Ted Wheeler caught playing hide-the-ball
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He's back-pedaling now, but the state treasurer's Masters of the Universe side showed in this news item, alertly caught by Ted Sickinger at the O.
"I've never seen this before," said Judson Randall, president of Open Oregon, a non profit that educates Oregonians about public records and open meetings law. "They're basically stiff-arming the public by requiring them to go to court to get a record that the Attorney General might be willing to order the agency to give up. It'll cost you a ton of money to get a sheet of paper."
Keith Larson, chair of the investment council, said he wasn't sure why the clause was in the bill, but reasoned it would stop "frivolous actions" that cost the state a lot of money. "One of the things that makes Oregon an attractive limited partner is that we have these laws," he said.
We love how nobody knows how that provision got in the bill. It just appeared, as if by wizardry. Uh huh.
The whole proposed revamping of the state's investment board smells more than vaguely Goldschmidtty. Wish we had a penny for every dollar that some West Hills crony siphoned out of that agency. We'd be flatulating through silk.
| Posted at 10:44 AM | Permalink |
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Comments (5)
It sure is magnanimous that Wheeler says he'd "welcome any reasonable refinement" to allow public records to be public. Why does there even need to be "refinement" to what the Investment Council is proposing-why not make the Council business follow what Oregon law already requires?
Another thing about transparency and public access to records. Sickinger's article states, "state agencies are allowed to charge". "Allowed" makes public records requests from different agencies, and even different personnel within each agency, arbitrary. Sometimes I've been charged, then not charged, and for different amounts. Public records requests can be abused from both the requester and the public agencies.
Posted by Lee | January 17, 2013 11:30 AM
What part of governance in the State of Oregon isn't a disgrace anymore, or is it only relevant if it's sourced from Portland?
Posted by Mr. Grumpy | January 17, 2013 12:29 PM
Gee wouldn't want to see the excessive fees their buddies charge now would we?
And if you can don't like us steering Millions of public money into crony schemes, you can just sue us - you worthless feeders.
Posted by Tim | January 17, 2013 1:12 PM
The Oregon Attorney General hasn't done s**t to order state agencies to provide public records. OK, except the PERS records, for the Oregonian. I think that one went to trial anyway.
Posted by uomatters | January 17, 2013 10:17 PM
" If a public body claims an exemption, it generally must show that the need for confidentiality outweighs the public interest in disclosure under the particular circumstances." From the Citizens' Guide to Public Meetings and Records
The reason WHY someone wants a particular document doesn't matter. One person's curiousity is another person's frivolous act, and the law does not describe any permitted reason for making a records request. The Attny. Gen. Webpages says that citizen and media access to meetings and documents act as a watchdog over government processes. So what if gov. types don't like to be watched? That's what they signed up for when they took the job.
Posted by Nolo | January 18, 2013 2:49 AM