chair, we made it clear that Washington County desperately needed leadership that broke away from Harrington’s toxic machine.
When Harrington looked across the dais on September 15, she wasn’t annoyed by a “sightline.” She was staring at an independent colleague, a Black, Muslim woman, who refused to bow to her bullying. Harrington’s silent, hostile middle finger was the ugly, unvarnished culmination of years of unchecked power.
The Dominoes Fall: How The Herald Laid Down the Gauntlet
When the incident occurred, the established political class tried to look away. Pam Treece sat motionless next to Fai, offering nothing in the moment.
The Herald broke the story wide open. And on September 17, we published the editorial that set the final terms of surrender: Washington County Chair Kathryn Harrington Must Resign Or Be Censured, And It Must Be Now.
We didn’t mince words. We called for her immediate resignation, formal censure, and a complete lockout from county headquarters.
Within 24 hours, the political dominoes began crashing down:
Harrington panicked and issued an initial statement trying to take a “mental health leave” while stubbornly clinging to her seat and her $145,840 salary until January 2027.
The community refused to buy it. We helped mobilize public attention, joined by grassroots coalitions like Washington County Indivisible, planning courthouse protests.
State lawmakers, city councils, and her own board members, sensing the imminent political catastrophe, finally abandoned her and issued the ultimatum we demanded. Everyone saw that finger as the bridge too far to cross!
Cornered, stripped of leverage, and facing the public disgrace of formal censure and physical removal, Harrington capitulated.
The Post-Mortem
Washington County’s September 21 press release wants you to remember Kathryn Harrington for “transparency, capital planning, and resilience.” I say bullshit. She never responded to our requests for disclosure and records. She has not shown any interest in transparency regarding records, reports, and investigations as mentioned above.
Do not let them rewrite history.
Remember her for the $80,000 in taxpayer funds spent settling hostile workplace claims with her own staff. Remember her for former Metro Council President Tom Hughes’ 2015 memo warning that she created a “climate of fear, hostility, anxiety, and emotional distress.” Remember the secretive Hawaiian insurance funds, the thousands in meal tabs run up by CWS board members and staff, the $370 million utility reserves, the closed museum, the severed roads, and the culture of retaliation that silenced county employees for nearly a decade.
Kathryn Harrington did not leave office because she chose to focus on wellness. She has had plenty of opportunity to do so and continued to return to the dais again and again. She was driven from office because the truth caught up with her, and because the community she treated with contempt finally stood up and locked the doors behind her. That same community, a growing group of fed-up residents and leaders, saw what she did- and that disgraceful finger was mereley the last straw that tipped over the last block in the ultimate jenga game.
The healing in Washington County can finally begin. And The Hillsboro Herald will be right here, keeping the next batch of leaders honest from day one.
And when she is officially gone, one has to imagine that MANY of the fine people who work so hard at Washington County and Clean Water Services, as well as many residents and others who have crossed paths with Kathryn, will let out a collective sigh that is almost unequaled. Some of them may even take a moment or two to have a little moment of glee, and maybe even do a little dance like this one.
