A particular image comes to mind when I think of disgraced former Gov. Neil Goldschmidt, who died Wednesday: It is of me hopping up and down atop a parking garage in Los Angeles.

It was early May 2004. I was editorial page editor at Oregon’s capital newspaper, the Statesman Journal. Our family was on vacation in Los Angeles when my editorial-writing colleague called with a bombshell: Goldschmidt had admitted “an affair with a high school student for nearly a year” while Portland mayor.

We now know it wasn’t an affair. Neither was it mere “allegations of impropriety,” as stated in his National Governors Association bio. It was statutory rape of the Goldschmidt family’s babysitter, beginning when she was 13 or 14, according to Willamette Week. 

We now know it wasn’t less than a year of such abuse. It was years of exercising control over the girl, well into her adulthood. Goldschmidt lived almost to age 84. She died at 49 after a difficult life.

On that May day in 2004, my colleague was calling to discuss a Goldschmidt editorial for the next day’s edition, and my search for better cell phone reception had carried me to the garage’s top floor. She was weighing Goldschmidt’s wrongdoing against his many accomplishments as Portland mayor, U.S. transportation secretary, governor, businessman and civic leader.

That’s what had me hopping mad – at Goldschmidt and at any notion that his years of admirable public service somehow balanced the scales of justice.

What continues to anger and frustrate me is that people knew of Goldschmidt’s secret but abetted his actions by staying quiet as he ascended the ladders of politics, business and volunteerism.

Sexual abuse and sexual harassment are wrong regardless of the perpetrator’s status, background, reputation, ideology or anything else. The annals of Oregon and American politics are rife with such incidents, enabled by the power differential between the perpetrator and his or her target. 

I will note that Goldschmidt’s predecessor as transportation secretary, fellow Democrat Brock Adams of Washington state, also was forced from public life following allegations of sexual assault and harassment. The Seattle Times spent three-and-a-half years investigating Adams before publishing the stories in 1992. 

In a 2017 piece, retired reporter Eric Pryne noted the similarities to the allegations surrounding Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein. At the time of his demise, Adams was a U.S. senator. 

“Adams — like Weinstein a liberal and supporter of feminist causes — denied the allegations but dropped his campaign for re-election the day the stories appeared,” Pryne wrote. 

“Adams, like Weinstein, was protected by what the New Yorker’s Weinstein piece calls a ‘culture of complicity.’ Adams’ abusive behavior toward women, like Weinstein’s, was no secret in the workplace or in political circles. ‘We called it ‘Brock’s problem,’ ’ his longtime secretary, herself a victim, told us. 

“But his associates did little or nothing about it, sometimes even casting responsibility on the women. ‘Maybe you should get a suit of armor,’ one victim said she was told.”

Also in the 1990s, the Senate Ethics Committee, chaired by Mitch McConnell, investigated Oregon Republican Bob Packwood regarding “allegations of sexual misconduct, attempts to intimidate and discredit the alleged victims, and misuse of official staff in attempts to intimidate and discredit.”

Packwood ultimately resigned rather than be expelled from the Senate. Oregonians elected Democrat Ron Wyden to replace him.

The stories of Neil Goldschmidt, Brock Adams, Bob Packwood, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump – and countless others who engaged in sexual misconduct – reinforce the importance of tenacious journalism. Willamette Week’s reporting forced Goldschmidt’s admission. Reporting by The Washington Post led to the Senate’s investigating Packwood. 

No more silence. As I wrote in a 2016 column, “We have allowed one famous person after another to sexually harass and sexually abuse women.”

Of the several thousand commentaries I’ve written, the most important might be ones about sexual assault, sexual harassment and domestic violence. When I’ve included information about the Center for Hope and Safety in Salem (formerly the Mid-Valley Women’s Crisis Service), calls to its 24-hour hotline – 503-399-7722 – have surged as individuals sought help.

Not every allegation is true, though many are – probably most. The trauma of what happened is why victims’ stories may change as they come to grip with more details.

Goldschmidt is not to be remembered as Neil the Great, Neil the Savior of Portland or Neil the Champion of State Universities.

He was Neil the Sexual Predator. Neil the Liar. Neil Who Escaped Prosecution Because the Statute of Limitations Had Expired.