Joint Terrorism Task Force Debated in Portland

Her cousins, billionaires Alec and Tom Gores, are both making big news, what with their variously rumored attempts to buy the L.A. Dodgers and Detroit Pistons, respectively, but Hala Gores has been creating her own stir of late. Gores, an attorney, is cochair of Portland, Oregon’s Arab and Muslim Police Advisory Council. Last month, she spoke out against a proposal to allow Portland police to rejoin a federal Joint Terrorism Task Force, which includes 106 cities across the country, including San Diego. Portland dropped out five years ago, and some there believe the risk to their civil rights is just too great to return to the program.

Reported Brad Schmidt, a writer for the Oregonian newspaper: “Gores’ point: The Portland Police Bureau has worked hard to earn trust in the community, and partnering with the FBI could be a way to lose it.” He quoted Gores as saying, “We don’t want that [trust] tainted.” Gores spoke at a town hall meeting attended by about 200 people in Portland State University’s Smith Ballroom. The proposal was made in the wake of an alleged November 26 attempt by 19-year-old Mohamed Osman Mohamud to bomb the Christmas tree lighting in Portland’s Pioneer Courthouse Square, a plot that the government says was derailed by an undercover sting operation. Tom Gores runs Platinum Equity, the Beverly Hills–based investment company that owns the San Diego Union-Tribune. Alec operates a separate L.A. deal-making firm. Hala Gores has said she admires her wealthy cousins but that her political views are her own…La Jolla’s Lynn Schenk and three other members of the California High-Speed Rail Authority board were cleared last week of legal wrongdoing by the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission after an investigation about whether financial details of the agency’s foreign junkets had been fully disclosed. “FPPC looked at how the Authority handled travel payment in the past and how these particular trips were handled and found that there were no violations of the law. Nonetheless, the Authority is undergoing a review of its policies and actively looking at ways to increase the transparency of travel by its board members,” spokeswoman Rachel Wall told the L.A. Times, which broke the story.