General Counsel Kevin Reed threatens to sue reporter after DA orders Reed to give up public records

Last updated on 12/12/2018

Oregon’s new Public Records Advisory Council sent its first report to the Governor a few weeks ago. The report notes many problems with Oregon’s Public Records law and with the lack of compliance of public agencies. For example,

The report then goes on to note that UO has recently made just such an intimidating lawsuit threat, apparently to a reporter. So I made this public records request to Kevin Reed last week for the docs. Still no response:

From: Bill Harbaugh <[email protected]>
Subject: public records request for GCO’s lawsuit threat
Date: December 4, 2018 at 2:17:05 PM PST
To: Lisa Thornton <[email protected]>
Cc: Kevin Reed <[email protected]>

Dear Ms Thornton –

This is a public records request for the General Counsel Office’s public records related to this records request, appeal and the threatened lawsuit from the GCO that are mentioned in this clip from the report of Oregon’s Public records Advocate:

The full report is here: https://sos.oregon.gov/public-records/Documents/final-prac-report.pdf

I ask for a fee waiver as demonstrated by the public interest in the use of these sorts of threats for “chilling public records requests and accountability”, as discussed in pages 9 and 10 of the report.

I’m ccing Mr. Reed, as he should have this file at hand and be able to provide it without fees or delays, and perhaps even without the threat of a lawsuit or other retaliation.

Thanks, Bill Harbaugh