The Port of Morrow is a multibillion dollar operation in the midst of a data center boom fueled by Amazon. The Oregon Attorney General’s Office is now accusing several current and former public officials of taking a cut of that windfall for themselves.

Attorney General Dan Rayfield filed a lawsuit against nine people and three companies in Morrow County Circuit Court on Tuesday.

Rayfield said certain members of this group, which includes a former county commissioner, two former port commissioners, and a former Port of Morrow executive director, used insider knowledge to profit from Amazon’s expansion in the region. State Rep. Greg Smith, R-Heppner, allegedly helped the scheme.

“When public officials use their positions to game the system for private gain, it’s a betrayal of trust,” Rayfield said in a statement.

If the lawsuit is successful, the defendants could be on the hook for millions of dollars. The case also continues to put Morrow County politics under the magnifying glass.

‘The insiders’

The nonprofit, Inland Development Corporation, and Windwave Communications, its for-profit subsidiary, are at the center of the lawsuit’s claims.

Inland was created in 2004 to connect public entities to high-speed internet, with Windwave serving private residents and businesses, according to the lawsuit.

By 2017, Inland’s board was stacked with politically-connected members, who are now among the defendants in the lawsuit. Their ranks included Jerry Healy and Marvin Padberg, who both served as elected commissioners for the Port of Morrow; Gary Neal, then-executive director for the Port; Don Russell, who is a Morrow County commissioner; and Blake Lawrence, an Inland board member who became both the nonprofit’s executive director and Windwave’s CEO in 2017.

The suit claims this group of “insiders” intentionally undervalued Windwave so that a company they controlled could buy it cheaply and then reap huge profits when its value shot up because of Amazon’s expansion.

The attorney general’s office describes Amazon as Windwave’s largest customer, meaning the expansion of Amazon’s data center operations would greatly boost demand for the internet service provider’s services.

The attorney general’s office alleges Inland board members knew that Windwave would “enter into a new era of unprecedented profits” because the port commission had received a private report from Neal that Amazon intended to further expand its existing data center operations in the county.

“These were people in power who knew that Windwave was about to explode in value—and instead of protecting the public’s interest, they cashed in,” Rayfield said in the statement.

In May 2017, the Inland board hired a third-party accounting firm to appraise Windwave, according to the lawsuit. But Rayfield alleges that all five board members did not provide the accountants with a complete financial picture, depressing the company’s estimated value. The accounting firm eventually produced a $2.6 million valuation in March 2018. The lawsuit claims Windwave’s actual worth was $9.5 million.

Rayfield alleges the group then handpicked three people with whom they had “longstanding personal, professional, and governmental ties” to replace Lawrence, Neal and Russell on the Inland board.

In May 2018, Inland’s board sold Windwave to a company controlled by Healy, Lawrence, Neal, Padberg and Russell, for only a few thousand dollars more than the $2.6 million valuation.

After the sale, the attorney’s general office alleges that Windwave began charging Inland more for internet services.

“In addition to negotiating an artificially low sales price, insider Healy and the other four insiders negotiated contractual terms to place Inland in a position of vulnerability and contemplated using that position to extract loan terms that favored the insiders and potentially harmed inland’s charitable mission and the public,” the complaint states.

Windwave’s new owners started to face repercussions in 2024, when the Oregon Government Ethics Commission fined Healy, Padberg and Russell $2,000 each. The commission determined that they failed to acknowledge they could benefit personally from Amazon’s expansion in Morrow County. By then, all three had left public office.

The attorney general’s office is proposing much stiffer penalties if it wins the lawsuit. It’s asking the court to either award $6.9 million in damages or to put Windwave in a trust and void its sale. Rayfield also wants to ban all the defendants from leading or managing money for any charitable organizations in the future.

Smith back in the spotlight

The lawsuit names longtime Republican state representative Greg Smith as one of the three replacement board members who facilitated the Windwave sale. Smith, along with Richard Devin and Jill Parker, took the places of Lawrence, Neal and Russell.

The lawsuit characterizes Smith and the other replacement board members as disinterested in reviewing the transaction before approving it.

Neither Smith nor Healy responded to requests for comment.

Elected in 2000, Smith is the longest serving member of the Oregon House, representing a district that stretches from western Umatilla County to the Warm Springs Reservation north of Madras. He has a reputation in Salem as a bipartisan dealmaker focused on bringing in state money for his district.

Smith often highlighted his close working relationship with Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek when she served as the speaker of the House. He was also friendly with Rayfield when he was a Democratic state lawmaker, ascending to the speakership in 2022. The East Oregonian reported that Smith moved for a voice vote for Rayfield during the 2023 session, to signal that the “Legislature wants to work together.” When Rayfield ran for attorney general in 2024, Smith hosted him for several meetings in Umatilla County.

Smith has faced scrutiny for his business dealings in recent years. The Malheur Enterprise investigated the connections between his work as a legislator and his economic development consulting business, leading to Smith dropping or losing multiple contracts across the state.

But the headlines have done little to dent Smith with local voters. In 2024, he won the Republican primary with 75% of the vote and sailed through the general election unopposed.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/07/18/oregon-attorney-general-alleges-morrow-county-officials-enriched-themselves-broadband-deal/