This story was produced by the Oregon Journalism Project, a nonprofit newsroom covering the state.

After some much needed sunlight on its operations, Travel Oregon is looking for a new chief executive—at a significantly lower salary.

Not long into a meeting last September of the Oregon House Committee on Economic Development, its chairman quoted from an OJP investigation about dysfunction at state-funded Travel Oregon and the oversized salary of its longtime executive director.

Then Rep. Daniel Nguyen (D-Lake Oswego) looked at the man sitting steps away at the witness table, Todd Davidson, the executive director whose base salary was more than $365,000 the year before.

“How do you justify paying that salary?”

Offering an answer from the witness table was Scott Youngblood, an eight-year veteran of Travel Oregon’s oversight commission. He suggested that Davidson, who had announced he would leave the agency this summer, wasn’t overpaid. Rather, he was the “Michael Jordan” of travel marketing.

“Scrutiny, it’s coming,” Nguyen would go on to say about the 70-employee, $45 million a year agency. “That is what the public is asking for.”

Travel Oregon’s board of commissioners apparently listened to the concerns Nguyen and other lawmakers expressed after OJP reported that employees said the agency had a toxic work culture and delayed sending out $9 million in small grants for a year. In a unanimous vote last month, the nine commissioners approved a salary range of $235,000 to $255,000 for Davidson’s eventual replacement, far less than Davidson’s compensation and an amount more in line with directors of vastly larger business-aligned state agencies such as Business Oregon and the Department of Agriculture.

OJP’s investigation “helped spur conversations about Travel Oregon’s work in my committee, among others in the Capitol, and at the kitchen tables of Oregon families,” Nguyen said by email Monday.

Travel Oregon, also known as the Oregon Tourism Commission, is funded by a statewide 1.5% tax on hotel stays. The governor appoints the nine members of its board to oversee an agency that spends about $45 million a year to promote Oregon tourism.

The issue of Davidson’s compensation has come up before. In 2020, the Secretary of State’s Office released an audit that focused on his high salary and those of his key staff. But nothing changed.

Today, the commissioners say they are looking for “a reset” at a time when international travel to Oregon is down and Portland-area tourism hasn’t fully recovered from business losses from the civic unrest after a Minneapolis policeman murdered George Floyd.

Candidates have until March 30 to apply for the top job promoting Oregon’s $14 billion-a-year tourism industry.

Nguyen and members of the Economic Development Committee will hear Wednesday from Greg Willitts, chair of Travel Oregon’s board of commissioners and president of FivePine Lodge and Spa in Sisters.

“Travel Oregon is funded largely through tax dollars,” Nguyen said Monday, “and we expect results, transparency, and accountability from their operations.”

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — More than a dozen states, including Oregon, sued the Trump administration Tuesday over its rollback of vaccine recommendations for children, calling the move an illegal threat to public health.

The states argue that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put children’s lives at risk when it announced last month that it would stop recommending all children get immunized against the flu, rotavirus, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, some forms of meningitis and RSV. Under the new guidance, which was met with criticism from medical experts, protections against those diseases are recommended only for certain groups deemed high risk or when doctors recommend them in what’s called “shared decision-making.”

The new vaccine recommendations ignore long-standing medical guidance and will make states have to spend more to protect against outbreaks, the states, including Arizona and California, said.

“In Oregon, we’re already seeing the consequences of the federal government’s reckless actions and vaccine narrative,” said Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield in a news release. “Just last week, our state health officials declared a measles outbreak – with most confirmed cases linked to unvaccinated individuals. Preventable diseases are returning when we undermine public confidence in proven vaccines. We must trust science, trust doctors, and protect our children.”

Emily G. Hilliard, press secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services, blasted the complaint as a “publicity stunt dressed up as a lawsuit.”

The lawsuit escalates an ongoing battle between Democratic-led states and Republican President Donald Trump’s administration over the federal government’s changes to public health policy under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The Trump administration has laid off thousands of workers at federal public health agencies, cut funding for scientific research and altered government guidance on fluoride and other topics.

Kennedy last year ousted every member of a vaccine advisory committee and replaced them with his own picks, which Tuesday’s complaint alleges was unlawful.

The lawsuit comes months after the Democratic governors of California, Washington state and Oregon launched an alliance to establish their own vaccine recommendations. The governors said the Trump administration was risking people’s health by politicizing the CDC.

States, not the federal government, have the authority to require vaccinations for schoolchildren, though the CDC’s requirements typically influence state regulations.

KATU contributed Rayfield quote to this story.

Cornerback was one one of the Oregon Ducks’ strongest positions during the 2025 season, with much of the standouts being true or redshirt freshman such as Brandon Finney Jr. and Na’eem Offord, among others. Two talented players as part of the 2026 class, four-stars Davon Benjamin and Azel Banag, will hope to keep the trend going this coming fall.

Currently, the Ducks don’t have a commit at the cornerback position in the 2027 class, with four-star edge Cameron Pritchett and three-star linebacker Sam Ngata representing the only two commits on the defensive side of the ball.

However, Dan Lanning and his staff are working hard to change that, as four-star cornerback Danny Lang has scheduled an official visit to Oregon on June 19.

Lang is the No. 12 cornerback and No. 100 player nationally, per 247 Sports Composite. He competes for Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana, CA, where he’s the 11th-ranked player in the state. He also has official visits with Auburn (June 5), and USC (June 12), proceeding his visit to the Ducks.