Posts tagged as “Public Records”

It takes our well paid army of PR flacks more than a week to get UO’s payroll numbers? Saul Hubbard’s story on PERS costs is here: … The Register-Guard requested budget figures from the cities of Eugene and Springfield, Lane County government, the Eugene 4J, Bethel and Springfield school districts, the Eugene…

But just a little. The Bend Bulletin has the story here: The Oregon Department of Justice on Monday lifted an order requiring some state agencies to charge the public for government records, overturning its own 14-year-old advice. Deputy Attorney General Frederick Boss ruled that the Public Employees Retirement System declined…

The Op-Ed protesting this is in the RG here, and the requesters have petitioned Oregon AG Ellen Rosenblum: … So we are filing a request for review with the Oregon attorney general. Why? Because 39 local units of Oregon government want to charge us more than $40,100 in special fees just…

The Oregonian has the story here: A judge has ordered the Multnomah County district attorney’s office to pay nearly $16,000 to cover legal fees stemming from a public records dispute last year. Attorney Scott Upham sought records related to the district attorney’s investigation into charges of sexual assault against Portland…

That’s the headline from the excellent, long report by Alex Cippolle in the Eugene Weekly here. The synopsis? This story begins with a simple request for information. Before long, it veers into murky waters about freedom of information and the public trust, and potential violations of both in Eugene and statewide.…

UO’s public records office routinely uses fees and delays to frustrate the intent of Oregon’s public records law, aided by the desultory enforcement efforts of the local DA and the Oregon DOJ. UO even charges its own student journalists fees, and refuses to let them use ASUO i-fee money to pay…

Monday May 9th, 4:30-6:00PM, Room 141 in the UO Journalism School.

Live-blog: Usual disclaimer – my opinion of the gist of what people said. Nothing is quote unless in quotes.

David Force – newspaperman back in 1973 when this law was passed. The Oregon DOJ was once the ally of transparency. Now the DOJ is on the side of state agencies trying to hide records. It would be more accurate to call this the “Oregon Public Official Secrets Act”. Calls for an independent advocate outside the DOJ, and taking control away from the DOJ and the County DAs. Gives the RG’s long fight to get the Seneca contract from EWEB as an example. It’s not just the exemptions, it’s the conflict of interest between the DOJ and the agencies trying to hide records.

Dave Bahr – local attorney working for clients trying to get records from Feds and various state records. On National Archives transparency committee.

Many people nationally are advocating for eliminating all fees. These are effectively used to block the public’s right of access, but are a trivial part of the budgets of the agencies. The DOJ makes it too easy for state agencies to do this.

Similarly with delays. Washington state allows 5 days – and fines if agencies don’t respond.

Also brings up the point that, under Oregon law, requestors who get the AG or the DA to issue a PR Order can then be sued by the agency. No other state allows this.

Bill Harbaugh – Argues that AG Ellen Rosenblum can and should use the DOJ’s Public Records Orders process to promote transparency, by putting agencies on notice that the AG will not tolerate use of fees and delays. Asks why she is not doing this.

Here are a few resources:

Oregon DOJ:

The Oregon DOJ’s Public Records and Meetings law website.

You can get all the AG’s PR Orders (updated quarterly) from the Oregon Law Library, by following this link: http://cdm17027.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p17027coll2. It’s a pretty clunky interface, and it’s not indexed by google, or even linked to from the DOJ website, but you can search by full text, etc. (Petitions to require local agencies to comply with the law go to the county DAs. Multnomah county has posted all their DA’s PR Orders online. I don’t think any other counties do.)

2008 AG’s Public Records and Meeting Manual. Former AG John Kroger didn’t want it on the web. I posted it illegally in 2009, to much amusement, and Kroger then backed down.

2011 AG’s Public Records and Meetings Manual. (AG Kroger, January 2011)

2014 AG’s Public Records and Meetings Manual (AG Rosenblum, November 2014)

Some UO links: 

The buck gets passed to Lisa Thornton:

Task Force in Eugene, hearing announcement:

Christian Wihtol has the long story in the RG here. EWEB’s current management and board didn’t have much choice about fighting the RG lawsuit, given the double-secret contract their predecessors had signed with Seneca. EWEB paid their own lawyers $100k for losing this case, and is still paying millions more to Seneca and other failed green energy projects,…

12/16/2015: While Governor Kate Brown has proposed significant reforms to the law for the upcoming 2016 legislative session, such as a public advocate (see below), AG Ellen Rosenblum’s task force is planning a revision of the public records law for the 2017 session. The link to the task force is here.

I’ve been sitting through their 3rd meeting for 2 hours now, and I’d say the jury is still out as to whether the AG’s rewrite of the law will improve Oregon public records transparency, or make it worse.

The editorial pages of Oregon’s newspapers, having been burned by a similar effort from John Kroger, are very skeptical.

12/14/2015:

Governor Kate Brown wants an Oregon public records advocate:

I nominate Steve Duin for the job. The full text of her speech to the Oregon Leadership Summit, in the Oregonian here:

Great news from “Around the O”! This promises a drastic improvement in public records response time, and big reductions in the delays and fees the university uses to discourage the public from getting information. While Public Records Director Lisa Thornton can be extremely efficient when it’s helpful to Johnson Hall, e.g.…