Portland City Commissioner and mayoral candidate Rene Gonzalez recently paid more than $6,000 in taxpayer money to make favorable edits to his Wikipedia page, according to a new report.
Gonzalez’s office in March hired New York City-based White Hat Wiki to oversee the desired changes to Wikipedia profiles. Oregon Live reported“The White Hat Wiki also asked experts from the Wikimedia Foundation to educate “designated personnel” on the procedure for submitting edit requests in the future, the media reported.
The Wikipedia consultancy describes itself as “the leading ‘white hat’ ethical provider of Wikipedia strategy and problem solving, including crisis management.” According to the company’s website:.
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In this photo illustration, a silhouette of a woman is holding a smartphone with the Wikipedia logo displayed on the screen. (Photo illustration: Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
The company oversaw eight edit requests by Gonzalez, his chief of staff, Shar Smith, told OregonLive, and only four of the edits were approved by Wikipedia. The edit history is displayed.
The approved edit request includes adding a mention of Gonzalez’s law degree to the top of his Wikipedia profile and an additional line about his efforts to support the passage of a public drug use ban in Portland in 2023.
Other edit suggestions, such as Gonzalez’s request to highlight his father’s “Mexican-American” heritage in the “Birth and Career” section of his profile, were rejected, according to his Wikipedia edit page history.
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Gonzalez has positioned himself as a centrist and a supporter of law and order. (Portland Police Bureau/Facebook)
The commissioners requested that the sentence, “Gonzalez grew up in Anchorage, Alaska, where his father served as a judge and federal prosecutor,” be changed to “Gonzalez grew up in Anchorage, Alaska, where his father, who is Mexican American, served as a judge and federal prosecutor.”
A volunteer editor wrote that he denied the request because his father’s “ethnicity was already listed in the personal life section” of his profile.
Asked whether the $6,400 price tag was a worthwhile use of taxpayer money, the commissioner’s chief of staff forcefully defended his boss.
“The political opposition to change has been clever and has tried to distort events and their significance,” he told OregonLive.
“Moving Portland forward requires sophistication in both how we make policy and how we debate our history and present. This means being innovative in how we manage public positions and invest in the training of our staff,” the mayor added, according to the media.
Gonzales, a self-described “lifelong Democrat,” is one of eight candidates running for Portland’s mayoral election in November after Ted Wheeler announced he would not seek a third term. Gonzales has served as a member of the Portland, Oregon, City Commission since January 2023.
Vandals have frequently targeted Gonzalez, a freshman politician who describes himself as a moderate and supporter of law and order. Windows at his campaign headquarters were smashed multiple times ahead of the 2022 election, in which Gonzalez ousted incumbent Jo Ann Hardesty, who advocated defunding the police. In 2024, self-described anarchists bragged about “setting fire to a car” parked in front of a city commissioner’s home.
PORTLAND, OR – August 30: Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler announced that he will not seek re-election. (Photo: Nathan Howard/Getty Images)
Gonzalez did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
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Wheeler was first elected in 2016 and re-elected in 2020. During his tenure, Portland has faced a series of challenges, including skyrocketing homelessness and violent crime. Under his watch, Portland became a national epicenter of protests and riots calling for racial justice, with months of nighttime, sometimes violent demonstrations and protests. The Rise of Antifa.
A poll released in May found that a whopping 70% of Portland-area voters are dissatisfied with the city’s progressive leadership, both from City Council members and Wheeler.
Fox News’ Megan Myers and Hannah Rae Lambert contributed to this report.
