Statler’s Rogue Valley Views

http://www.open-oregon.com/New_Pages
/A_Quick_Reference_Guide.shtml

A nice Open Meetings reference guide produced by Open Oregon.

One thing that has become clear to me during discussions on the Open Meetings Law is that there are two primary areas of concern. One is the “intent” of the law and the other is the “letter” of the law.

Interestingly, in the State Statute covering open meetings there is a section detailing the “intent” of the law.

http://www.open-oregon.com/
New_Pages/192-610.shtml 

192.620 Policy.

The Oregon form of government requires an informed public aware of the deliberations and decisions of governing bodies and the information upon which such decisions were made. It is the intent of ORS 192.610 to 192.690 that decisions of governing bodies be arrived at openly. <1973 C.172 S1>

This is where I’ve been quite stuck. Some folks seem to focus on letter of the law, while I’ve been focusing on the intent of the law. I’m still working on where the two come together.

The Quick Reference guide is a handy resource, and it does give some emphasis to the “intent” of the law.

I tried to set aside some council time to present the material that led me to write my article.

The council was not willing to put a specific item on the agenda where I could talk about it.

Mr. Knight implied that the city administration puts together the council’s agenda.

Click here for a shortcut to the article.

Click here for the Mail Tribune article for Friday, December 22, 2007

My accidentally published article got lots of attention. The Mail Tribune published the article, it got discussed in the Mail Tribune’s Forum pages, and I got my first Technorati Tag…my blog got blogged.

Mail Tribune article — December 14, 2006

Mail Tribune Forum topic page — watch for the second page of comments

“These blog things just go everywhere” — Ridenbaugh Press

A Council Member Canfield from Troutdale has his own blog. He read the article. He thought there was no problem with council members garnering votes behind the public eye…

“Except for quasi-judicial decisions, one on one conversations about specific agenda items prior to a public meeting are a legislative way of life. There isn’t time in a public meeting to informally discuss issues one on one with a fellow councilor. I don’t think this violates the letter or intent of open meeting laws.”

Well, we certainly have different views on the matter. As I understand the open meeting laws of Oregon not only are decisions to be made in public but also the discussion leading to those decisions. It may be okay to talk off the public record but if any of that talk led to a certain decision I think every effort should be made to have that talk revisited during a public meeting. I’m open to a real discussion on the matter, however, especially from experts in the field. Mostly I take laws at face value.

I believe there will be an article in tomorrow’s Mail Tribune (12/14/06) related to an article I posted on this blog.

To help you find it quickly, at least for the next few days or weeks, I supply you with the following link:

Medford Council and City Manager

I’ll edit this post after I have read the article. Tomorrow I might have something to say and I can post a link to the article itself, assuming it is posted online by the Mail Tribune.

The article wasn’t really meant to be a public document. It was really an experiment in blog formating. The article itself was my attempt to search for meaning in how the council discusses matters. I was primarily motivated by the City Manager taking me to task for having, perhaps, a bad memory. Turns out I didn’t have a bad memory after all.

I decided to leave matters alone after writing the post. I felt it would be better to see what the results of the upcoming election might be before pursuing the matter further. Now there will be several new council members. I still would have preferred to let the matter alone, and bring the issues up in different ways. Apparently someone has decided to bring the matter up anyway.

I welcome 100% any public discussion on the matter.

John Statler