Umaru Balde says he didn’t resign his post as Portland’s diversity director – he was fired.

The former head of the Justice, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion office left the position in May after just over a year on the job. In July, a spokesperson for the city said Balde had resigned. But in an interview with the Press Herald on Tuesday, Balde said that’s not what happened.

“I did not abruptly resign like the city says. I was abruptly fired,” he said.

Balde said he was not given a reason for his termination and that throughout his tenure, he often clashed with City Manager Danielle West and Mayor Mark Dion. He said his position was ill-defined from the start and that efforts he made to take meaningful action were shot down by city leaders.

West and Dion both declined to discuss Balde’s departure and his allegations.

A spokesperson for the city pointed to a separation agreement Balde signed that states “the employee agrees that he resigns his position with the city,” and that “this resignation shall be considered to be ‘in good standing.’ ”

But Balde said he was told he had to sign the agreement to receive a $20,000 severance package – money he said he desperately needed. Now, he regrets signing it, he said.

STRAINED RELATIONSHIPS

The first thing Balde said he was asked to do was examine the recommendations the city’s Racial Equity Steering Committee released in 2021 to make the city more equitable and submit a plan for implementing them.

Balde said he worked hard to put together that assessment. He submitted it to West and said he was told that the next step would be to present his work to the City Council. But, he said, West repeatedly removed his presentation from council agendas when other items she said were more important came up.

“I was surprised because this was something that was supposed to be a priority, but it was taken off the agenda every time,” said Balde.

That report still hasn’t been delivered to the council, which held its first DEI workshop on Monday.

Balde said his ideas were often shot down by city leaders.

Last fall, Balde said, a wall in the Back Cove area was covered in antisemitic hate speech after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel. He was getting emails and calls from the community about it and asked if the graffiti could be removed. He said he was told no, and after he asked to make a statement condemning it, the city manager again said he couldn’t.

When he wanted to send out a survey and do listening sessions with minority groups around the city to collect data about their experiences, he said he was told there was no budget for it.

This, he said, is when he realized that the department’s entire budget was for the salaries of its two employees. There was not a cent more.

But even when he found a way to do it for free, West and Dion pushed back, he said.

“The mayor said he was concerned about getting neighborhoods involved and thought it would be politicized. I was essentially stopped from doing this work by Danielle and Mark,” he said.

The following week, he was fired. The city ultimately sent surveys exclusively to city employees, according to Monday’s workshop.

‘SHOCKED AND SURPRISED’

After months of postponed meetings, Balde said, he finally had a meeting in February with West where he was given a performance improvement plan, a formal warning that an employee is not meeting expectations and needs to improve their performance.

“I was shocked and surprised,” he said.

Balde said he was accused of accepting payment for a speaking engagement for the League of Women Voters. He said that while the organization sent him a check after he spoke at their event, he consulted with the city’s lawyers and ultimately returned it.

He said West also took issue with how he handled a proposal from Dion, who was a city councilor at the time, to start a new sister city partnership with Garissa, Kenya.

When Balde raised concerns about the partnership because of the safety concerns about the city, Dion took those concerns to officials in Garissa and “basically destroyed my relationship with this community,” Balde said.

Afterward, he said, his relationship with Dion was strained.

Balde said when he brought up these concerns to West, she insisted he sign the performance improvement plan and wasn’t interested in discussing the matter further. He said he was told that if he didn’t sign it within 24 hours, he would be fired immediately.

‘IT FEELS LIKE DISCRIMINATION’

Under the plan, Balde said, he had to provide weekly reports to West, but those went unanswered and he said he received no further feedback. About two months later, Balde said, he was called into a meeting and fired.

He was told that the city would tell the public that he left on good terms and that the “decision to separate” was mutual. Months later, Balde said, he still has a hard time understanding what went wrong.

“I don’t want to say it’s racism, but the level of disrespect and false claims, it feels like discrimination,” he said.

Balde said that seeing what the city is doing with DEI work now makes him sad. He tuned in to the council’s workshop and was disappointed by what he saw.

“They are doing HR work, they aren’t doing DEI work,” said Balde. “The whole presentation was about hiring and retention, there was nothing about equity. There was nothing about how we respond to minority communities.”

Balde said he hopes the city can get back on track, but that as long as the racial equity office is so ill-defined, he thinks it will be hard to make progress.

“Before somebody else is hired for this position, they need to make sure that the leadership in the city understand and can clearly define what this office is. Because I was told that we would be building this plane as we fly it, and that did not work,” he said.

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